Unhappy – now more determined!

[Dazza]

I sold my student sax 4 weeks ago and bought on ebay a near new Yamaha 62 for a nice price rather than the new Jupiter proposed by my teacher. Beautiful sax the 62 and wow! the extra weight and tone difference is amazing. Because of this I missed three weekly lessons and advised my teacher this week that I am now “horned” up and see him next week. Today I get an email – sorry he can no longer teach me and need to find another teacher! So a nice reward for following my dream of a quality horn over the only brand available on the shop floor. So after being p*&%$ed off for a few hours I am now super determined to progress without his help and short-sightedness over losing a sale. Funny though, the $30 a week for lessons quickly surpasses the few hundred profit on a $2000 sale. So it got me thinking, how many others are on their sax journey WITHOUT weekly lessons with a teacher. Do you actually progess enough in a week to even need that frequesnt a lesson. I have adopted Johnnys daily routine and measuring my own progress diligently with written summaries and recordings. I am thinking a monthly skype lesson for an hour to “check in” would be a good idea to track progress over a slighlty longer period, talk about difficulties, correct some things and go again. Finding teachers locally with the same approach, experience and PASSION that you find in Johnny’s site is a pipe dream. Can you become proficient in this wonderful instrument with your own drive and passion to seek information and practice to succeed without one-on-one weekly guidance? Johnny, did you attend lessons religously when starting out. Welcome comments.

[john]

weekly lessons are good for students who are diligently practising the right things and putting in enough time to make sufficient progress. if you’re doing that then a week is just the right amount of time. if not then it’s a waste of time for both student and teacher because there is nothing to build on.
So, the “weekly” lessons are not so important in that sense, but lessons are very important because on your own you may do things wrong, and if you keep doing bad habits which can take a while to fix if you are going to improve and move forward. This happened to me…learning on my own, improper embouchure and breathing so a good teacher finally got me straightened out. That was in the 1970’s. today videos and DVD’s can obviously help but I wouldn’t say because of this you shouldn’t have a teacher. Everyone has different goals so I don’t preach about this. I have some students that will do a skype session every once in a while, some of these also have a local teacher as well because just like all students are different, all teachers are different and will look at things from a different angle etc.
So if you’re lucky enough to live close to a “good” teacher do take some lessons wether they are once a week or once a month, this will make sure you’re on the right track. The things I cover with students are the things I make available online. If you’re a good self-starter and follow a course or book then you won’t need a one-on-one lesson every week, but some people feel more comfortable doing it that way and either way is good as long as you’re improving.
do what others have done, record yourself today and in 3 months record yourself playing the same thing. did you improve?

[jake]

I often wondered the same thing. When I 1st started on the sax I took lessons for about 8 months. In my opinion, lessons are more important in the beginning. This is when we are learning the basics of the sax. I feel the one on one instruction may point out simple things such as positioning, posture, and maybe some subtle things to make playing better. As we learn these basics and start advancing our playing, the progress slows down and that’s when we start honing in on our tone, our own voice, and style.
This is where johnny’s daily routine and different courses come in greatly. Yea, I think you could learn right here without a teacher and become proficient but for me lessons were good in the beginning. After a few months of lessons I found they had become very routine. I was never given a lesson plan like Johnny offered to help me with my tone! I would play along with the standard of excellence book every week and maybe work on a song. That was beneficial for learning to read music and really focus on playing as music is written. I was offered a chance to play in the local community band but that is not the music I am into. I wanna rock like Johnny demonstrates in his videos.
Now I am coming up upon the 2 year mark and have been without lessons since the beginning so I would say YES, you can progress without the lessons. Use tools such as this forum to ask questions and using Johnny to Skye is a valuable asset as well. I have done that and its well worth it!! Good luck on your journey of learning the sax!!

[Michael]

Hi Dazza–I’m so sorry to hear about that Sax teacher doing that to you 🙁 Sadly, as much fun as learning about music is (not just the Saxophone) there are a few “rotten apples” in every bunch so don’t let this discourage you. It’s just like the guys at a local music academy who I shared my video with on “The Watermelon Man” and said that my playing was fake LOL (I always share new videos with friends/family on my contact list because they’re always asking me about it and it’s a fun way to stay in contact with them as they’re located in various parts of the US. So I stopped by their academy and played it right in front of them 🙂 I kind of felt the “air leave the room” LOL but the nerve of some people. I don’t know how anyone could look at it and say it was fake, and the funny thing is that, even now a month later, I look at it and I see improvements that I’ve made since then and I can play it better now than I did even a month ago). So just shake it off and keep having fun on your Sax–sounds like you got a great deal; very happy for you. From reading your post, it sound like you’re not getting discouraged and that’s terrific because playing the Sax is just way to much fun to let whatever negative things come up to get you down. Remember that if you feel the need for a local Sax instructor and can’t find one, you can have private lessons with Johnny over Skype; they’re only $25 and well, well worth it! That’s even less than you we’re paying locally.
One thing I do appreciate was the open honesty that a local Saxophone instructor gave me, as I too had looked into weekly lessons for the same reasons that Johnny explains. We got together and he assessed me as a Saxophone student. Rather than worrying about making more $, he told me openly that he didn’t think there was too much he could do for me and encouraged me to “keep doing what you’re doing, you’re on the right track.” How many Music teachers, in general, will be that honest with you?!? He’s a great guy and loves the Soprano and is very, VERY good at it (I’ve thought about playing with a Soprano in time to come). He tells me that the Soprano is one of the easiest Saxophones to play and refers to the Tenor as a “beast” of a Saxophone LOL. I refer people to Johnny’s site all the time, but there are locals whom I have referred to this instructor too because, with them being a total 100% beginner, they needed those weekly lessons like Johnny talks about and the local instructor knows what he’s talking about—-he’s 100% honest with you. He’s the one that got me hooked up to play at the 2015 Arkansas River Fest coming next Memorial day weekend…….and I will most definately film it to put here on the blog. I will be playing at a larger event this November too that we’ll film/post here for players of all levels.
Keep up the great attitude Dazza….I want to see you upload something to the blog with that Sax!

[Dazza]

Cheers fellas….all good advice. I think it is about finding a better local “mentor” than a university student parading as a teacher who cant offer more than just playing from an exercise book like Jake mentioned. My teacher rarely spent much time focussing on technique anyway but just assured me I had a good tone and that was pretty much it! So he has probably done e favour by sacking me. I am committed doing at least an hour plus per day and following Johnny’s program so I feel and hear myself constantly improving and doing things I could only have dreamed of 6 months ago and that’s cool and lots of fun. I will get my new recording computer up this week and do that blog I have promised for a while Babs and look to a Skype lesson soon with Johnny. Still waiting to hear that new sexy MBII Mr Baboon!

[Anonymous]

good for you Dazza!
looking forward to your upload!

[Michael]

Cool Dazza–what Johnny has to teach works….plain and simple, as many of us can testify to that. His skype lessons cost less than you we’re paying each week and you’ll find him to be just a great guy too. I have some songs of Johnny’s coming up on the blog very, very soon for both Alto and Tenor; but first Jake and I are getting ready to do the duet with Johnny’s song; we’ve been working on it for a couple of months. To pull off a duet with 2 guys living in different parts of the US, it takes a lot of collaboration/work but it’s well worth it–and added plus is that you make great friends here on the site. If would encourage anyone to get with some members and do it too…..Jake and I are already “booked” with 2 other members to do duets with after we have done ours LOL. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate at all–it can be done with the most simplest of songs and, in many cases, the simpler then the better!

[Kevin]

Dazza, just another experience to share- I’m 57 and wanted to learn the sax, so bought me an YAS-52 Alto on Ebay about 2-1/2 years back and began my journey. About 2 weeks into it I almost decided the sax wasn’t for me, I could barely get thru a scale before I was winded and weak lipped. I then found a local music academy that had a college student (that played clarinet) that was willing to give me lessons. So I did that for about 4-5 lessons, but got discouraged because the gal would cancel due to whatever, and I missed some appointments due to my own busyness. So didn’t feel like that was taking me anywhere so I pursued the “on-line” resources. Between my own diligence to practice 4-5 times/week, You-Tube and finally finding Johnny’s site I progressed to my current playing level. I’ve yet to take a private lesson with Johnny, though I regret not having done so. I practice in my pole barn which is about 150ft from the house, and my wi-fi doesn’t reach there. Following Johnnies videos for the basics, recording myself to listen and find the things to improve, trying the different mouthpiece/reed combo’s, and uploading to the blog for some “critique” will get you a pretty good start…

[Author]

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