Starting and Stopping notes

[Anonymous]

This may or may not be helpful to anyone, but feel free to add anything useful that works.

In terms of starting and stopping notes, Jazz players are masters of starting and stopping notes, they really do go over the top with starting and stopping notes. I’m not recommending anyone taking up Jazz playing, far from it. But some of their basic starting out exercises can do wonders.

One of the 1st basic jazz exercises, which forms the habit of starting and stopping a note with the tongue, involves only 4 notes, a full note(4 beats), a dotted half note(3 beats), a half note(2 beats) and a quarter note(1 beat, played two different ways). Then you need a Metronome set to a comfortable speed, the speed is not important, what is vital is starting on the beat, focusing on the beat, and stopping the note with the tip of the tongue.

The exercise falls into two parts.

part 1 – no sax needed, just a metronome switched on to 4/4 timing.
While the metronome is on, ticking away, 4 beats to the bar. Say the following words below, starting on the 1st beat, and stop the word with the tip of your tongue on the roof of the mouth.

Dah (full note) – starting on the 1st beat, keep a constant sound going, and just before the start of the next 1st beat, stop the word with your tongue. As you are saying the Dah word every 4 beats, keep counting 1 2 3 4 in your mind, in time with the metronome.

Dah (dotted half note) – starting on the 1st beat, keep a constant sound going, and just before the start of the 4th beat, stop the word with your tongue. As you are saying the Dah word for every 3 beats, keep counting 1 2 3 4 in your mind, in time with the metronome.

Dah (1/2 note) – starting on the 1st beat, keep a constant sound going, and just before the start of the 3rd beat, stop the word with your tongue, And start the Dah word on the 3rd beat and stop the Dah word with your tongue just before the next 1st beat. As you are saying the TWO Dah words every 4 beats, keep counting 1 2 3 4 in your mind, in time with the metronome.

Dah (1/4 note) – Start the Dah word on the start of every beat, and stop every Dah word with the tip of your tongue just before the start of the next beat, keep counting 1 2 3 4 in your mind, in time with the metronome. In jazz sheets, this is a 1/4 note with a “dash” sign above the note.

Dat (1/4 note) – this takes more concentration. Start the Dat word on the start of every beat, but stop the Dat word a third of the way through each beat with your tongue, so you hear the pause (musical rest) before the start of the next beat. keep counting 1 2 3 4 in your mind, in time with the metronome. In jazz sheets, this is a 1/4 note with a dot above the note. This works the tongue stopping the note.

Part 2: This involves playing mid B on the sax, and using the metronome.
Practice playing the four different Dah words and the Dat word on the sax. This time stop the mid B note with the tip of the tongue on the reed.

Those exercises above, may sound trivial, but in fact are crucial to developing good technique. There are a lot more harder basic jazz exercises which would makes tunes like the pink panther really simple to play. The only problem is most of the jazz tutor books i’ve looked at don’t cover the basics, but just provide lots of repetitive exercise, which assume you know how to play the various style of notes.

The better option would be to have a skype lesson with Johnny. That way you get to learn the stuff books forget to include or assume you have knowledge of.

[Anonymous]

Following up the enforcing the habit of “Starting & Stopping” notes with the tongue this set of basic exercises (Jazz Swing) i have found useful, which are simple to try.

It involves playing pairs of 1/8 notes in 4/4 time to a comfortable metronome speed.
Again speed is not important, it’s the starting & stopping notes with the tongue while counting 1 2 3 4 in the mind in time to the metronome is crucial.

In swing time (Jazz), a pair of 1/8 notes is normally written as a triplet in classical music. So a pair of 1/8 notes is the same time as a triplet made up of 3 notes.
The reason for the comparison to the triplet will become clearer in these exercises.

Again in a Jazz environment, you always practice saying words in time with a metronome, then when you can do that properly, then and only then, get the sax out.
It makes learning the sax playing tons faster in terms of timing

The 1st exercise.
in two parts
Part a) No Sax Used
Set the metronome to 4/4 time, then Say the two words “Dah Da” in time with each beat while counting 1 2 3 4 in your mind, hitting the “Dah” on the start of each beat.
In Terms of a triplet, the “Dah” word is the same length of time as the 1st two notes in a triplet tied together, while the “Da” is the same length of time as the length of the 3rd note in a triplet. More simply, the “Dah” takes up 2/3 of a beat, and the “Da” takes up 1/3 of the beat. Don’t forget to start and stop with the tongue, as you improve, you will be using the tongue with out thinking about it.

Part b) Get the sax out.
Repeat part a, just playing the Mid B note just as if you were playing “Dah Da” words.

The 2nd exercise.
in two parts
Part a) No Sax Used
Set the metronome to 4/4 time, then Say the two words “Dat Da” in time with each beat while counting 1 2 3 4 in your mind, hitting the “Dat” on the start of each beat.
In Terms of a triplet, the “Dat” word is the same length of time as the 1st note in a triplet, while the “Da” is the same length of time as the length of the 3rd note in a triplet. More simply, the “Dat” takes up first 1/3 of a beat, and the “Da” takes up the last 1/3 of the beat. THE MIDDLE 1/3 OF THE BEAT IS SILENT (musical rest). So you HAVE to stop the note with your tongue after saying “Dat”. In terms of a triplet, the middle note of a triplet is written as a rest.

Part b) Get the sax out.
Repeat part a, just playing the Mid B note just as if you were playing “Dat Da” words.

Again i have found these beginner, basic (jazz) exercises great for practicing timing, as you have to start and stop with the tongue.

[Anonymous]

“Dah Da” in jazz sheets is written as a pair of 1/8 notes, with a “-” sign above each note.

“Dat Da” in jazz sheets is written as a pair of 1/8 notes, with a “.” sign above the 1st note and a “-” sign above 2nd note.

[Anonymous]

Hi James

Do you think it will help by playing this song’s chorus?

🙂

Thanks for the playing tips

[Anonymous]

These basic exercises are meant to be done on there own, without any backing music, so you can focus on what you are supposed to be doing without any distractions.

But yes, when you are up to speed, then play along to some backing tracks.

The song above, you could count from 1 to 8 in a bar. The chap sings the equivalent of Dah Dah Dah to the first 3 in every 8 if you listen to it that way, then you could try honking the sax (Dah) in time with the 8 beats. You could also play “Dah Da” or “Dat Da” on every beat.

If you do that, then you are replacing the metronome with the drummer, and keeping in time with him, like the singer is doing.

cool

[jak Swift]

Good stuff sxpoet….nice one !!

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