For those of you who haven’t listened to the site’s complete library of podcasts (shame on you!), there is one tip from the Jon Irabagon podcast that really stood out to me. For those of you unfamiliar with Jon’s playing (again, shame on you!), I’ll assure you it’s obvious that the man can play in [read more…]
It’s really quite simple. In the words of legendary saxophone teacher Joe Allard: “To blow is to breathe, there is no difference.” How often we overcomplicate things. We should never twist, contort, and strain ourselves while playing. We (hopefully) don’t struggle and strain when we speak, so why all the painful effort while playing our [read more…]
Here's a new alternative to the uninspiring tunes often found in the average beginning sax book. This collection of 25 tunes, each with backing and demonstration tracks plus a video tutorial, is the product one of my most significant discoveries in over two decades of working with beginning saxophonists. That is, beginners learn fundamentals much faster by playing the kind of music that attracted them to the horn in the first place.
INFINITEMUSICAN.COM
🎷 Sax Fundamentals Faster
Today’s post comes in response to a question by reader Chad Lamkin. Chad asks: I play Alto and I really just want to improve and just learn it all at the moment. Â I’m trying to get these altissimo notes down but the highest I can get F# and I can’t get it any higher…Would you [read more…]
The baritone sax doesn’t get as much love as it should, and that just plain ain’t right. There are a lot of reasons for this, but it’s always great to come across bari players who make the instrument burn and sing just as much as some of their most skilled counterparts on the smaller members [read more…]
For all of my years playing the sax, there are certain things that I’ve done just out of force of habit without really knowing exactly where that habit came from, or whether or not it was a good habit to begin with. The amount of mouthpiece I was taking in has been one of those autopilot aspects of [read more…]
New York City’s Mark Small is a badman on the tenor. Although he’s done much more, Mark’s main claim to fame is as the tenor guy in massively popular modern-day crooning sensation Michael Buble’s touring and recording ensemble. Tours with Buble have taken Mark to each and every corner of the planet as well as [read more…]
For Steve Cole, becoming one of the biggest players in contemporary jazz was no coincidence, as this guy’s certainly paid some dues. Any artist who manges to sell hundreds of thousands of albums and score four #1 R&R Smooth Jazz hits is likely to be a force to be reckoned with. Steve is no exception. [read more…]
For those of you who’ve been keeping up with the blog (and shame on you if you’re not one of those people), I’ve recently been putting out articles that have to do with the art of saxophone tone creation, including articles on overtones, practicing on the mouthpiece, and proper positioning of the lower lip. Since [read more…]
A few weeks ago I saw a brief instructional video by monster sax player and educator, George Garzone. In the video, he takes on a plethora of topics, but one thing he said really stood out to me. George says that the first thing he does when a new student comes to him is have [read more…]
Now repeat the title of this article 27 times in a row at 300 bpm. But seriously ladies and gents, with this article I’d like to stress the importance of practicing your instruments at all different levels of volume, from pianissimo all the way up to fortissimo. From the Back to the Middle and Around Again [read more…]
Tips and Techniques from the pros PLUS free access to the Sax Lessons with the Stars archive - 10 years worth of interviews and exercises featuring the likes of David Liebman, Bob Mintzer, Ben Wendel, Bob Reynolds, and many more!
