There’s no good improviser in any style of music who hasn’t spent time mastering their pentatonic scales. The question, as always, is how do we master them and make them work for our own playing? The Pentatonic Pitfall Many beginning improvisers immediately start working with basic patterns and simply aim to rip through them as [read more…]
Playing the saxophone requires a lot of practice and repetition if you want to be the best. Warmups are a big part of keeping your muscle memory sharp and increasing your lung capacity so that you can play better, for longer. Doing saxophone warmups and practice exercises before performing also help to focus your mind [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.
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🎷 Sax Fundamentals Faster
This article is a lesson that comes to us courtesy of world-renown saxophonist, Jon Gordon, and also appears in his book, Foundations for Improvisors. For nearly all jazz improvisors, the chord progression that is most familiar is the two-five-one (ii-7, V7, I), which is the basis of be-bop harmony. However, as we learn to expand [read more…]
This article is in response to an article by renowned NYC jazz saxophonist, Mike Lee titled, “How Did ‘Licks’ Become a Four Letter Word?”. Click here to read it if you haven’t done so already. Mike and I agree on one thing. There is no faster way to go from a clueless beginner to [read more…]
The advent of social media has allowed me to witness the re-emergence of the phenomena of “lick” haters. The complaint against licks, I think, boils down to musicians sounding uninspired and clinical because their improvisations sound like exercises and don’t illicit a sense of freedom and spontaneity that true art requires. The conventional wisdom is [read more…]
For those 10 or so of you who follow the Best. Saxophone. Website. Ever. on social media or are subscribed to the sax tips newsletter, by now you have probably heard me blather on about saxophone recording artist and master class clinician, Adam Larson’s new video course, Lightning-Fast and Crystal-Clean, which I am publishing through [read more…]
In my book Easy Easy Bebop, I refer to the lesson below as “the magic of the neck strap”. The short tip from the book has helped so many players that I decided to give further information on finding the “sweet spot” in the adjustment of one’s saxophone neck strap. As you know neck straps are [read more…]
Official Bio Hailing from the remote location of Perth, West Australia, saxophonist Troy Roberts has received numerous accolades including 3 DownBeat Jazz Soloist Awards, 2 Grammy Nominations, and was the only Australian semi-finalist in the 2008 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. Since attending The West Australian Academy Of Performing Arts (WAAPA) and graduating with [read more…]
This article is a lesson that comes to us courtesy of world-renown saxophonist, Jon Gordon, and also appears in his book, Foundations for Improvisors. For this lesson it’s essential that you have or can get access to a keyboard to play through and hear this material. One concept I find very helpful to musicians is the [read more…]
Are you unbelievably consistent? Once you’ve learnt something, do you deliver it perfectly every time? Or are you like most of us? Sometimes it’s there – and sometimes there’s something lacking. Your ability to focus is one of the keys to that holy grail of consistency, and it brings benefits in many other areas too. [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!
