Posts Tagged ‘saxophone’

Do you have a number of mouthpieces you’d like to display? While I pretty much stick to one mouthpiece, I periodically like to go back and try other mouthpieces that I’ve collected over the years. Here’s a cool looking display you make relatively quickly. I’ll step you through the steps.

The Mouthpiece Display Stand

I started with a nice piece of solid maple, about 12 by 18 by 1 inches, leftover from a shelving project. I had in mind what I roughly wanted, so I also picked up a 3 foot long piece of 1/2 inch dowel. My friend Lon has a wonderful woodcutting studio, so I started by cutting the maple down to roughly 8 by 18.

We then routed the four sides of the maple, giving it a nice professional look.

Next I used the drill press and cut 1/2 inch holes, about 1/2 an inch deep. I picked a spacing of 2 inches (front to rear), and 3 inches (side to side). This would allow me to mount three rows of six dowels, or 18 total.

Next I cut the dowels. I cut six for the back row (sized for tenor mouthpieces), six slightly shorter (for alto), and six even shorter (for soprano).

The next step is to use a grinder to nicely finish the ends of the dowels, taking off the sharp edge.

Now it’s time to oil the maple for a nice finished look. I decided not to oil the dowels, since my mouthpieces were going to be on them. I used Teak Oil for the maple base, and it came out very nice.

Once the maple base was oiled, I mounted the dowels, long ones in the back and short ones in the front. I used just a touch of wood glue to make sure they wouldn’t wobble or come out.

All in all, a very easy project, and I know I’ll get a lot of use out of the stand!

See the photos below for more details of each step.

I’m frequently asked what someone should do if they want to get back into music as an adult. Perhaps you played through college, but now have put the saxophone (or whatever instrument!) down for ten years or more, and you want to start playing again.

If you’ve read my other posts, you’ve seen that I believe there are four areas to practice on the saxophone (or any woodwind instrument): sound, technique, tunes, and ear. So if you’re just starting back, what should you do?

Well, here are a few things, in each of those four areas, that you might work on. Within each area, I have listed these things in roughly what I think is their priority of importance. So here we go…

Sound Production

• Longtones (without vibrato)
• Recording yourself and listening to the quality of the sound
• Practicing a nice vibrato on half and whole tones with a metronome

Technique

• Scales
• Pentatonics
• Major, Minor, Aug Triads
• Triad Pairs
• Learning a few keyboard basics

Learning Tunes

• Memorizing tune melodies and chord progressions
• Playing through tunes, in rhythm, with no backing track
• Playing triads or other patterns through tunes

Ear Training

• Playing along with the radio
• Transcribing
• Matching tones with a keyboard

I have covered some of the items listed above in other lessons. But if you have questions, a good instructor could help save you some time.

Practice hard, you’ll see the results!

No matter what genre you play in, it is important to learn (memorize) tunes. As a jazz or R&B musician, for example, it’s hard for you or the audience to really get into your playing if your nose is glued to the stand reading music. Sometimes it’s necessary to read music, but it’s far better and is more professional to memorize the tunes. You’d also be surprised that after you’ve got a few under your belt, others come much easier.

It is far better to learn tunes by listening to a good recording, and learning the melody via ear rather than reading it from a real book. And it makes sense; music is an aural activity so it seems logical that learning aurally would be better than learning from reading a chart. Real books and charts are a great reference for gigs, and for understanding the chord changes, but are not the best way to learn the melodies.

What to Practice

You should start by picking some tunes you want to learn. Then, similar to the method I described for transcribing (listen, sing, play, write), you should learn the melodies. Try to precisely match the rhythm, intonation, and sound on the original recording. Also listen closely for any embellishments used, and try to match those. This can take quite a while, but will pay huge dividends if you put in the effort. You can’t get this quality of learning from just trying to learn tunes from reading charts in the Real Books.

Once you’ve learned the melody of a tune, you can start to improvise around the “changes” (chord sequence). For beginning improvisers, use the melody line as a starting point. Next, learn the changes (a chart will be necessary now) to the tune. Then practice playing chord tones (3rds and 7ths work well as “guide” tones) over the changes, perhaps mixed with snippets of the melody. Next, you might try adding in some of the patterns you are learning in your Technique practice sessions. Finally, see where some of the phrases or licks from your transcribing will fit in. Using all these techniques, you should have some great ideas for how to improvise now!

An important thing to do is to hum the tune in your head while your improvising. Humming the tune while you (or others) are improvising is the easiest way to keep from getting lost in the tune. Humming in your head can be difficult to do at first, but once you practice it, it will start to become second nature.

Another neat thing to do once you’ve learned a tune, is to get or build a backing track for that tune. The Jamey Aebersold or Hal Leonard CDs are great sources for quality backing tracks. Then you can use these backing tracks to simulate a live rhythm section, and you can work on both playing the melody and improvising over the changes. I like to group eight to ten or more of these backing tracks and then play through them sequentially as if it were a full set at a live gig. It’s a great workout, and fun too.

Another thing you can do is to go to a jam session, if you can find one (they’re harder and harder to find). You might even start your own. I’m a firm believer that you progress at least ten times faster (per hour spent) when you play at gigs or jam sessions verses practicing alone at home. It’s something about playing out in a group that really ingrains the tunes in your subconscious.

A final suggestion, which I also mentioned above under some of the other core components, is the importance of recording. After you’ve learned a tune, record yourself. Listen to see if your rhythm, sound, and intonation

References

• See Jamey Aebersold’s free jazz pamphlet for a listing of jazz standards to learn.

Background

An important part of saxophone playing is being able to play in tune. The saxophone is undoubtedly a very difficult instrument to play in tune. But instead of using a tuner, like we did in the Sound Production exercises, we’re going to rely on using our ear more in these exercises. But, if you’re having difficulty with intonation, feel free to pull out the tuner and check tuning.

We’re going to cover exercises that help you learn intervals and match pitches. How often have you heard guitar or horn players trading licks, sometimes matching the lick that the other improviser just did? This skill requires ear training.

Another topic we’ll cover in ear training is transcribing. Transcribing is absolutely critical for learning everything from sound, technique, embellishments, phrasing, and rhythm. New York saxophonist Tim Armacast explained to me that his approach to transcribing is four distinct steps: Listen, Sing, Learn, Write.

What do these four steps mean? Let’s say you want to learn Paul Desmond’s famous alto solo in Take Five. This is a great solo to learn, because it’s relatively easy, technically, but the rhythm is challenging until you get the feel of 5/4 time. Before you start, set your horn down in its stand. The first step is then to Listen. You want to use a software or hardware looping device and start looping a small piece of the solo. Let’s select just the first two bars of the solo to loop. Listen to these two bars intently until you can do the next step, Sing it. Once you’ve gotten to the point where you’ve listened to it, and can sing (or whistle) it perfectly to include embellishments, then and only then do you pick up your horn. Now turn off the music, and play the first two bars by ear. When you think you’ve got it down, turn the looper back on and play with the recording. See if you’ve matched the pitches, match your intonation to Desmond’s, and see if you can copy his phrasing, tonguing, volume levels, and embellishments. The whole package.

What to Practice

Exercise 1. Matching Pitches. One of the best exercises is to practice matching pitches. One method is to have a friend play a pitch and then try to match it. Another is to use one of the many software tools that are available.

Exercise 2. Intervals and Phrases. This exercise involves having someone (or a software tool) provide two different pitches in succession, and then you try to match those on your instrument. Start with just two pitches, but then later you might go to several pitches or licks. This lick matching is often done in real gigs, so this is great practice. Another way to do this is to whistle or sing a couple of notes or a lick, then try to play it on your horn.

Exercise 3. Play Along With The Radio. Playing along with a tune on the radio is a great way to learn to quickly figure out the key of a tune, and to provide an opportunity to discover a neat lick or two. I like to first listen to a tune, see how quickly I can pick out the root and determine if it’s major or minor. Usually I will hum the root in my head, and then pick up my horn and see if I can jump right in to that key. Ballads are great for this. Once you figure out the root and whether it’s major or minor, use the pentatonic scale or blues scale to improvise along with the melody or changes. If it’s a vocal tune, see if you can compliment the vocalist by playing when he or she is not singing.

Exercise 4. All Twelve Keys. This exercise involves taking a short lick or simple tune (like a nursery rhyme) and see if you can play it by ear in all twelve keys.

Exercise 5. Harmony (Advanced Exercise). Learn what modes are for major and minor keys. Once you understand chords and modes, try breaking down a tune by its modes. Then try playing guide tones (smooth lines of chord tones, mostly 3rds and 7ths where possible) over a tune. Bert Ligon’s series of books are a great reference here.

Exercise 6. Keyboard Basics (Advanced Exercise). Try learning a couple of simple things on a keyboard. Start with learning major and minor triads. Then perhaps see if you can do some simple comping for and easy tune, perhaps starting with a blues tune.

Transcribing. Transcribing is a fantastic way to improve your ears and to improve your technique. Tim Armacost, and excellent saxophonist from New York City, gave me a great phrase for the proper way to transcribe. Listen – Sing – Play – Write. What he explained was that you should first listen intently to a phrase that you want to transcribe, with your sax still in its stand. Next you sing or hum the phrase until you know it cold; still with your horn put up. Once you can sing it perfectly, only then do you pick up your horn and try to play it. Once you can play the phrase, write it down if you want. When you first start out, you should only take a few notes at a time. After you’ve done this method for awhile, you’ll find that you can do more and more at a time.

Select some of your favorite artists and transcribe some of their tunes or solos. Some of mine include Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Richard Elliott, John Klemmer, Don Braden, Joshua Redmon, and Paul Desmond. Write down some of your favorite artists here.

1. ________________________
2. ________________________
3. ________________________
4. ________________________
5. ________________________
6. ________________________
7. ________________________
8. ________________________
9. ________________________
10. ________________________

Another thing to look at when you transcribe is all the embellishments that the artist uses. What tonguing and articulation is used? What embellishment techniques were used, such as grace notes, vibrato, slurs, growls? Can you copy the sound and embellishments exactly? Record yourself and see!

OK, now we’ve covered how to practice (see my earlier post on practicing), how to take care of the horn, and how to setup the horn. Now let’s cover what to practice. As I mentioned above, I think a great way to divide up your practices is to use four core components. These are Sound Production, Technique, Ear Training, and Tunes.

Of these four components, sound production is of utmost importance. If you don’t sound good, no one will want to listen to you. Listen to the great tone, intonation, and sounds of the masters: Stan Getz, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Coleman Hawkins, Hank Mobley, Paul Desmond, and on and on. It is just so crucial.

Next is technique. The saxophone is a mechanical device, and playing notes needs to come effortlessly. Thus, mastering your scales, arpeggios, and intervals are a must. We’ll look at some great ways to do this.

Third is ear training. Eventually you will want to get where you can hear the key of the tune, and be able to jump right in and improvise. So you need to train your ear and mind to be able to do this.

Finally, there are tunes. The great masters literally have thousands of tunes memorized. So you’ll want a process for learning, memorizing, and improvising over tunes. This will greatly help you at gigs and jam sessions. And you’ll find it will even help you when your playing from charts.

Each of the sections that follow cover a specific core practice component. The sections begin with a discussion of the component, followed by discussion of exactly what to practice, and end with sample exercises. There’s lots of material in each section, pick only a couple of things in a single component to focus on during a twenty minute practice session. It’s always better to dig in really deep in fewer areas than to cover a lot of areas with a very broad brush. By digging in really deep in a few areas, you’ll find that somehow you improve faster in other areas as well. On the other hand, if you spread yourself out too thin in many areas, you’ll just never seem to make much progress.

What is the Mini-Sessions Technique?

In a nutshell, the Mini-Sessions (MS) technique is an innovative practice technique where the student practices a single core concept over a relatively short period, but at a very focused concentration level. I believe the ideal practice length for each session is about 20-30 minutes, but one of the advantages of MS is that the student can vary this time to his or her needs or daily schedule. Many of us are part-time musicians working one or more other jobs, so it can be very tough to decide what to practice in the limited amount of time available. Yet we all want to get better as fast as we can, but still have fun. That’s the purpose of this method!

There are so many options when considering what to practice. It’s hard to decide where to start. What should I practice to get better as quickly as possible, in the limited time we all have? I like to divide the “what we practice” into four bins: sound production, technique, ear training, and tunes. The concept of MS, then, is to focus each 20-30 minute session on only one of these four core concepts. The idea, then, is to do our practicing throughout the week in such a way that I repeatedly cover these four core concepts.

So how would MS work over a typical week? Let’s assume I have somewhere between 30 minutes and two hours per day that I want to spend on improving as a musician. If I decide I like 30 minute mini-sessions, then I just divide up my available time into 30 minute blocks. I can even do then at different times in the day, which actually is often a reasonable approach.

Let’s look at an example. Perhaps we allocated 60 minutes to practice on Monday, or two 30 minute sessions. I would probably choose to do a 30 minute session when I get up, before I go off to work, and then my second 30-minute that evening. But of course you could do two back-to-back 30 minute sessions in the evening instead. One thing to keep in mind is that, at least for saxophone players, there is a little bit of overhead time (horn and reed setup) associated with each session, so you might decide that doing two back-to-back sessions is more effective for you. Another important thing to do is to keep your practice area neat and organized, as you will find this helps reduce this overhead time. Also, turn off your phone, and any other distractions, so that you can totally focus during your practice.

It’s a good idea to keep a workbook for logging your practice sessions. Use blank music manuscript (staff paper) to write down transcriptions, patterns, licks, or other ideas. You might also want to keep a daily log of what you practiced, for how long, and how you felt things went that day.

Remember that the reason we are doing music at all is that we enjoy music and it’s fun. So for myself, if I’m especially tired or just not particularly motivated for some reason, I’ll back off of what I do that day and not push myself too hard. I’m confident that if you follow the Mini-Sessions practice technique, you’ll soon notice significant improvements in your abilities as a musician!

Before I tell you how I clean my pads, let me give you my disclaimer. Pads are fairly delicate, so you may want to ask your repair specialist how he or she would like you to keep them clean. The method I describe below is similar to methods found in a number of sources, the most recent being an article I saw in the Saxophone Journal some time ago. Anyway, here goes…

Cleaning the leather pads must also be done very carefully, in order not to damage the pads or to mess up the key adjustments. Place a small amount of WD-40 on a Q-tip, and gently wipe the pad and the rim of the tone hole under the pad. Do this for all the pads. Wipe off any excess WD-40.

If you’re in a humid climate and have issues with pads sticking, you can also then use another Q-tip to wipe a small amount of Old English lemon oil (it must be this type!) on the pad after it is clean. Again, be sure to wipe off any excess.

Handling the Saxophone

The saxophone is an intricate instrument that needs to be handled carefully and maintained regularly. The best way to pick up a saxophone is by the bell, or with at least one hand holding the bell. You should never pick up the saxophone by grabbing an area with keys. The weight of the saxophone in your hand can easily bend or warp the keys, knocking it out of adjustment.

Saxophone Maintenance

A trained instrument-repair person should regularly check the horn for leaks around the pads, check corks, check springs, check key heights, and perform other minor adjustments. If you have a professional quality horn, adjustments should be made by a repairman who regularly adjusts professional (not just student) quality horns. Ask other top musicians who they use. I like to have my horns adjusted every six months, at least  for horns I play often. In addition, the pads will eventually develop tears or wear out. When this occurs, an entire pad job is needed, which usually runs anywhere between $300 and $700 depending upon the pads used and what other work might be required.

A saxophone should regularly wipe off and clean the saxophone. On a daily basis after practicing, the student should run a wipe (see photo) through the horn to remove any saliva from the main part of the horn.

In addition, the neck should be swapped with either a wipe or a soft rag with a cord. I prefer to remove the mouthpiece after each practice (to keep the cork fresh), but some saxophone players leave the mouthpiece on the neck for extended periods.

The outside lacquer of the horn should be carefully wiped with a little dab of rubbing alcohol on a soft cotton rag. If desired, a little dab of Old English can be used after the alcohol wipe to give the lacquer a little glean. For newer horns, check with your manufacturer to find out what they recommend.

About every few months, the keys should be oiled and the pads gently cleaned. To oil the keys, drop a miniscule drop of key oil into every place where there are moving parts. Keep this oil off of the pads, cork, felt, and lacquer.

Should You Consider An Aftermarket Saxophone Neck?

Play Testing a Peter Ponzol Tenor Neck

By Don Kelly, Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved

Have you ever wondered if replacement necks really make a difference on your sax? There are a number of really reputable individuals (Ponzol Oleg, Goodson, and others) that make high quality necks, and I’ve always wanted to know if these really make a noticeable improvement. They all claim that using their necks will provide significant improvements in sound and intonation, as compared to using your stock neck. I have to say that I was skeptical that they would make a difference, but most offer money-back guarantees, so I decided to give it a try. Plus they’re pricey at roughly $300 to $500 U.S.

After researching the various models, I decide to try one of Peter Ponzol’s tenor necks for my early 60s Selmer Mark VI. Why try an aftermarket neck? I was motivated for a couple of reasons. First, I bought my horn from a very respectable professional sax player and private dealer from the Northeast. He play-tested it prior to sending it to me, and mentioned that he gave me a different neck because the original just didn’t sound that great. So over the years, I’ve played around with the two necks on my two Mark VIs, and always felt there was a little bit of a “stuffy” sound, or maybe a slight resistance. But overall, I have always loved the way my Mark VIs sound, feel, and play.

Initial Impressions

I contacted Peter Ponzol via his website, www.peterponzol.com, and ordered one of his necks. The first thing Peter does is to have you mail him your current neck so he can approximately match the size. The Ponzol neck arrived on-time and was very carefully packed. Cosmetically, the neck is beautiful. Peter says it’s gold-plated, but it almost has a hint of copper to it. Really looks very well made. When I look at the necks side-by-side, the angle of the Ponzol neck is slightly larger than the stock neck. So while playing, this means that the mouthpiece will be about ¼ inch or so higher (further from the keys) with the Ponzol neck than on the stock neck. It’s so slight that I didn’t notice it while playing; only after I looked at the necks up close. It also seems to me, although I’d need to measure it with a micrometer, that inner diameter of the neck on the mouthpiece side may be slightly larger.

Well, next it was time to try it out. First of all, it fits great on my early 60’s model Selmer Mark VI. Now to see how it sounds. I have two Dave Gaurdala King mouthpieces, and as best I can tell, they are nearly identical. So I put one on my old neck, and one on my new neck, thus allowing me to quickly change necks by just switching over the reed and ligature.

I first notice that the Ponzol neck seems a little less stuffy, and significantly freer-blowing. Being skeptical still, I go back and forth several times, and sure enough, this is the case. I like my setup to be really free-blowing (i.e., small amount of blowing or air pressure to create a sound). I also noticed that the sound seems to be a little more complex, possibly darker.

Finally I notice that the dynamic range and expressiveness of the Ponzol neck seems to be slightly better. By this I mean that I can get a nice ppp sound to a fff sound, and get these extremes with a little less effort. Because of this, I seem to notice that I can do embellishments (expressiveness like growls or subtle sound changes) a little easier or at least more noticeably. Some of these differences may be related to the freer-blowing nature of the Ponzol neck, so I will just need to see if my initial impressions last.

A Couple of Days Later

The saxophone can be a particularly challenging instrument to play in tune. It requires continual use of your ears and constant adjustment depending upon a number of factors, such as volume. So it is fairly tough to come up with a realistic “static” test to check intonation. One of the best ways would be to play random notes on a piano, and seeing how well the saxophone notes match. But this doesn’t provide a way to really measure and record the accuracy of the intonation. So I like to tune the horn, and then compare randomly played notes to a tuner and see how far off I am.

Using this method, I did an intonation check over the full range (every half step) of the instrument today. I started with the Ponzol neck, and then tuned the horn. I then randomly played each note, at a medium volume, and wrote down how far off the intonation was for that note. Using the same reed, mouthpiece, and ligature, I did the same exact thing for the stock neck. What I saw was interesting. The variability (measured as standard deviation) was noticeably better on the Ponzol neck versus the stock neck. This means that over the full range of the instrument, the Ponzol neck was a lot tighter, or closer, to being in tune, as compared to my stock neck. Even though I checked a lot of notes over the full range of the horn using both necks, for this to really be statistically significant, the whole test would need to be repeated a number of times. Nonetheless, this was very promising!

Even though the neck fit into the horn relatively tight on the first day, I’ve now taken it and the horn down to my repairman to have him fit it a little bit tighter. It seems I can’t quite “lock it down” as tight as I like to have it for gigs. I’m also having him shave just a little bit of cork off the Ponzol neck so that I can slide my Guardala King mouthpiece on a little further. So I should be picking it up later today just in time to try it out on a gig tonight.

After The Gig

I was able to pick up my adjusted neck just before the gig. It cost me another $30 to have the fit tweaked, but now it absolutely fits perfect on my main axe, and even on my backup horn. The gig was an outdoor poolside performance with my guitar player friend, Ed Motter-Vlahakos. My impression was the same as a day or two ago; the intonation does “feel tighter.” It seemed easier for me to play in tune, and that I was perhaps making fewer adjustments with my embouchure to stay in tune. I asked Ed to let me know what he thought. Twice he commented that he thought my intonation was noticeably better as well, especially in the sections where he and I play in unison.

Since the Ponzol neck give a fuller, freer-blowing sound, I’m now contemplating trying a mouthpiece that’s slightly warmer than my Guardala King. Jeez, seems like there’s always something else to try! My guess is that as I play exclusively on the Ponzol neck over the next few weeks, it will even be easier for me to notice the difference between it and my stock neck. We’ll just have to see!

Bottom Line

So should you run out and replace your neck? The answer is “It depends.” If you’re happy with the sound you’re getting, then you may not want to even experiment. But from my experience, especially if you have an older instrument, I think there’s a possibility that you could notice a marked improvement in both sound an intonation. Peter mentioned to me that I may even notice more improvement over time, and after a week, I’m beginning to agree with him.

So have you tried a different neck on your horn? What was your experience? Email me and let me know!

About the Author. Don Kelly, Ph.D., is a Houston based saxophonist and flautist. He plays a variety of music, including contemporary jazz, R&B, latin, funk, jazz standards, blues, and classic rock. He has played with the Kim Kafka Group, S&G Project, Juan Manuel, Black Friday, The Blue Monks, Sparky Koerner Quartet, Austin Big Band, Devere Pride, On Time Airline, Kemah Bums, The Zentenos, Ed Motter, and numerous others. Don has been greatly influenced and has studied under trumpeter Ken Waters and saxophonists Woody Witt, Mike Palmerari, Jeff Kashiwa, Bob Ackerman, Bob Sheppard, Mark “Kaz” Kazinoff, and Jake Lampe. For information on gigs or lessons, contact Don at don.kelly@mac.com or visit the www.equinoxjazz.net website.