Welcome back to Get Your Sax Together, I'm pro saxophonist Jamie Anderson and
this week's video could possibly be one of the most important videos you'll ever
watch, because it's gonna cover HOW you practice your saxophone and WHAT you
practice on your saxophone, so let's get straight into it!
First of all, don't
worry if you can't remember everything that I'm saying in this video, just go down
into the description and get your free pdf which is gonna have all these things
written out in a convenient cheat sheet for you. So go down there and grab your
PDF and without further ado let's get straight into it. And the first thing I'm
going to cover is WHAT to practice. The video is going to be in two halves - the
first half is WHAT you practice the second half is HOW you practice, but make
sure you stay tuned for the "How" because that is just as important as the "What". So
first of all, the first thing you practice when you get your sax
out the box is some long notes. Now, I know it's very boring you probably don't want
to do it but if you want to develop a great sound on sax you've got to develop
your long tones. Now, the best way of getting a really fantastic rich tone on
sax is to use overtones. If you don't know what that is you can go up to the
card above there which is linked now to find my video on harmonics/
overtones and that'll really help your sound come along. So number one is long
notes or overtones - that is going to set up your embouchure and get you really
warmed up for the next phase. Second thing you'll practice is scales. Scales get
quite a bad rap. I have a lot of students that come into the studio and they say
they hate practicing scales. Yeah, I know, it can be a bit tedious, however, we
need to be super tactical about how we practice scales so I've done two videos
on the best way to practice scales. The first part, the video is carded up there
right now, and then straight after that there'll be a card for the second video
on how to practice scales, but basically we're going to start on the note, go
right to the highest range you can, go down to the lowest note you can (within
that scale) and then back to the starting note,
and keep tuned because later on in the HOW I'm going to talk about a certain
little device which is going to transform your scale practice... and it's
called a metronome in case you haven't guessed already! Okay, very good, that is
the second thing you do. So you've got your long notes, then you practice your
scales. Now you don't have to practice every scale every day - that'll take far
too long, so just choose a couple of scales and then rotate them through the
twelve keys. The third thing that you practice in your session after long
notes and scales is technical exercises. Now if you're a beginner that technical
exercise might be as simple as going from B to C, because you cross fingers
and you don't want to get that bobble in the B-ding B-ding B-ding. You want to go
cleanly from B C B to C and the same on your right hand when you go from F to F sharp.
So if you practice those two things, that is an example of a technical exercise
for a complete beginner on sax. If you're more advanced you can use some of the
scale patterns from the "scales part two" video, "how to practice scales part two" or
you can choose this exercise, which is linked to a card up there now, called "how
to get faster fingers on sax" and it's a technical exercise that brass players
use which will really increase your finger speed. You take it through twelve
keys and you work up your tempo until you can do it really fast. Alternatively,
you can just find a pattern that you like or invent a pattern and practice it
through all twelve keys, nice and slowly, until you can really bring your
technique on, get your finger speed up, and just be a more competent sax player.
So far, so good, we do long notes or overtones, we do
scales, we do technical exercises to improve our overall sax playing. Now the
fourth thing that I recommend you practice is transcription. Now
transcription seems to be a bit of a mucky word from the sax players who
comment on my youtube channel and from the students I have here in the studio.
Nobody seems to do it and it's one of the most important
things you can do as a sax player it's going to teach you how to phrase, it's
going to give you a body of phrases that you can use when you're improvising, it's
going to improve your technique, it's going to bring on your sound as you copy other
players, so I highly recommend that you transcribe a little bit each day of
your favorite player or your favorite solo. The card is linked right up there
on my three-part series on how to transcribe. That I'll walk you through
the whole process. Just take it from me one of the best things you can ever do
is transcribe sax solos. In case there's any confusion, transcribing a
solo just means working exactly how to play it like the original and then later
on you can write it down and you can analyze it and you can get all this
benefit from the process, so do a little bit of that as the fourth part of your
practice. The fifth part of the practice session is when you get into your
pieces, or the numbers that you're working on, or the songs that you like
to play. Now most people just skip straight to part five! lol (They) don't warm up,
don't do long notes, don't do scales, don't improve their technique, certainly don't
transcribe anything, so don't jump straight to the pieces! I know that's the
glamorous bit I know that's the bit you love doing, everyone knows that, but do a
little bit, a few minutes on each, of the other steps and you will really thank me
for that, believe me. But yeah, step 5 - move on to the pieces. Now this might be a
song that you're working on, it might be a solo that you're learning from this
very channel, may be from the Hall of Fame series... lots of cards... maybe there's
too many cards for this video? I don't know, but, if I've got enough cards, the link
to the Hall of Fame series... find that playlist, find a song you love and work
out how to play it. Or, you might have a piece coming up for your school
performance, you might have a piece you need to learn for a gig, you might have
something in a band that you need to learn - that's all the meat and potatoes
of the fifth part of your practice on pieces. Sixth part of your practice is
just to have some fun. Let loose, play something you love that you already know
that you're comfortable with, maybe put on a backing track and just jam along to
something and let your hair down. Maybe just a free improvisation, just blow
whatever you want. You need to make sure that there's some fun, unstructured time,
but you just let loose, let your creativity flow and don't worry about
how good it is, who's listening, how good you technique is. Just let it all go for
a few minutes in your practice session, that's step six. And finally, this is an
important step, you must clean your saxophone. Take your reed off,
swab through the neck and mouthpiece, swab through the body of the instrument. They
are very important steps and yes, another card, I've got a video on how to clean
your sax, if I've got enough cards left. So make sure you clean your instrument
after every session - that is non-negotiable!
Otherwise, your smax... your smax?! lol ...your sax will be smelly and you've
got the possibility of infection, all sorts of nasty stuff, your instrument
wouldn't last as long, the pads will fall apart... oh my god! So yes, please clean your
instrument after each session and put your reed back in a case.
All that stuff
covers what to practice on sax in your practice session. I hope that really helps,
now we're going to move on to probably the most important part of all, and that
is HOW you practice. So I have four tips on how to practice - there's lots more but
let's just keep it to four - which are going to be the most beneficial for you. The
first one is to practice little and often. If you remember nothing else from
this video please remember this one fact about practicing - practice little and
often, because that is the surefire way to connect your brain to your fingers
and to imprint the muscle memory of how to play the things. If you just do a
1-hour practice session once a week you're not going to progress as well as
if you do seven sessions of a much shorter time, so little and often is the
way that you're going to move forward, because each time you go away and you go
to sleep your brain then files that information when you're asleep, then all
the rogue little bits of sensory information from how you moved your
fingers, they get filed into your long-term memory when you're asleep, then
the next day you come back and you find you're better at it, maybe not perfect,
but then day after day after day after day those neurological messages that
connect your brain to your fingers and your mouth and your whole body they will
be solidified and made stronger. So little and often wins the day. Very
important to remember. The second thing I'm going to recommend about how to
practice is isolation. Find the bits that you can't play and then narrow them down
to that small segment that you're having trouble
with and then very slowly and methodically work on that one bit,
building it up until you can play it perfectly, then join it into the other
bit that you can play. For example if you're practicing scales and there's one
bit that you always fluff, don't keep going back to the start of the scale. I see
this all the time, doo doo doo doo doo fluff. Oops! Go back to the start...
doo doo doo doo fluff. No no no no no no no. Don't do that!
Once you fluff something, stop. Go to the part that you've fluffed and mend it
otherwise those brain sort of memories that I was talking about from the from
the previous "how to", they will get imprinted how to do it wrong. Don't
practice how to do it wrong, practice how to do it right, and then mend that small
piece and then go back to the start and make sure you can weave it into one
thing. So that is a super hot tip that will save you hours of practice time and
make it all much more efficient. Number three -
nobody's gonna wanna hear this one, but again it is super important, and that
is to practice with a metronome. I call a metronome a truth meter because if you
think you're playing in time get a metronome on it and you might be
surprised how wobbly your time is. So all the stuff that's really structured, do
it with a metronome. Do your scales with a metronome, do your technical exercises
with a metronome, if you're learning a particular phrase which you can't do
very well get a metronome, slow it right down and then gradually crank up the
speed until you can do it. Nothing will help your timekeeping and your accuracy
and your technique more than using a metronome. That's super important - use a
metronome! And the final tip I'm going to give you on how to practice, tip four,
this is an easy one, try and keep your sax out on the stand when you're not
practicing. Now I don't mean finish a practice session and put it on the stand -
you still have to clean it, but once you've cleaned it put it back on the
stand, somewhere where you can see it, maybe it's in your bedroom. Obviously,
don't leave it somewhere where it might get damaged like in the middle of the
living room where the dog runs past and knocks it over,
but somewhere where it's safe that you can see it because if you see it you're
more likely to play. You walk past, "Ah! There's my sax, yeh I forgot about that, let's have a
little blow" and if your reeds are just there and your sling, your neck strap's
just handy, you might pick it up and practice. And those little micro practice
sessions will really start to build up, like I said about little and often, so if
you can see your instrument right there you're more likely to play so don't pack
it in the box and then put the box in the cupboard (closet) because you'll probably
never get it out. so that runs off my four tips on how to practice.
Here's a summary of the whole thing. Now don't forget, the cheat sheet is down there in
the description, go and get your PDF, just click on that, it's simple to go and get
the PDF, and you will have access to the cheat sheet that you can print it off, keep
it on your music stand and then follow it down every time you practice in case you
forget. So the points are, first of all, HOW to practice, number one: little and
often. Number two: isolate the tricky bits and practice them on their own before
you start going back to the beginning and play the bit you already know. Number
three is to use a metronome - painful as it may be - and also, don't practice with
your metronome at a speed that you can't play properly. Do the metronome at a speed that
you can play accurately. And then the fourth "how" is to leave your saxophone
out where you can see it. And then once you've done all that, the "what"s are:
number one - long notes or harmonics, number two - scales, number three -technical
exercises, number four - a bit transcription, number five you're gonna
play your pieces, number six - having some crazy fun and number seven, of course,
clean your instrument.
So that's it for this week.
Super important video about how to practice and what to practice. Now if you
think "I haven't got enough time to practice in the day" if you apply all
these things and just do a few minutes on each one you can really maximize your
practice time without wasting a bunch of time. Don't forget to go down in the
description to get your free pdf cheat sheet which you can print off and keep
on your music stand at all times. Also, please, if you enjoy the channel and
you're a first-time viewer, or even if you're not, subscribe and click the bell
icon, that way you'll be notified when I upload new videos. Go check out my
Instagram account, and I'll see you next time on Get Your
Sax Together, so keep practicing, keep practicing efficiently,
and I'll see you next week, take it easy, bye!