Leo Salu

Hello SP, i see you have found Jamie (a fellow GB/UK guy) like Johnny he has a great deal of good advice to follow. Back in the fifties and sixties when i was starting to play we did not have any of this kind of help, but today you can learn just about everything from the internet all good stuff. Our guy Johnny still offers the most…[Read more]

Hello SP great article hopefully it is true, at my age i need all the help i can get, BTW i am working on a new song “smooth operator” and the first bar of the solo is extremely fast too fast for me to read and play, so i believe it was you who said some passages need to be memorized rather than read as you play boy that really is true on…[Read more]

Howdy Mark, great choice for a song, we were hovering around 8 degrees with a wind chill factor to about 5 with snow. Love it.. wife hibernating!

SP I have that track and sheet music, i modified it a bit since i had trouble with the solo section never thought of it as a timing exercise will take a look at with that in mind.

SP that’s why i like Johnny’s music so much, he does an amazing job transcribing and re-composing all of these pop songs mostly from the sixties which i am very familiar with. I usually just prior to playing the song take the sheet and follow along on it with him playing i make notes all over the sheet on how he plays it especially where the…[Read more]

Hey SP, i actually benefited from your timing videos tonight, was playing a song cold with out any sax player to follow and the practice with timing the notes 1/8 1/16 etc helped me time the song correctly so thanks for them. LS

PS good luck with your clarinet, tried playing one back in the late fifties and all i can remember getting was…[Read more]

Hello Mark sorry to hear you caught covid again, hopefully you will have a full recovery soon. That temp you are having is something else, we on the other hand in the NE USA have the other extreme, it just went below 15 tonight with light snow not sure which i prefer freezing to death or dying of the heat. I think i will go with the cold, my…[Read more]

I have the same trouble if i don’t have a track with a sax player, a lot of the older Johnny songs come down with out his full track, that’s when the fun begins trying to accurately play the song in time with out a guide, then i actually have to start paying attention to the notes and time not always fun.

Howdy sxpoet those were pretty good, felt like i was sending morse code, have to admit the way i get to read the sheet accurately is to listen to the full track (by Johnny) and play along with him to i can play it in time, also it is a lot easier if i am familiar with the song to get the beat of it. Most of his songs are in 4/4 time which is…[Read more]

Hey Wayne thank you for your kind words those high notes are a challenge so easy to make a squeak but i try to practice hitting them on a daily basis and that helps a lot the tricky part is that the embrosure changes so much from the middle group to the high group and if the song has a quick beat it is sometimes hard to remember to change…[Read more]

Back in 2018 i bought a alto sax made by etude (off amazon $250) played it for about a year then bought a selmer AS200 alto that is a pretty good sax still use that now, then decided i just had to get a tenor back to etude ($550) ok but that’s the clunky one, tired of that quickly so got a Selmer Bundy 2 nice student model sax played that for a…[Read more]

Howdy, i would think everyone that is on the forum has to love the beast, that was a pretty good explanation about a lot of different things, i was surprised about the student sax being easier to get a note versus the pro model, i think i mentioned that i found my YTS62 easier to get a note to play (less air) than the YTS23 in fact everything…[Read more]

SXPOET I recently got a YTS62, and I love it. Funny what was a little tricky getting used to was how easy it was to get a note (lower or higher) than my YTS23 I found I was blowing a lot harder than needed and the keys were so much quicker, but after a few hours playing it just got easier and easier. Highly recommend the 62. BTW I use a…[Read more]

Hello sxpoet, I actually find it harder to record a song than play in front of an audience, mainly because if you make a mistake playing live you just keep going and most likely no one will notice, when you are recording the same song it is in your mind that an error will be recorded and last forever. This usually always leads to a error by…[Read more]

I posted the video because it seemed helpful for all not just piano players, i play with a lead guitar player who is pretty good but does get nervous with a audience and speeds up, and like the video mentioned you have to speed up also, trying to stay calm is always a trick especially if you are having one of those off days and the music is just…[Read more]