Most days back when I was in elementary school, my friend Pete Rogers brought his submachine gun to school. It was a formidable weapon that Pete employed with withering effectiveness during the war games we boys played at recess, and it possessed the added advantage of instant disassembly into just two components which bore a striking resemblance to Pete’s right and left hands.

As the enemy approached us on the battlefield, Pete would make pistols out of both hands, jam the barrel of one pistol into the other hand behind the base of the thumb, and presto! Instant Tommy gun. “D-D-D-D-D-D-D-DOOOWWWWWW!” Pete would yell, doing a convincing imitation of a kid simulating automatic weapon fire. “D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-DOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!” And into the fray he’d charge, he and his handufactured submachine gun. Pete was impressive.

I envied him. Like the rest of the boys, I had to consign myself to plain old bolt-action–until one day, I figured out Pete’s secret for making his machine gun sound. The sound, after all, was the thing. There’s no point in having a machine gun if you can’t fire it. I discovered how.

By placing the tip of my tongue lightly but firmly against the roof of my mouth–not directly behind my teeth, but more toward the center of my palate–and then directing a steady stream of air against it, I could get my tongue to flutter, generating a rattling t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t sound. Mimicking Pete’s machine gun was then just a matter of adding my vocal chords to the mix.

Now that I was onto Pete’s secret, naturally I customized it to fit my taste. Pete’s sound was loud. I opted for a subtler approach–a Tommy gun with a silencer, if you will. A stealth machine gun. By fluttering my tongue right up against the top of my clenched teeth, and by not using my voice, I managed to produce the coolest, most convincingest machine gun fire you ever heard. It outclassed Pete’s prototype hands down. From then on, my lunch hours were littered with the bodies of scores of enemy soldiers who fell under the subtle but deadly chatter of my .50 caliber finger.

Years later in high school, long after my boyhood war games had ended, I discovered another use for my machine gun sound. By employing it while playing my saxophone, I was able to produce a wild, burry kind of effect. I didn’t realize that what I was doing had an actual name–flutter tonguing–or that R&B saxophonists such as Junior Walker incorporated it as part of their trademark sound. I thought of it as simply an interesting but useless curiosity.

Of course I was wrong. Flutter tonguing can be eminently useful depending on the kind of sound you’re after. I don’t use the technique often, but I can and do pull it out of my pocket occasionally, and so can you whenever you wish. Flutter tonguing is not hard to learn.

Here’s How to Flutter Tongue on the Saxophone

Actually, if you were paying attention, you already know how to flutter tongue. Re-read the fourth paragraph. It describes the basics. Give it a try. No saxophone–just make the machine gun sound (leaving out the vocal part). You want to use my buddy Pete’s approach, not my refinements. Your tongue needs to touch closer to the center of your palate rather than directly behind your teeth.

Once you’re able to produce the rolling, machine-gun-like effect I’m talking about, try it with your horn. Bear two things in in mind:

• You’ll probably need to take in less mouthpiece than you normally would.

• You should not let your tongue touch the reed. Flutter-tonguing isn’t really tonguing in the usual sense; it is not a form of articulation such as single-tonguing or double-tonguing. Rather, your tongue flutters rapidly against the roof of your mouth as you blow into the mouthpiece. If your tongue actually touches the reed, it will choke off the sound.

Flutter tonguing is easiest to use in the middle register of your horn. With practice, you can work your way higher. And with practice, you can also play reasonably in tune. I say this because flutter tonguing can flatten your pitch if you’re not careful. So while the basic effect isn’t particularly difficult to produce, getting it to a point of usefulness may take a bit of work. Overall, though, flutter tonguing is in my experience one of the more easily acquired effects. Compared to mastering double-tonguing or the altissimo register, it’s a cinch.

I may create a video clip of my own to demonstrate the flutter tonguing technique. Meanwhile, this one by Phil Baldino does a great job of letting you see and hear how it’s done.

I don’t normally let so much time elapse between posts, but…

• •  I’ve been hugely focused on an editing project; and
• •  I sprained my ankle a few weeks ago, greatly curtailing my activities; plus
• •  this has been an abnormally warm, largely snowless winter thus far; and so, adding everything together
• •  I haven’t had much to write about.

But that has changed with the arrival of this latest winter storm, which I am live-streaming on iMap even as I write. Here’s what it looks like on the radar as of around 9:20 a.m. (Click on the image to enlarge it.) A little farther down the page is a corresponding view from my balcony here in Caledonia, Michigan. Let’s put it this way: it’s not very pleasant outside.

The Grand Rapids weather office has this to say:

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM EST THIS
EVENING...

HAZARDOUS WEATHER...

 * SNOW WILL CONTINUE TO FALL ACROSS THE AREA INTO THIS MORNING
   BEFORE TAPERING OFF. SOME LOCAL POCKETS OF HEAVIER SNOW WILL BE
   POSSIBLE AT TIMES.

 * STORM TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 3 TO 6 INCHES ARE EXPECTED
   THROUGH 7 PM FRIDAY EVENING...WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS
   POSSIBLE.

 * SOME WIND GUSTS OF UP TO 30 MPH WILL CAUSE SOME BLOWING AND
   DRIFTING SNOW LATER TODAY.

The updated aviation forecast includes this addendum:

AREAS IN THE WARNING WILL SEE 5 TO 8 INCHES WITH SOME AMOUNTS UP TO 10
INCHES POSSIBLE.

Latest station ob at GRR shows a temperature of 27 degrees. That’s not at all horrible for this time of year in Michigan. What we’re getting is actually standard fare. But that’s not to make light of it. Conditions certainly aren’t balmy, and a 20-knot northwest wind doesn’t help. This is a great day to be inside. It’s times like now when the benefits of working at home become strikingly apparent. No scraping ice off the windshield of my car. No driving down icy roads. Just a manuscript to edit while catching glimpses of the birds swarming the feeder against a backdrop of windblown snow.

Life’s good things aren’t necessarily pricey. I’m content with a cuppa joe, a warm apartment, my work in front of me, and a pretty landscape outside the window with the snow piling up. From the looks of it, we’ve got around four inches right now. Bring on the rest of it. I’m not going anywhere.

With the arrival of the new year, Winter 2012 appears to finally be kicking into gear here in West Michigan. I’m ready for it. We got off light in December, with little in the way of snowfall and much in the way of unseasonably warm temperatures. On New Year’s Eve, temps scraped above 40 degrees. In that respect, this New Year has been very similar to the last one, though not quite as warm.

The mercury started dropping yesterday afternoon as the wrap-around from a departing low ushered in colder air, and with it, the first significant snowfall of the season. Here’s what the L2 radar looked like at about 1:00 p.m. yesterday as the snow was getting started. Possible blizzard conditions were in the GRR forecast discussion at that point, but the winds never intensified to that level. Station obs currently show northwest surface winds up to 20 knots through West Michigan, and just up the road at the airport the temperature is 25 degrees. That sounds like winter to me.

And the snow that is piled on top of my balustrade and covering the cars out in the parking lot looks like winter. Here’s a view of the bird feeding station out on my balcony to give you an idea of how much snow has stuck since yesterday. Looks to be about four inches. More may visit me yet here in Caledonia, but right now we appear to be situated between bands of the heavy lake effect stuff, with the most intense band streaming south-southeast from along the lakeshore by Muskegon and Grand Haven toward Kalamazoo and Centreville.

I see that a few storm chasers are out for a romp. Enjoy yourselves, lads. Me, I’m recovering from a sprained ankle and my car is in the shop, so I’m not going anywhere. Today is a day to ice my ankle, kick back with a big mug of Lapsang Souchong tea, watch the finches frolic at the feeder, work on an editing project, and let the icy winds blow.

Happy New Year, everyone!

A white-breasted nuthatch was at my bird feeder a few minutes ago searching hopefully for seed. Poor little thing! The seed stash has been low these past few days. Monday I sprained my left ankle while hiking in Yankee Springs, and I haven’t been up to replenishing the feeding station. In fact, my life has been largely reduced to sitting in the couch keeping my leg elevated and my ankle iced.

Lisa has been taking great care of me. Still, I like to do what I can for myself, so for three days I hobbled around gingerly, thinking that, c’mon, I hadn’t hurt myself all that badly. But I had, and I wasn’t doing my ankle any favors.

Yesterday I finally concluded that maybe crutches wouldn’t be a bad idea after all. I’ve never used them before, and these ones have taken some getting used to. I wish they came with training wheels. But I’m getting the hang of them, and taking the stress off my ankle is definitely helping. Maybe in a few days I won’t need the crutches anymore.

Anyway, I just refilled the finch sack with thistle seed and both feeding tubes with sunflower seed. A couple of chickadees have already discovered the fresh supply, and it won’t be long before the rest of the birds do as well. I think it’ll be a matter of only minutes before the finches arrive and my balcony will once again swarm with bird action.

What a wild and difficult ride this year has been! And now we’ve arrived at the last day of it. Poised on the brink of 2012, I look back and think, whew! No repeats, please. Nationally and globally, this has been a year of horrific natural disasters, economic turmoil, and unprecedented political upheaval. On a personal level, I have struggled financially as copywriting projects for a key client slowed down from what had been an abundance to a trickle and finally to nothing.

The tight finances massively hampered my ability to chase storms, and consequently I had to sit out some incredible events. Missing them was more than frustrating; it was painful, and it has taken a toll on my sense of identity as a storm chaser.

Thankfully, there have been good things to even out the bad. I published The Giant Steps Scratch Pad Complete, which duplicates the material in The Giant Steps Scratch Pad in all 12 keys. That has been a major accomplishment. I also began chasing locally for WOOD TV’s Storm Team 8, and my first chase for them resulted in a pretty solid coup during a damaging straight-line wind event down in Battle Creek. Also I got to experience Hurricane Irene down in South Carolina, and while I opted out of catching the eye at landfall, I saw enough both on the coast and inland to satisfy my curiosity.

Moreover, Lisa has been recovering nicely from a horribly painful frozen shoulder that she incurred at the beginning of the year. And while Mom’s knee replacement sidelined me from chasing what turned out to be a history-making super-outbreak of tornadoes down in Alabama on April 27, the result has been more than worthwhile; Mom’s knee is now pain-free and Mom can walk again.

As for my copywriting and editorial business, The CopyFox, other opportunities have been coming my way. I definitely miss the steady flow of business from my key client, but I much enjoy the new kinds of projects I’ve been getting from Bethany Christian Services and Baker Books. I’m currently in the middle of editing a book for Heart & Life Publishing, a new publishing service operated by my friend Kevin Miles. If there’s one bit of wisdom that I continue to prove through the years, it’s to step through open doors and embrace new opportunities to learn and grow in the talents God has given me. It’s important to know when to say no; but that being understood, there is a lot in life to say yes to.

I have no resolutions for the New Year. There are and will be goals big and small to reach for in their proper time, and I find that approach to be more realistic than making resolutions. I do hope, though, that I’ll get in a few successful chases this coming storm season to make up for the ones I’ve missed this year.

Still no snow, by the way, and it looks like that’s how it’ll stay through tonight. The 1723 UTC station obs show 38 degrees at GRR, and we’re forecasted to get up into the low 40s, so a green New Year is in store, just like last year. But it won’t stay that way for long; West Michigan’s first major winter storm is set to dump six to eight inches of snow on us tomorrow through Monday, and these warm temperatures will soon be a thing of the past. January is poised to swoop in with fangs bared.

So it’s a good thing I got those bird feeders filled back up. The finches still haven’t arrived. But the chickadees have been doing steady traffic, a couple of rosy-breasted nuthatches are making sporadic appearances, and the woodpeckers have been bellying up to the suet all along. The birds are taken care of. Now it’s my turn. It’s early afternoon and I’m still sitting here in my robe; time to shower up and get the rest of this day in gear.

Lord, thank you for this difficult but nevertheless gracious year. When disappointment and hardship hit, I find it easy to complain. But you are always there in the midst of my life, and I have no problem seeing your goodness when I seek your priorities over my personal wants. My part is to do my best, but you’re the one who calls the shots. Thanks for tonight’s gig with my good friend Ed. Thanks for my dear, dear woman, Lisa, and for my mom and siblings and friends. Thanks for the gifts of storm chasing and music, which not only make me come alive, but also shape me as a person. Thanks for the beautiful Michigan outdoors which I love so much–the wetlands, the wildflowers, the sandhill cranes ratcheting in the marshes, the rivers and streams and lakes filled with fish, the blonde sweep of dunes along the Lake Michigan shore, the forested, glacial hills at sundown. Thanks for the gift of my senses that lets me drink in all of these things, and for emotions that let me feel the wonder of it all. Thank you for the gift of life. Thank you for love. Thank you, precious Lord, for you.

I hope that a few of you will make it down to Fall Creek down in Hastings this evening to catch Ed and me. But whatever you wind up doing, have a fun and safe night. Happy New Year, one and all!

In a world that has become bewilderingly complex, may the simplicity of faith in the person of Jesus be yours today and every day. I don’t think it’s any secret that Christmas is almost certainly not the actual calendar date of Jesus’s birth. What’s important about Christmas is, it reminds us that Jesus indeed was born at a specific point in time, at a certain hour on a certain day, really and truly. If eternal life were just a matter of sound moral teachings, he need not have bothered. But he came to provide something far more than one more model in the display case of spiritual teachers; he came to offer us himself as the object of our trust in matters far too vast for us to comprehend.

Look around you. Look inside you. Is it really so hard so hard to believe that what we need is not merely answers, but a Savior?

“For God loved the world with such unfathomable depth and passion that he gave the Son whom he himself sired–God, reproducing his very heart and character uniquely in human form, clothed with flesh, emotions, personality, a voice, appetites, and a name–so that whoever puts his or her trust in the Son may possess an entirely different quality of life: eternal life, today and forever.”–John 3:16, my rendering

A blessed and gracious Christmas to all my friends.

Politically incorrectly yours,

Bob

Hey, everyone, here’s a quick heads-up to let you know that I’ll be playing with my good friend Ed Englerth at the Fall Creek Restaurant in Hastings on New Year’s Eve.

Ed and I will be playing an eclectic assemblage of tunes in a low-key acoustic format, with Ed on guitar, me playing soprano and alto sax, and both of us doing a bit of singing. With other restaurants in the area featuring live bands in a festive spirit, the owner of Fall Creek wanted something laid-back that would allow people to converse. So that’s what we’ll be providing: music that is fun, enjoyable, but not obtrusive or melt-your-earwax loud.

Here are the details:

Ed Englerth and Bob Hartig
Saturday, December 31
8:30–11:30 p.m.
Fall Creek Restaurant
201 South Jefferson
Hastings, MI 49058
(269) 945-0100

June 17, 2010. If you were in Minnesota on that date, I need say no more. Regretfully, I was not there. But Adam Lucio was, and in his new DVD chronicling his chases from 2008 till today, Adam’s Minnesota chase–which rewarded him with some of the most visually stunning tornadoes of circum 2010–is just one in a list of potent tornado events captured on video.

No, it’s not the next best thing to being there in Minnesota–how could it be? What it is, is great footage of some spectacular storms, the kind of video that makes me wish like anything that I had been there and glad that Adam has done such a good job of showing me what I missed.

If for no other reason than the 2010 Minnesota outbreak, Adam’s DVD is a viewing windfall for storm chasers and weather junkies. However, June 17 is just one of a number of memorable chases that appear in The Noob. More recent footage from 2011 includes the dusty EF-3 Litchfield, Illinois, cone of April 19; a turbulent EF-4 wedge from the historic April 27 Super Outbreak; and the violent Oklahoma storms of May 24.

The Noob also whisks me down Memory Lane to May 22, 2010, in South Dakota, an unforgettable day for those of us who chased the northern plains. And heading back even further, Adam shares some visceral footage from 2008 of a large tornado crossing I-57 south of Chicago, his hometown.

At nearly two hours in length, Adam’s DVD covers a lot of material, and I’m not going to attempt a blow-by-blow analysis of it all. I’m just going to comment on a few highlights and let you discover the rest for yourself when you buy the DVD. Which you should do. You’ll congratulate yourself on your purchase every time you watch it.

I’ve already mentioned the Minnesota outbreak of June 17, 2010. This is the one section of the DVD where I took notes, because the storm was simply incredible. The video first shows an initial elephant trunk near Kiester. It’s followed by another much larger tornado, and from here the drama rapidly ramps up. I’ve heard some guys describe this date as their best chase ever, and I can see why: there’s a lot going on with both the tornadoes and the surrounding sky.

As the second, dark wedge does a multi-vortex dance on the other side of a distant woodlot, a new circulation rapidly develops in the foreground. There appears to be no handoff of energy from one circulation to the other at this point; for a while, presumably, two distinct, large tornadoes coexist in close proximity to each other. Eventually, however, we’re left with just one large, white cone surrounded by a huge, rapidly revolving collar cloud. The effect, already spectacular, becomes even moreso as the tornado moves toward Conger and then onward toward Albert Lea. It is a monstrous, long-track tornado that displays every shape and behavior in the book.

What at times captivated me as much as the tornado was the behavior of the clouds in the foreground. There’s at least one instance where you can see clear signs of anti-cyclonic rotation, both on a broader scale and in smaller swirls of cloud. It’s amazing to watch. And so is the horizontal vortex that passes overhead. The 1 km helicity near this storm had to have been just plain crazy.

Moving on, the Alabama footage is engaging not so much from a visual as a historical standpoint. Don’t misunderstand me, it’s good, entertaining viewing; it’s just nothing like the Minnesota section. What makes it remarkable is the date: April 27, the day of the 2011 Super Outbreak. Not since the infamous 1974 Super Outbreak have so many powerful tornadoes wrought such havoc in a single day. For that reason, this section of The Noob may be of historic interest in the future.

The May 22, 2011, South Dakota footage captures another spectacular, beautifully structured storm. What sets it apart, however, is the insanity of that a number of chasers experienced when the road they chose for an escape route dead-ended in a farmer’s wheat field. Adam was among them, along with his chase partners, Ben Holcomb and Danny Neal. With multiple tornadoes spinning up and advancing toward them, the chasers took the only evasive action they had left by bailing south into the field, where ponding eventually cut them off. “Game over,” as Adam put it. From that point, all they could do was hunker down and brace themselves until … well, you’ll just have to see for yourself what happened. Ben Holcomb captured the intensity of that part of the chase on camera, and Adam has included Ben’s video as part of the South Dakota section.

I might add, my buddies and I were in that same field just a stone’s throw from Adam’s vehicle, and I remember well how it was that day. But some of the footage here reveals things even I didn’t see, and viewing it makes me realize how truly blessed all of us were to have escaped without injury.

I could continue on, but you get the idea. The Noob is a great storm chasing DVD that delivers a huge amount of bang for your 14-and-99/100 bucks.

Adam is a passionate and capable chaser who takes every opportunity available to him to go where the storms will be. The title of his new DVD reflects to me both humor and humility, winsome qualities in any person.

The Noob is raw chasing. Adam clearly invested time and care in editing his material, and he offers a few nice editorial touches (such as Ben Holcomb’s embedded footage during part of the hair-raising South Dakota field escapade). For the most part, however, the DVD doesn’t get too fancy. In my book, that’s a plus. The occasional splashes of background music are conservatively used, not overdone, and hence a welcome addition rather than a subtraction from the focus of this video, which is tornadoes and the experience of chasing them.
.

Critique

Is there room for improvement? Sure. Much of the video footage is hand-held, which makes for slightly to drastically shaky viewing. Of course, this is real-life chasing–not a professional film crew, just one guy with a camera coping with constantly changing conditions as he pursues the most violent and volatile weather phenomenon on the planet. Some of the storms were clearly moving fast, and Adam didn’t have time to park his vehicle, set up his tripod, toss out a lawn chair, and sip his favorite beverage, iced tea, while casually filming. I noticed that he made better use of his tripod with slower moving storms. In any event, I’m pretty sure he has already been considering how he might get more stable shots next season.

My second comment: There were times when I wanted to see a continuing view of a tornado’s interaction with the ground, not the sky. In the Minnesota footage, a large wedge barely misses two farms, appearing to barely graze behind them. Yet the camera drifts away from the drama on the ground–it had to have been terrifyingly dramatic for the people living at those farms–to the cloud base, back and forth. There’s enough ground footage to give a good feel for what’s happening; still, I want the focus to remain on the lower part of the funnel as it sweeps past past human habitations, so I can dwell on the story unfolding there at the surface.

With those two critiques out of the way, the only question left is, do I recommend this DVD?

Are you kidding? Absolutely! Yes. Buy it. Watch it once, watch it again, watch it multiple times. This is killer stuff.
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Purchasing Information

The Noob is 1 hour, 57 minutes long. Purchase price is $14.99 ($17.99 international). For more information and to place your order, visit Adam’s site.

(Continued from part 4.)

Over thirty years have passed from the days of God’s Family Band until today. Dad’s horn has been a constant companion in that journey, though I have not always been constant with it. There were times when I set it aside for a season, and other times when I thought how much simpler life could be if I put it behind me forever. Yet every time I have set down the saxophone, I have returned to it. I have kept at it–because I must. It is more than a passion; it is a calling, integral to the way God has designed me.

There are many other stories besides the ones I have told in this brief series, more than I wish to share here. The long and short of it all is, Dad’s horn has shaped me both as a player and as a person.

Thus far, I have talked about the journey my father’s horn has taken me on. Now I would like to tell you a little about the horn itself. I own two other saxophones beside it: a Conn tenor that is even older than my alto and has long been in drastic disrepair, and a Yamaha soprano that I sometimes play. But the alto remains my voice, and I have always owned only the one, Dad’s. I’ve had no need for any other.

Not that I haven’t tried other horns. I’ve sampled a fair cross-section of altos over the years. But the one I learned to play on is the one I play today and the one on which I will someday play my last note, and then, I hope–though I have no children of my own–pass it on to someone else as a legacy, just as Dad passed it on to me.

Of all the saxophones I have played, my father’s horn sounds the most resonant, offers the greatest flexibility of sound, and blows the freest. It is an amazingly open horn. It will take as much air as I can supply and convert it into a sound that fills a room. Not that the Conn 6M is a miracle horn; it has its drawbacks. While I can get around reasonably well above high F, the altissimo is not as responsive as on other saxophones. Manufactured before the introduction of the high F# key, Dad’s sax does not feature uber-high notes as one of its strengths. Also, my repairman tells me that the rolled tone holes–a hallmark of the 6M–are beastly when it comes to getting pads to seat properly. When I have pads replaced, I usually need to visit the shop more than once to get the sax sealing tightly.

But once that job is accomplished, oh, man! Dad’s alto is a dream to play, and I fall in love with it all over again. It has a sound and a response like no other, and it has served me well for over four decades.

Dad was always the greatest fan of my playing. During the last three years of his life, he, like me, had an encounter with Jesus that changed him–not a little, but drastically. The anger that seemed to lurk below the surface disappeared, and while his feistiness remained, it was tempered with humility, even a sweetness, and above all, a peace I had never seen in him before. The ghosts that I think had haunted him from World War II seemed to lose their grip. There is a verse in the Bible that reads, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (II Cor. 5:17) Whenever I read that verse, I think of Dad.

I was 28 years old when Dad passed away. That was nearly thirty years ago. Several years ago, I wrote a letter to my father. I thanked him for all he had done for me and for our family. I told him how, now that I was older and wise enough not to know as much as I did back in my twenties, I wished I could sit down with him and listen to him tell me about his life–how it was in the Great Depression, and in the War, killing and watching his friends be killed. I told him that he was my hero, and how glad I was, how very glad, for the peace he had found. The transformation that had begun in him when he first encountered the Lord was now complete. When next he and I would meet, Dad would no longer be a white-haired man crippled by a back injury, short-winded from a chronic heart condition and breathing from an oxgyen tank. I envisioned him striding toward me, grinning, his arms outstretched, his face that of a vibrant young man, his eyes filled with a spark that can only be found in one who has looked into the very face of Love and Life, and in its Presence found his home.

On Memorial Day, I took my letter to the small cemetery out in the countryside where Dad is buried. A tiny American flag fluttered by his marker beneath a tall fir tree. It is a beautiful little place, and Dad, who loved trees, would have been pleased with the location. I cleared away a few sprigs of grass that were encroaching on his modest gravestone, and I dusted off its surface. With a piece of Scotch tape, I attached my letter to Dad’s marker.

Then, standing up, I fulfilled one last, important part of the letter. “Thanks for the saxophone, Dad,” I had written. “It was your legacy to me, and I’ve brought it with me. Perhaps, just for a minute, the Lord will roll back eternity and let you get an earful of me playing it just for you.”

Taking the horn, setting its mouthpiece in my mouth, and wrapping my fingers around the golden, pearl-covered keys that I had first seen and admired when I was a little boy, I began to play. With his old Conn alto sax, I played for Dad the song I had performed on the day when I was baptized at Bethel–the song that over the years had become my theme song and was a fitting description of Dad’s own life.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind, but now I see.

A saxophone cannot verbalize those words, but it most certainly can communicate them. That day, I played them with all my heart.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come.
‘Twas grace that brought me safe this far, and grace shall lead me home.

The legacy of my father’s horn lives on. I love to play it, and while I am no Kenny Garrett, I continue to practice regularly, and thus to grow as a jazz musician. Today, I realize that Dad’s gift to me of his saxophone was ordained by my heavenly Father–by my father’s Father and mine. I am his son, his man, and his musician. And with gratitude, until a day known only to him when my last song shall end, by his grace, for his pleasure, and in honor of the Master Musician, I will continue to play my Father’s horn.

(Continued from part 3.)

Writing this article has opened my eyes to just how immense a legacy my dad left me when he put his alto sax in my hands as a boy. I never intended to pen a lengthy, multi-part personal history, just a brief tribute to Dad and the shaping force his old Conn 6M has been for me. Now, four parts into “My Father’s Horn,” I realize that I could write a book and still not tell the full story. But writing a book was not, and is not, my intention. I see a need to condense, to say much in few words.

Yet I am not sure how to do that. Dad’s horn has been as pervasive an influence in my life as yeast in bread dough. It has been a source of tremendous satisfaction and great frustration; a creative outlet; an intellectual challenge and stimulus; a doorway of faith; a parable portraying truths about God’s kingdom and how He designs individuals; a song of joy, a wail of pain, a voice of my soul; a catalyst for insight, choices, and growth; a blessing to many listeners and, first and foremost, to the player; a gift, a discipline, and most certainly, a calling.

When I was 24 and playing in the Aquinas College Jazz Band, I got a call one evening from a guy named Rick Callier. Would I care to play in a musical that the Bethel Pentecostal Choir was presenting called “The Beautiful Story of Jesus”?

I learned that Rick’s cousin, Kimball Owens, had recommended me to Rick. Kimball was my buddy in the jazz band–a non-stop chatterbox, funny, super-likeable, a fine tenor sax player, and my friend. I knew nothing about either Rick or Bethel, but, while I wasn’t a Christian, I had grown up knowing about Jesus and was glad for an opportunity to offer my talent in His service for an evening.

That event was my introduction to Rick, to Bethel, and to a number of talented black gospel musicians and vocalists: David Jennings, Chico DeBarge, James Abney, Craig Tyson … the list goes on, too many to name. Even more important, playing for the Bethel musical ushered me into the beginning of my walk as a disciple of Jesus.*

Back in the 1980s, white churches in West Michigan didn’t have much use for the saxophone. Not so black churches. I knew nothing about the foibles of religious culture and cared even less about racial distinctions. All I knew was, I had fallen in with some people who loved Jesus, loved music, projected joy, and welcomed me and my horn wholeheartedly. And my heart was open. I had been seeking God for a long time, searching for meaning; searching for something bigger even than the music; searching for Life. And I found it. Or rather, I found Him–because throughout the years, He had already long been seeking me.

Thus it was that a few days after Christmas in December, 1980, I was baptized at Bethel Pentecostal Church. On that day, I had an encounter with God. It was, as best I can describe it, a sense of being overwhelmed by joy and praise. The experience was almost physical in nature and one I have never forgotten.

From there, I played often with the Bethel Pentecostal Choir. As a white kid from a German family, I was a salt grain in a pepper mill, but it didn’t matter. Love of the Lord and of music made ethnic differences something to be appreciated and enjoyed, and a source of insight.

At that time, I also joined the horn section of a gospel group called God’s Family Band. The band was co-led by Rick Callier and David Jennings, with Rick doing the arranging and David working with the vocalists. Both of these guys were incredibly talented. In partnership with a friend named Larry Rhodes, Rick also used the horns in studio sessions for other gospel artists, notably the Grammy-Award-winning group Commissioned. It was under Rick and Larry that I gained experience both as a horn section player and as a studio musician. I’ve never played for more exacting producers. They would do take after take, striving for perfection. Rick and Larry set a benchmark for excellence. Working with producers of their caliber was an eye-opening, rewarding, and hugely valuable experience.

All the while, I continued to study music at Aquinas College and play in the jazz band. My college education equipped me with the tools I needed to grow as a musician. To be honest, though, I wasted my first years in college, and I only really began to learn my horn after I got out of school. As a result, I’m mostly self-educated as a jazz saxophonist.

One influence from my college days to whom I will always feel a debt of gratitude was Mel Dalton. A wonderful Grand Rapids area tenor player, Mel was the closest thing I ever had to a musical mentor. For a brief but memorable semester or two, I use to get together with him on a weekly basis at his home. Mel didn’t exactly teach me how to play jazz; mostly what he did was spend time with me listening to Coltrane records, talking about music, playing with me through solo transcriptions, and encouraging me. Mel modeled what jazz musicianship was about. He was a beautiful player and a warm, wonderful human being, and I wish he was still here today.

At this point, I need to fast-forward. There’s a lot of story I could tell, but it wouldn’t serve my original intent in writing this article. It’s enough to say that my father’s horn has opened up doors of relationships, opportunities, and experiences.

That’s enough for now. I’ll save the rest for part 5, which I think will be the conclusion of “My Father’s Horn.”

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* I’m cautious about using the word “Christian” to describe myself. I am a Christian; however, these days the word has become a label freighted with meanings that have nothing to do with what it means to follow Jesus. The word “Christian” has become politicized. It has become a marketing niche. It has come to stand for a subculture that in some ways misrepresents what Jesus and Christianity are truly about. So I prefer to be thought of as simply a disciple of Jesus–a fallible man who seeks to know Him, love Him, and live in a way that reflects his Lordship in my heart.

Excuse me while I deviate from this blog’s generally non-commercial tone into a bit of blatant self-promotion. As you know if you’ve followed the musical part of Stormhorn.com for any length of time, I’ve self-published a practice resource for jazz musicians titled The Giant Steps Scratch Pad. Without going into details that I’ve already covered on the Scratch Pad page, the original editions provide 155 licks and patterns in the standard key for concert pitch, Bb, Eb, and bass cleff instruments.

This new edition takes that effort to the ultimate level for those who want to master John Coltrane’s jazz rites-of-passage tune, “Giant Steps,” in every key. Available now as an instant PDF download,The Giant Steps Scratch Pad Complete gives you a grand total of 1,860 exercises written in treble clef.

Speaking modestly but plainly, this is a terrific resource for jazz musicians. It gives you enough theory to help you understand Coltrane changes in the context of “Giant Steps”; however, its focus is on getting you actually playing through the changes comfortably and creatively. To the best of my knowledge, no other book like it exists that provides a practical and comprehensive means of mastering “Giant Steps.”

Written in treble clef, The Giant Steps Scratch Pad Complete is 252 pages in length and costs $21.95. As I’ve already mentioned, it is currently available as a PDF download only. That seems to be what people prefer, and I’m reluctant to invest more time and effort preparing a print edition unless I know there’s a reasonable demand for one. I’d have to charge more to make it worth my while, and you’d have to pay for shipping on top of the purchase price.

However, given the size of this new, complete edition, there may be an interest in a print version, so let me know. Enough requests can make the difference. And I will say that the cover which I had professionally designed for the standard-key editions looks very sharp, better than most of what I’ve seen in music stores.

To place your order, or to learn more about The Giant Steps Scratch Pad and check out printable page samples, click here.

Also, if you like what you find, please tell your fellow musicians. Self-publishing means self-marketing, and the best way to accomplish that is through word-of-mouth. Nothing means more to other musicians–and to me, personally–than the recommendation of a colleague.

Thanks for your interest and for spreading the word!

–Bob