Sax and Wedge: Maybe This Year

This afternoon I have a gig with Paul Lesinski at the Amway Grand. I’m looking forward to it, but it indisposes me to chase what could be Michigan’s first round of severe weather this afternoon. Practically speaking, the “storm” and “horn” parts of Stormhorn sometimes conflict with each other. I can’t do two things at once; I can’t play a gig and chase storms, and when I post here about one subject, then the other half of my readership gets left out.

Yet I view the two interests as connected in spirit, to such an extent that one of my life goals is to get some footage and/or photos of me playing my sax out on the Plains with a big wedge churning in the background. Given how active this April has been, maybe 2011 will be the year when I fulfill that ambition. I almost always bring my horn with me on my long-distance chases for just that reason (plus, yeah, I like to get in some sax practice when I can). The one notable occasion when I left it home last year was on May 22, a milemarker in my chase career. Unfortunately, the vehicle was so packed that there was no room for the horn, and given how events unfolded out there by Roscoe, it was probably just as well.

Today my buddy Bill is chasing down in Arkansas. Yesterday he filmed a large, violent wedge that hit the town of Vilonia. Round two today looks to be at least as bad, and I hope Bill stays safe. I don’t have a good feeling about what lies in store for the folks in that region. But I won’t be following any of the developments because I’ll be doing the other thing I love as much as storm chasing: playing my saxophone. This time of year the storm chaser in me has the edge over the musician, but once I’ve got my horn in my hands I forget everything else and just go with the flow of the music. Playing jazz is one of the most in-the-moment experiences a person can have, and I get tremendous satisfaction out of being a practitioner.

Afterwards maybe I’ll still get a crack at whatever weather shapes up. Probably not; today, such as it is, looks like it’ll play out on the eastern side of the state.  But I’ll take my gear with me to the gig just in case.

April 26, 2011 by
Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Life, Michigan, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Shake It Up, Baby!

“…Uh, huh! Twist and shooouuuut! C’mon, c’mon, c’mon baaybee! Let it all”…er, hi there! Didn’t know anyone was listening to me sing.

Heh, well, then…as long as you’re here, let’s go back to that first line of the tune:

“Shake it up baaybeee!”

Are you shakin’ it up?

I don’t mean on the dance floor, I mean in your sax practice. If your sessions in the woodshed are starting to seem a bit stale, maybe it’s time you shook up your routine with the injection of some new material. Really, you should always be working on something new, not just perfecting what you already know.

It may be the introduction of a new pattern or lick. It could be a new tune, or a memorized solo that you’re taking to a different key. Whatever it is you choose, tackling new material will sharpen your mental edge and pay dividends in your technique.

So don’t be afraid to shake it up. Yes, you want to polish up the stuff you’re presently working on, and of course you want to revisit older material to maintain it. But it’s important to challenge yourself with an influx of fresh ideas. How often? That’s up to you. There’s a point at which new material is no longer new. You may not have honed it to perfection, but you’ve basically got it down. It’s time to cast your eyes on something else and move what you’ve been working on to the latter part of your practice session. Sure, you can warm up with familiar material, but then move on to newer stuff. Doing so will not only broaden your horizons, but also feed into the things you’ve been working on. And it will ensure that a year from now, you’ve got a year’s worth of woodshedding under your belt, not just a week’s worth times fifty-two.

September 12, 2010 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , ,

Sax Practice: A Chromatic Motif on the Cycle of Dominants

If you want to develop fluency at voice-leading and switching keys, cycle exercises are mandatory and the cycle of fifths is supreme. Taking dominant patterns and licks around the cycle of fifths is a longstanding habit of mine. As with a lot of musical disciplines, at first I delayed, I kicked, I resisted tackling this one for a long time because, well, it was work. Finally I decided to buck up and eat my spinach, and today the circle of fifths is a key component of my practice regimen, particularly for V7 chords.

After all, the dominant seventh, more than any other chord, defines the key center; it’s the chord that screams “resolve me!” So it pays for sax players and other jazz improvisers to consistently drill their ears and their fingers with exercises that can build their facility with dominant seventh chords.

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Here’s one such exercise that I’ve been having fun with lately. Click on it to enlarge it. There’s nothing mysterious about this little motif; I could pull it off easily in a number of keys right where I stand without making a practice issue of it. I’ve practiced enough related material that my fingers already know the way. But spotlighting the figure makes it likelier that I’ll use it in my solos; it ensures that my technique will follow me into any key; and, as with all cycle of fifth exercises, it helps me hear how the pattern lays out in root movements by fifth.

For each dominant chord, the exercise ascends chromatically from the ninth to the third, and then from the root to the seventh. I’ve set it in triplets, but you’ll want to experiment with different rhythms.  I might add, this little motif sounds great in blues solos.

No need for me to say more–except, of course, to pester you to check out more exercises on my jazz page. Have fun practicing!

March 27, 2010 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,