What Is Jazz?

The headline for this post is a bit deceptive. I’m really not interested in offering one more definition of jazz, or of discussing elements such as swing, syncopation, improvisation, blue notes, and so on. All of that has been abundantly covered in a bazillion books on jazz history, jazz theory, and jazz musicians.

A better title, though a more confusing one at first glance, might be, “What ISN’T Jazz?” It’s a question I’ve contemplated off and on. In that respect, I guess I’m no different from a multitude of other jazz musicians who have pondered the same issue over the years and ventured their opinions. Often you don’t hear the question expressed as a question, but as a conviction delivered with some heat: “That isn’t jazz!”

Let me say up front that I consider the topic of what is and isn’t jazz to be pretty academic. I’m more fascinated by the fact that some people get so passionate about defending a sacred ideal, some essence of jazzness, than I am by the subject itself.

Yet I have to confess that I find the same attitude rearing up in me on occasion–times when it bothers me to hear the word “jazz” used to describe something I wouldn’t consider to be even close to jazz. Improvised music, quite possibly; jazz, no.

So what am I, an elitist? If I am, I’m certainly not hardcore about it. Frankly, the intensity and hair-splitting that I’ve witnessed over the jazz/not-jazz issue has struck me as ridiculous, not to mention pointless, since it’s one of those debates that will never be settled.

That being said, I think the word “jazz” does get used too freely at times.

Case in point: I’ve played in lots of church worship teams over the years. Most of them have involved a lot of white folks playing guitars. Nothing wrong with that, but I cringe whenever I hear someone say, “Let’s jazz it up.” It’s kind of like hearing a mariachi accordionist say, “Let’s rock and roll!” What does it mean to “jazz it up”? I’m not sure, but I can testify that the results I’ve witnessed have never resembled jazz. Musicians who rarely if ever listen to jazz, let alone practice it, aren’t going to just suddenly produce it like Bullwinkle pulling a rabbit out of the hat.

So here I am, caught between two extremes. On the one hand, I can be a jazz racist, aggressively and vehemently defending the purity of the form (according to my ideal of it) and getting my undies all in a bunch over musical miscegenation. On the other hand, I can adopt so inclusive a perspective that the word “jazz” can mean just about anything under the sun, and consequently mean nothing at all.

It seems like there ought to be a less polarized option. Maybe there is. If so, finding it is probably best begun by defusing some of the negativity inherent to this topic. Coming from a jazz purist, the words, “That’s not jazz!” come across as an indictment. Upon hearing Weather Report in concert, Ben Webster is reported to have flown into one of his famous rages, walked onstage, and overturned Joe Zawinul’s electric piano. Such behavior is an extreme, but it captures the attitude of those who are so entrenched in an ideal that they judge and attack whatever doesn’t match up.

It doesn’t have to be that way. It shouldn’t be that way. How can any two people have a decent, productive discussion with that kind of Hatfield-McCoy mentality?

So let me be plain: When I say that something isn’t jazz, I’m not saying it’s bad music. Neither am I saying it’s good music. I’m not making value judgments at all. I’m just saying that I don’t consider the music I’m hearing to fit under the jazz umbrella. That’s all. Why try to make something be what it isn’t? Why not just let it be what it is and recognize that, if it’s done well, it has its own legitimacy?

Distinguishing between jazz and non-jazz involves at least a certain amount of subjectivity. That’s certainly true of me as I share a few of my own thoughts on the topic. With that acknowledgment, I’d like to address what I think are a few misconceptions about jazz:

* IMPROVISATION. Some people use the word “jazz” to describe extemporaneous playing. But while improvisation is a crucial hallmark of jazz, it’s not an exclusive one. Rock musicians improvise. Bluegrass musicians improvise. Classical musicians improvise. Beethoven wove melodies and harmonies out of thin air long before Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet ever played a blue note.

* THE BLUES SCALE. Playing the blues scale is not the same thing as playing jazz. Playing the blues scale is playing the blues scale. The blues scale and blue notes are components of a good jazz vocabulary, but they’re only a part of it, and, as with improvisation, they’re not exclusive to jazz. Rock guitarists use the blues scale extensively.

* HARMONY. The chords associated with jazz are usually quite colorful due to the use of upper tones and creative voicings. Ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths are normative, along with various chord alterations. In jazz, a V7 chord is rarely just a V7 chord; keyboard players and guitarists add upper extensions as a matter of course. While simple triads are used from time to time, jazz is not a triadic idiom. It is vertically complex, giving rise to sophisticated voice leadings.

That’s one big reason why non-jazz musicians who decide they’re going to “jazz up” a piece of music usually wind up sounding hokey rather than hip. Conceptually, they don’t have the harmonic (and rhythmic) know-how to pull it off. If that’s you, don’t let me discourage you from making the attempt. Rather let me encourage you, while you’re in the process, to learn a bit about jazz harmony and voice leading. There’s plenty of knowledge that’s available on the topic both in print and online. This Wikipedia article is a good place to start.

* HORNS. Adding a sax or trumpet to a tune, or even using that tune to showcase a horn player, does not automatically result in jazz.

* TUNES. Jazz is not a matter of the song that’s played but of how it’s interpreted. Playing “In the Mood” or “Take the A Train” doesn’t mean that a band is playing jazz. It means they’re playing melodies and chord changes that were written in the Big Band Era, but stylistically, the way a tune is handled might be closer to a polka than to jazz.

I could easily add to the above list, but what I’ve written is enough to get the idea across. Again, though, the topic of what is and isn’t jazz is prone to subjectivity. It’s safe to say that at some point, a piece of music–or rather, how that piece gets interpreted–crosses a jazz/non-jazz line. But different people, including and especially jazz musicians, will have different ideas about where that line lies.

That’s one reason why I don’t work myself into a lather over whether, for example, the stuff that Kenny G. puts out is jazz. Does it really matter? Kenny’s music may not be my personal cup of tea, but I have a hunch that if you hired the guy for a standards gig, he’d make it through the evening just fine. As it stands, what he does for a living beats delivering pizzas.

As for the debate over what is and isn’t jazz, a more fruitful question to ask is, do you like what you hear? Do you like what you’re playing? Then enjoy it and don’t worry too much about defining it. It may or may not be jazz, but good music is good music no matter what you call it.

July 10, 2010 by
Filed Under: Band, Christian Music, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

From Storm–Some Musings on My 54th Birthday

Today dawned clear and blue, the sky braided with jet contrails and accented with just enough clouds to add drama. More clouds are moving in now, but I don’t mind. The forecast for “mostly cloudy” means we’ll be seeing at least some sunshine, and the temperature is above melting and supposedly will hover in that vicinity through the next ten days. One month away from the vernal equinox and just ten days from meteorological spring, we’re getting what may be our first hint of warmer weather ahead. And we all know what that means: Storm Season 2010. Yeah, baby! Bring it on!

Today is my 54th birthday. Sitting here drinking my coffee, with the sun slanting through the sliding glass doors, the birds flitting about the feeders out on the deck of my apartment, the cat sleeping on the floor, and my sweetheart, Lisa, sitting in her room working on her blogsite, I’m taking a pause to consider how simple and yet how marvelously rich my life really is.

I am a jazz saxophonist and a storm chaser, and those are the topics I mostly write about in this blog. But before them, and above all else, I am a lover and follower of Jesus. That is my true, deep, core identity–the one sure and certain thing that can never be taken from me. All else can be stripped away, and in time, it will be, whether bit by bit, like leaves falling in the autumn, or in an instant that catapults me into eternity.

Most of the things in life by which we define ourselves are temporary. That is not to say they’re unimportant. They’re very important. But they can be removed in a heartbeat–and yet, we are still ourselves. So obviously, our identity as individuals, our “I-ness,” goes much deeper than what we do. We choose our pursuits because, in a very real sense, our pursuits choose us according to God’s intentions for our lives; but the fundamental state of being ourselves–that is not something we choose. We are here by decree, not personal choice.

Right now, if I choose, I can set aside my saxophone for the rest of my life. I can stop chasing storms forever, never trek through another wetland in search of wild orchids and carnivorous plants, never again pick up my fishing pole, never savor another mugful of craft beer, never hike another trail, never write another word. Those are all things I love to do, but I can choose not to do them. The one thing I cannot do is stop being me. That choice is not mine to make.

So today, as I celebrate the family members and friends who bless my life…my vocation as a writer which I work hard to excel at…the interests that I pursue with passion and joy–as I consider all of these rich, wonderful, irreplaceable treasures in my life, I give thanks to the person who has been the source of them all, and who ordained that I should be here to enjoy them, fulfilling, in the process, a purpose that goes deeper than the things themselves, and a pleasure greater and more lasting than the works of my hands.

Thank you, my Lord Jesus. Thank you for everything. Thanks for making me who I am–even in those times when it has been so terribly painful to be me. Thank you for my beautiful lady, Lisa; for my sweet mother and wonderful siblings; for my Jonathan-David buddy, Duane, and other close, close friends who truly know me and love me, and whom I have the privilege of knowing and loving. Thank you for the feel and smell of Gulf moisture, for the rush of inflow winds across the prairie grass, for cloud turrets over the plains that build into turbulent, dark skies and mighty tornadoes. Thank you for gifting me to pour music through the bell of my saxophone, and for my father who gave me that horn as his legacy and is now with you. Thank you for the promise of seeing him again someday.

Thank you for more things than I can possibly say–things I know of, and things I will never know of, all provided by a great, unfathomably deep grace that runs like an invisible current through my life, unfelt but powerful, gentle but mighty, upholding me, carrying me, delivering me, guiding me, providing for me, shaping me. Truly, Lord, you have been a father to me, and a friend, and a brother, and a savior, and my Rock.

Thank you, above all, for You. Your unfailing love has changed me. You, Lord, are the source of my identity and my life. I am who I am because you are who you are. Thank you for the gift of a grateful heart. Grant me to be your faithful follower and friend for all of my life, for there is no one and nothing else whom I desire to worship with all my heart. You, and you alone, are worthy.

I love you, Jesus. On this, my 54th birthday, I thank you for the gift of my life, and the gift of yourself. Imperfect man that I am, warts and all, Lord, let me be a gift to you.

–Bob

February 18, 2010 by
Filed Under: Christian Spirituality & Inspiration, Church Worship, Life, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Band Link Up: A New Virtual Community for Musicians

Attention, jazz musicians and other purveyors of melody! Want to get in on the groundswell of an online community devoted to musicians? Then click on Band Link Up, look it over, take a minute to register, and then start posting and helping this unique labor of love to grow into a thriving virtual hangout for musicians, vocalists, singer/songwriters, and other artistes of every stripe.

I first got wind of it while installing a new operating system on my laptop. The tech who was assisting me, aka Jeff, and I got to chatting while waiting for a lengthy download to complete, and once we got onto the subject of music, things naturally progressed from there. Turns out that Jeff’s fiancee plays violin and loves to connect with other musicians. So as a gift to her, Jeff decided to put together an entire site dedicated to the purpose of helping musicians talk shop, trade ideas, share sound tracks and videos, and so forth.

I’ve already registered, and I’m encouraging all my musical friends and everyone who is actively involved in performance, recording, composing, or music education to do the same. Band Link Up shows great potential as a service to musicians. Please get on board and help make it happen.

February 2, 2010 by
Filed Under: Band, Christian Music, Church Worship, Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How to Practice the Saxophone: Four Key Principles That Can Help You Advance

What does it take to develop as a jazz saxophonist–or, for that matter, as any kind of instrumentalist?

Practice.

Right, I guess we all know that. But there is practice, and then there is effective practice. Practice that makes the best use of the time you’re investing. Practice which a year from now will have produced a year’s worth of results rather than a month’s worth of plodding the treadmill twelve times over.

Two things are paramount for effective saxophone woodshedding: what you practice and how you practice. In previous posts and on my jazz page, I’ve provided plenty of material that addresses the “what” part of that equation. In this article, I’m going to talk a bit about the “how” as it pertains to technical development.

Having spent time contemplating the things that have contributed to my own growth as a sax player, I’ve identified four key principles that I believe are important for developing technical proficiency. They are:

Isolate

Repeat

Connect

Memorize

These four principles work together to help you transition from the initial, heavily intellectual process that comes as you tackle new musical material, to a more intuitive approach that develops as you spend time mastering that material and making it your own.

Each of the principles could easily be an article in itself, so I’m not going to tackle them in depth. Right now, I just want to introduce you to the concepts.

Isolate

Whether you’re learning a new scale, practicing patterns, hashing out a lick, moving around the circle of fifths, or memorizing a Charlie Parker solo, the way to approach musical material is in increments.

Think of how you eat your food. You’d never stick an entire steak in your mouth and try to swallow it whole. (You wouldn’t, would you?) No, you cut off manageable, bite-size pieces which you take your time to chew. The same idea applies to working on music: bite-size is best.

Pick groups of notes and repeat them till they lay well under your fingers. In particular, isolate problem areas and focus on them, oiling them with repetition until they’re working smoothly. Work out which alternate fingerings work best in a given situation. If you’re playing in the key of F#, for example, you may find yourself using the bis, one-four, and side fingerings for A# almost consecutively as the context for your approach to the note A# changes.

START SLOW. Concentrate on how evenly you connect the notes, not how fast you can play them. Once you’re playing a note group accurately, comfortably, and consistently, then speed up a notch or two, and continue to increase your speed till you’re playing at high velocity. If you find yourself hitting a speed where you start fumbling and misfiring, then slow down. The point isn’t to play fast, but to play masterfully. Fast will follow.

Repeat

Repetition is woven into the first principle of isolation. You isolate a group of notes or even just two notes in order to repeat, repeat, repeat them, often enough to drill them into your muscle memory. Since I’ve already written a post on repetition, there’s no need for me to–ahem–repeat what I’ve already said. Go read the article.

Connect

Once you’re playing a group of notes fluently, add a note or two in front of it or behind it. Or work on the next group of notes until you’re playing it as fluently as you were playing the first, then connect the two groups.

In the process of focusing on the second group, you may find that you’ve lost a bit of ground with the first group. That’s okay. Go back to the first group and smooth it out. The point is, you work on small units of material, then you work on connecting them to create something larger–to which you will, in turn, connect still more material.

Often you’ll encounter a sticking point between the last note or two in one note group and the first couple of notes in the group that follows. That juncture should become a new area to isolate and work out.

If this sounds like a tedious process, it can be, but it’s also a very profitable one. And not all groups of notes carry equal weight. Some come more easily; others are more challenging. Run toward the challenges, not from them.

Memorize

As long as you’re depending on the paper to tell you what to play, the music you’re working on isn’t really yours. I’m not referring to extended pieces of music where a chart is mandatory, but to scales, licks, patterns…to the building blocks of technique and the language of jazz improvisation. Memorization is an indispensable part of the jazz saxophonist’s toolkit.

The whole point of all this isolating, repeating, and connecting is to move the music off the printed page and into your head and your fingers. So at the very beginning of the process, make a point of looking away from the sheet music. Consult it as freely as you need to, but remember that your goal is to wean yourself from it. When you’re in mid-flight on the bridge to “Cherokee” on your alto sax, you had better be thoroughly acquainted with the keys of Ab, F#, E, and D, because the rhythm section is not going to pause while you look them up in your Larry Teal workbook.

Memorize everything. Tunes. Chord changes. Scales, arpeggios, circular root movements…everything you can possibly cram into your gray matter and drill by repetition into your muscle memory.

One last thing…

Think about what you’re doing. Engage your mind in the process. If you’re working on a digital pattern, consider not just what you’re playing, but also how you can use it with various chords or chord progressions. Think about how you might switch up the rhythm of a lick to create a different effect. You can build all the saxophone technique you want to, but ultimately it’s your brain, not your horn, that converts the raw material into actual music.

That’s it for today. If you enjoyed this post and would like to read more helpful articles on playing the sax, or perhaps find a jazz sax solo transcription to hash out, see my jazz page.

Practice hard–and have fun!

January 20, 2010 by
Filed Under: Band, Christian Music, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Christmas Meditation on Jesus

Can it really be that I’ve experienced 53 Christmases?

Magical Christmases of my childhood, filled with anticipation and Santa Claus and toys. Conspiratorial Christmases of my older boyhood, wherein, having been initiated into the truth about Santa, I now assisted my parents in the clandestine placement of gifts under the tree. Teenage Christmases, tinged with both family warmth and family struggles. So many Christmases.

As I write, I’m wrestling with a nasty chest cold and am not in the frame of mind to write a lengthy, well-worded post. So I thought I’d share something with you from the past.

The following is something I wrote two years ago on Christmas Eve, 2007, in my MySpace blog. Many things have changed since then. Significantly, my beautiful best friend, Lisa, has entered my life, and I am no longer alone. But the essence of what I had to share back then hasn’t changed, not for me and very likely not for you, my reader. Without wasting more words, then, I give you…


Christmas Eve. As an older single male, age fifty-one and counting, I’m spending it alone.

I would like to say that in reality, I am not alone—and really, that is the case. My Lord is with me. Jesus.

But when it comes to polishing off a large bowl of chili (heated to a well-seasoned glow by a sub-lethal dose of Dave’s Insanity Sauce), followed by a generous helping of spaghetti, all designed to take the edge off a bottle of 9 percent ABV old ale and another bottle of 11.5 percent Trappist ale…well, the work has been strictly mine. No one sits with me in my humble, though comfortable, apartment to make supper and the partaking of craft brew a shared effort. I am by myself—as are many who will read these words.

Yet, as I have said, He is here. Here in these modest digs of a solitary, middle-aged male. And because He is here with me, I trust He is also there with you, wherever you are, whatever your circumstances may be. Some of you are grieving the loss of a loved one. Others are simply experiencing, like me, another “single” Christmas Eve by yourself. You have friends, and if you’re fortunate, you have family, and you’re thankful. But there’s still something missing, isn’t there?

It’s all right. He is here with you and me. Emmanuel, “God with us.” And in a strange way, those of us who feel sorrow, or loneliness, or a poignant emptiness in this Season of Light, may be closest of all to the heart and soul of what Christmas is truly about.

For you see, that little baby who was born into the lowliest of circumstances two thousand years ago didn’t come for the sake of inspiring cozy traditions, or warm exchanges of gifts by the fireside, or happy family meals. No. Those things are wonderful, and I wouldn’t detract from them for anything. But their absence in the lives of so many of us lies closer to the reason Jesus was born. He came not because this world is so wonderful, but because it was, and is, so broken. He came for those of us who long for a place called “home.” He came for the lonely, for the disenfranchised, for less-than-perfect you and me who know firsthand the meaning of loss, and tears, and struggle; who long for something more in life. He came to give us that “something more.” He came because he knows how deeply we long—and need—to be truly, safely, securely, and lastingly loved.

I write with all the freedom that a couple bottles of high-potency ale can inspire, tempered by my editorial instincts and guided by my heart, which is consumed with Him. But who is He? In this day of well-publicized “new discoveries” of the same tired old heresies that have sought for centuries to recreate a more convenient Jesus, the marketplace of ideas abounds with options.

I just Googled the name “Jesus,” and on the first page of search results I find the following:

* three full-color graphic images of Jesus

* a Wikipedia article

* a “Christmas Jesus Dress Up”

* a YouTube clip of Jesus singing “I Will Survive”

* an online Catholic encyclopedia article on Jesus

* a  BBC news article that begins, “A statue of the infant Jesus on display near Miami in Florida is being fitted with a Global Positioning System device after the original figurine was stolen.”

Clever, all very clever. But when you’re alone on Christmas Eve, cleverness doesn’t really cut it, does it? For so many of us who are by ourselves tonight, the one thing we long to know is that we’re really not alone. The older we get, the more that matters.

So perhaps, after we’ve wearied our clever minds exploring all the alternatives, the Jesus of the Bible really is what we’re looking for after all—because of all the gods available in today’s spiritual shopping mall, He is the only one who has come looking for us in a way that is consistent with someone who cares not about religion, but about us. To  be born in our midst and commit a lifetime to experiencing everything about the human condition, from inglorious start to brutal finish, certainly smacks of a genuine and very personal investment.

Christmas is God’s way of acknowledging what all of us instinctively know (though we try so hard to argue otherwise): that this world is fractured, splintered. That we are lonely. That we are lost. That we long for something more.

Christmas is God’s way of saying, “My loved ones have lost me, and I have lost them. And that is unacceptable to me.”

This Christmas…you are not alone. I am not alone.

Jesus came for us.

If you’ve screwed up your relationships, Jesus came for you.
If you’ve been sexually abused, Jesus came to clothe you with dignity and hope.
If you’re lonely, He came to give you a place at the family table.
If you’ve been betrayed or abandoned, He came to hold you gently with arms that will not be removed.
If you’re_______, He came to fill in the blank with something better than emptiness.

This Christmas…we are deeply loved.

So to you, my friends, however you may believe and whatever your circumstances may be…

May He fill this time with the reality, the glory, and the comfort of Himself…

Have a blessed Christmas.

Storm

December 24, 2009 by
Filed Under: Church Worship, Life, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to Master Circular Breathing on the Saxophone

It has been so many years since I first learned how to circular breathe that I rarely give the matter a thought anymore. It occurs to me, though, that to many sax players, circular breathing remains a technique shrouded in mystery.

There is, after all, something about it that appears almost miraculous. Most saxophonists would be challenged to hold a tone for thirty seconds. So how on earth did saxophonist Vann Burchfield manage to sustain a single note for 47 minutes, 6 seconds, in 2003, beating the previous record set by Kenny G of 45 minutes, 47 seconds? (An even more interesting question is, why did he do it? But the point of this article is to discuss the mechanics behind such a feat, not the psychology.)

Sensationalism aside, circular breathing is a useful technique with practical benefits for those who add it to their tool kit. But how does one go about doing so?

Begin by understanding the basics of how circular breathing works.

The principle is fairly simple (which is not to say, easy to master). You support your tone with air from your lungs in the usual way. However, when your air supply begins to dwindle, you store a quick reservoir of air in your cheeks. Then, closing off the back of your throat, you sustain your tone by contracting your cheeks while simultaneously–and very quickly–replenishing your lungs with air by breathing in through your nose.

This accomplished, you reopen the back of your throat and once again blow from your lungs. Repeat the procedure as often as necessary.

It sounds tricky, and it is at first, but the essentials really aren’t any great secret. Like any discipline, though, circular breathing takes time and persistence to master. Once you’ve got the hang of it, you’ll find that you’re able to continue playing indefinitely, spinning out lines for as long as you please without having to break the flow.

Here’s a simple, step-by-step process to get you started.

1. Get in touch with your air reservoir. How do you do this? Simple: take a breath and then puff out your cheeks. Now continue to puff out your cheeks while breathing in and out through your nose. Note how the back of your throat automatically closes in order for you to accomplish this, sealing off a reservoir of air in your mouth that keeps your cheeks “inflated” while your lungs continue their normal breathing rhythm.

2. Repeat the above procedure. But this time, blow a controlled stream of air through your lips, allowing the reservoir of air in your cheeks to empty itself like a leaky balloon. When you start losing pressure in your cheeks, then–without interrupting the air flow through your lips–breathe in through your nose and then release the air from your lungs into your mouth, replenishing the reservoir of air. Then close off your throat again. Continue doing this till it seems easy (which will probably happen fairly quickly because it is easy, much easier to do than it is to describe!).

The objective is to maintain a steady air stream through your lips while opening and closing your throat to replenish your air reservoir.

3. Till this point, the focus has been on getting a feel for the air reservoir in your mouth/cheeks. The reservoir is key, but in circular breathing, you’ll only use it for the second it takes to fill your lungs with air, after which your throat remains open and you blow in the normal fashion.

So in this exercise, blow a steady stream of air through your lips, allowing the pressure to puff out your cheeks, but support the air stream from your lungs. Keep it going for five or ten seconds, until your lungs begin to empty. Then close off your throat and keep the air stream moving by using the air in your mouth reservoir, as in exercise number two. Simultaneously, inhaling through your nostrils, fill your lungs back up with air. Then open your throat back up and blow from your lungs once again.

4. Once you can comfortably and consistently perform the above exercise, you’ll have gotten your arms around the essentials of circular breathing. At this point, you are in fact performing the technique. Now it’s just a matter of transferring it to your instrument.

When I was first learning to circular breathe, I found it helpful to work with the soprano saxophone. Assuming a conservative reed/mouthpiece combination, the soprano uses less air than the larger horns, making the learning curve easier. If you’ve got a soprano sax, I highly recommend that you practice circular breathing on it before you try it on your alto or tenor.

Start by seeing how long you can sustain a single tone in the middle register of your instrument. The note C on the staff works great. Avoid extremely high and low notes for the time being. Concentrate on making a smooth transition between lung support and reservoir support, striving for minimal pitch wavering, change in volume, and certainly break in tone when closing and reopening the back of your throat.

From here on, gaining proficiency is just a matter of focused, self-analytical practice. However, there are…

A few things to be aware of.

These involve the way you use your mouth reservoir to sustain a tone.

In the above exercises, you’ve had your cheeks puffed out and allowed the air to leak out of them in a controlled stream. Once you start blowing through a mouthpiece, you’ll find that things aren’t quite so easy. The air goes at a faster rate, and you need to contract your cheeks like a bellows in order to provide enough air pressure to sustain a tone on the horn.

Ultimately, of course, you want to dispense with puffing out your cheeks as much as possible. Cheek-puffing is handy as a preliminary learning device, but it’s ruinous on intonation and good breath support. As you spend time refining your circular breathing technique, you’ll find that you can exert air pressure from the back of your throat by lifting your tongue forward. I don’t know how better to describe what I’m getting at, but I’m quite certain that you’ll discover it for yourself if you continue to practice circular breathing.

Once you’re able to sustain a single tone with reasonable control, try playing a scale using circular breathing. From there, try a favorite lick. Circular breathing while playing lines is challenging at first, but once you’ve acquired the ability, you’ll find that moving notes are actually more forgiving than long tones. They tend to mask the unwelcome waver that often attends the shift in air support.

And that, my friends, is that. My job is done. Yours is just beginning. Grab your horn and get started.

September 10, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Christian Music, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Finding Jazz in the World Around Us

My sweet lady, Lisa, and I took a trip to Meijer Gardens earlier this week. Today, sifting through the photos I took as our tram ride wound along the curvy path through the world-class outdoor sculpture garden, and afterward as we strolled through the remarkable plantings in the children’s garden, I’m struck–as I often am–at how the elements of music are woven into the very fabric of our world.

Jazz is all around us. Form, space, unity, diversity, rhythm, dynamics, improvisation, color, texture, contrast, creativity–whether in music, nature, speech, literature, art, human relationships, or above all, our relationship with God, you’ll find the same qualities working together to create beauty and interest.

Consider the qualities of space and contrast. In a jazz solo, the notes you don’t play are as important as the ones you do. Too much clutter, too many notes in endless procession, ceases to communicate. As in writing and conversation, well-placed punctuation–held notes, brief pauses, and longer rests–helps to shape musical ideas and gives them breathing room. Yet the furious density of artfully placed double-time passages creates another form of color. Both space and density can be overdone; it’s the contrast between the two that helps raise a solo from the doldrums to vitality.

The massive red iron piece titled “Aria” is a great visual representation of the interrelationship between music and art. The piece has a rhythm to it, shape, space, contrast–all the aspects of a well-crafted jazz improvisation.

Aria: like a jazz solo cast in metal.

Aria: like a jazz solo cast in metal.

Here are a few more images from the sculpture garden and children’s garden that remind me of music and jazz.

What musical elements can you detect? Space? Sequence? Color? Dynamics?

What musical elements can you detect? Space? Sequence? Color? Dynamics?

This landscape sculpture creates unity out of contrast and serenity out of movement.

This landscape sculpture creates unity out of contrast and serenity out of movement.

If only I could play a solo as creative, spontaneous, and cohesive as this!

If only I could play a solo as creative, spontaneous, and cohesive as this!

Lisa: the beautiful song God has brought to my life!

Lisa: the beautiful song God has brought to my life!

August 16, 2009 by
Filed Under: Christian Music, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Life, Music, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Loudest Sax Player Ever

My friend and fellow musician Dave DeVos once told me, “You are the loudest sax player I’ve ever known.”

His words weren’t a compliment, just a statement of fact tinged with a slight mix of incredulity and annoyance. I’m a very loud sax player, much louder than I realize. As the old cliche says, I don’t know my own strength.

Of course I can play softly, but soft is not my default mode. Part of that is attributable to my horn, which is an old Conn 6M “Ladyface” that is very good at translating the air I move through it into immense volume levels. Another part is due to my mouthpiece, a Jody Jazz classic #8. But I think the main reason I’m a loud player is directly linked to the guy behind the horn. I just seem to have a knack for massive sound output.

I wasn’t always a loud player. I entered my freshman year in college a quiet young saxophonist. My sound at the time was styled after Tom Strang, a local alto man who owned a jazz bar in Ada called the Foxhead Inn. Tom had a smooth, mellow sound, very pleasing to the ears. He was not a loud sax player.

As an early influence, Tom’s tone pointed me toward a somewhat Desmondesque approach, not exactly the kind of robust Cannonball sound that could melt the wax in a listener’s ears at 100 feet. It was more a kind of foofy-foof-foof tone–subdued and, I thought, pleasantly sophisticated.

It was this mellow, sedate sound that I brought with me to the student big band at Aquinas College, where I sat under the august directorship of jazz professor Bruce Early. I was assigned to the first alto chair, and my lack of experience was such that I felt eminently qualified to fill the position. Clearly word of my abilities on the sax had preceded me, and Bruce had simply placed me where he knew I belonged. First chair. It was inevitable.

I’ll never forget my first awakening to the possibility that maybe I wasn’t all that and a supersized order of fries. The band was playing through some tune I’ve long since forgotten, and in the middle of the chart there was space for an alto solo. Cool. A chance for me to show my stuff, give Bruce a taste of my chops. I launched into the solo. Foofy-foof-foof, I played, subtly, while the rhythm section whanged away.

Bruce stared at me. “Play louder,” he said.

Ah. Louder. Okay then. Foof-foof-foofy-foof! I declared, in a volume that could almost be heard from ten feet away.

Bruce’s stare became a glare. “Louder!” he barked.

My gosh, what did this guy want? Here I was, foofing as loudly as ever I had foofed, and Bruce was calling for more.

I returned his glare with a desperate glance.

Foof? I played. Foofy-foof!

I was trying, but I quickly trended toward the softer, cocktail lounge volume that I was used to.

That did it for Bruce. “BLOW!!!!” he yelled. “For crying out loud, BLOOOWWWWW!!!!!!”

Some of the more seasoned musicians snickered, and my face went red as a beet. Hell’s bells. Fine, if it was volume Bruce wanted, I’d give him volume. And I did. I had a lot to learn about embouchure and tone production, but at that point I instinctively dipped into the raw essentials, filled my lungs with air, and blew my ever-loving cheeks off.

From that time on, while Bruce yelled at me for any number of things, my volume level wasn’t among them. He never again complained that I was playing too softly. Nor has anyone else, for that matter. Not ever. I’ve played with highly amplified blues bands and church worship teams and outblown them without using a microphone. I’ve been asked plenty of times to turn it down a bit, please. But no one has ever come to me and said, “Could you play louder? I can barely hear you.”

Just ask Dave. He’ll be glad to tell you, as soon as his ears stop ringing.

June 22, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Christian Music, Church Worship, Entertainment, Humor, Jazz, Life, Music, Nature, Relationships, Saxophone, Tornadoes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Using Sequence in Jazz Improvisation

Okay, campers, listen up: it’s time to talk about…

SEQUENCE.

Yes, sequence. A fundamental building block of music, and a very handy device in the improviser’s toolkit.

What is sequence? There’s nothing mysterious about it. Sequence is simply the repetition of a melodic idea beginning with different tones. Sequence can be diatonic within a key, and many scale exercises consist of scale material organized sequentially. Sequence can also be an exact, interval-for-interval repetition of a motif (or lick), which often–indeed, almost inevitably–will take you out of key.

The beauty of sequence lies in the coherency it brings to a solo. Sequence is a means of organizing melodic material in a way that the listener can immediately relate to. In the midst of a free-form flow of melody, sequence provides a sense of logic, a momentary theme for the ear to latch onto and follow through one or more permutations.

In its simple, diatonic form, sequence creates interest as you navigate your way through a single scale, chord, or ii-V7-I cadence. But sequence can also be used to take you out of key The strength of repetition has a way of making “wrong” notes sound right–a quality that becomes increasingly important when you’re playing tunes with little in the way of harmonic interest. When you’re in the midst of a two-chord jam, diatonic scales get boring pretty quickly. You’ve got to create energy. How? By using chromaticism–tones outside the key center that add color. Sequence is a great way to do so in an organized fashion.

Now, one picture is worth a thousand words, right? “Don’t tell me, show me,” is what you’re thinking. Relax. I’m not going to leave you hanging without a few examples. I’ll provide some material you can practice in an upcoming post. Right now, I just want to introduce the concept of sequence and whet your eagerness to get a few exercises under your fingers.

“But I want to start noooowwww!!!”

Patience, Grasshopper. It’s Saturday afternoon, it’s spring, and I want to get out and enjoy the day. Stay tuned, though. I’ll be back with a few goodies. Promise.

March 28, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Christian Music, Entertainment, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Michigan in January: Cold Snap and Hot Music

The single-digit temperatures are here at last, and it looks like they’ll be staying for a few days.

Tonight the mercury is supposed to dip down to ten below zero. That, my friends, is cold. Tomorrow, the projected high–and we”re using that word, high, loosely here–is seven degrees. Think twice before wearing your thong swimsuit to the beach. Particularly if you’re a guy. (For that matter, if you’re a guy, think twice about it any time of year; better still, just don”t do it.)

On Friday, we see the kind of warming trend that puts a smile on the faces of Michiganders everywhere as the temperatures skyrocket up to nine degrees. And by Saturday, we”re feeling downright tropical at a steamy twenty degrees.

This is most assuredly January in Michigan. It”s the month of the Wolf Moon, an apt name if ever there was one. At night, as the temperatures plummet and the stars gleam like ice chips in the arctic sky, you can hear the howls echoing eerily across the frozen lakes. It”s a haunting, wild sound that you never forget, emanating from ice fishermen who are freezing their butts off. What those guys are doing out there in temperatures like these is beyond me.

nOkay, so enough about cold weather. How about a word on a hot CD? My friend Ed Englerth‘s album Restless Ghost has been nominated for a Jammie Award. The Jammies are the regional equivalent of the Grammies–not as prestigious, to be sure, but not lacking in glamor and promotional value. It would be great if Ed scored, particularly since I played on a number of songs on the CD. It really is a great album, and Ed is a terrific songwriter and lyricist who deserves much wider recognition.

January 14, 2009 by
Filed Under: Band, Christian Music, Life, Music, Recording, Weather
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