I get questioned all the time by my students about how to get a better sound. It’s a great question and an important one at that. However, the worst thing that can happen is if someone has never even asked themselves “how do I work on tone?” If someone new to an instrument is using [...]
I know, everyone’s wretched band director had them bring their instrument home everyday, not practice, then convince their parents to lie at the end of the week and sign this arbitrary sheet called a ‘practice log’ saying you had practiced an hour a day. This is truly unfortunate because this is the exact opposite of [...]
One of the more troubling things I’ve seen in the music world lately manifests out of nowhere. It happens whenever I talk to one of my students about reed choices. Now, if the student is on a decent to good set up I rarely bring up the idea of new equipment (or at least I [...]
This is the first in a set of rhythmic exercises that I’ll be posting to this site. So many times we overlook the importance of having Really. Good. Time. This is something that will help in every aspect of playing, e.g. improvising, playing etudes and solo pieces, playing in an ensemble, playing pieces with no [...]
2010 was an eventful year and 2011 promises to be even more so. I wanted to take the opportunity to name some of the accomplishments that my students made this year. They all worked very hard and saw that work pay off. Needless to say, I’m very proud of them. Here is a list of [...]
Aaron Parks Blog – not updated regularly, but Aaron throws some pretty cool posts up there every so often. This is where I found out about NextBop.com described below. AllAboutJazz.com – this is a staple of the jazz community. This has anything and everything, far too much for me to list in fact. Definitely take [...]
For professional musicians and advanced students, this is a fairly obvious statement: equipment matters. You’ll see a host of jazz, classical, R&B, rock, Latin, etc. musicians all with different equipment and in many different combinations. For the beginning student, the subject of equipment is rarely discussed even though it is actually fairly simple, plays a [...]
Effortless Mastery – Kenny Werner This book is pretty widely known in the music community. It’s about… well, check out the book. This book tackles the mental, physical, and spiritual aspects of creativity. Kenny uses accounts from his own development as an artist to explain how to think and create effortlessly. There is also a [...]
I got these great sheets from Ben Wendel (of Kneebody) who’s an old Eastman student of Raymon’s. The first sheet shows 1) the harmonic series for Saxophone 2) the harmonic tendencies for Saxophone, Clarinet, and Flute, (those are the weird liny-charty things) and 3) 9 exercises for practicing the harmonic series. The second sheet shows [...]
**There has been an update to the All-State Middle School Etude for Saxophone. I’ve made the appropriate changes below** Here are links to the GMEA website resources for All-State Band audition material for Middle and High schools. Rules & Regs Applications All-State Middle School Band - 6th through 8th Grades: Alto Saxophone (Etudes/Scales) Tenor Saxophone (Etudes/Scales) [...]
