Choosing a new sax

A student of mine recently sent me a mail about choosing a new saxophone. In my research i found this very useful site on the web.

http://www.shwoodwind.co.uk/Reviews/Pro_saxes.htm

shwoodwind.co.uk is an excellent site with lots of information and reviews as well as sound :-) advice on buying the right sax.

blanksheetmusic.net

As an addition to the previous post here is the link for another useful site regarding free score making tools. This online tool doesn't actually allow you to input notes but is a program for setting up and printing your own blank score layouts. It's quick and easy to choose any number of staves, clefs, keys and lines by clinking on the relevant icons. It even comes with a flash tutorial to help you out.

www.blanksheetmusic.net

Summertime

Ok, so this is it. It's been a while since Ive managed to post because of my hectic schedual the last month or so. Now finally summer is here - at least in India that is - and I'm back to working on my music. First up is composing as I really would like to be playing new material next year. I'm not very good with notating scores on the computer so I also decided to write up all my existing pieces. Less complaints now hopefully about my writing from other musicians!

Anyway, was browsing the web and found this very useful site for free music software. www.making-music.blogspot.com has an extensive list of what is available out there including free notation software. I downloaded Finale notepad 2008 and was quite impressed. It certainly has it's limitations and is a bit fiddly (took me an hour to get 4 bars per line) but otherwise it's a good program available for free.

Doug McKenzie Videos

As I said in my Tweet there is even more to the Doug McKenzie jazz piano site than first meets the eye. What I have most liked - (apart from the hundreds of audio and midi files!) are the videos. They come with detailed annotations and explanations of the techniques used, as well as the visual help of being able to see the hands or notes as they play. Really top stuff.

Doug McKenzie Jazz Piano

Thanks to Harish, sax player from chennai for this link. Wow, I don't think Ive ever seen so much good stuff for jazz piano in one place. Doug McKenzie's site contains literally hundreds of downloadable WMA midi files, videos and audio as well as transciptions and explainations that go along with the audio. It could take years to go through all of this!

http://www.bushgrafts.com/jazz/home.htm

Ear training software

Following an evening in which I really got quite hooked on the various ear training tools in Band in a Box I decided to look on the net for similar software.
Compiled by Jimmy Ruska the link below has many programs, both freeware, online and commercial.

http://www.jimmyr.com/blog/7_Musicians_Free_Ear_Training.php#3

www.freejazzinstitute.org

Can't believe Ive never seen this before. Super useful site for jazz musicians to discuss and share all things related to jazz theory and analysis. Try the link below for a more detailed description of the site:

http://www.freejazzinstitute.org/aboutfji.php

Cornelius Bumpus

Watching a video of Steely Dan's the other night I was enjoying the solos of tenor sax player Cornelius Bumpus - Chris Potter was playing in the same group but somehow these touched me more. Wanting to find out more about him I googled and found out that sadly he had died in 2004 of a heart attack. Fortunately www.corneliusbumpus.com is still there and has lots of information, links to buy his cd's as well as mp3 preview clips.

Indigo Jazz festival Bangalore

We were very happy to be invited to play again this year at the Indigo jazz festival in Bangalore. Here is a review of the two day event by the Hindu's excellent jazz writer JAZZEBEL.

http://www.thehindu.com/mp/2009/02/09/stories/2009020951240300.htm

Mixing up scales

Just a little exercise I found to practise major scales a little differently. Ascend in the normal way but coming down change the 2nd and root, to the corresponding degrees of the scale a semi tone above. ie C B A G F E D# C#. Continue by ascending in the new scale you have now reached and apply the same idea. Once this is completed in all keys on the descent try changing the last 3(4, 5 etc) notes to the scale chromatically above.

This was an idea i wanted to try in order to improve my fluency and flexibility of changing from one scale to another during soloing. Lets see if it works! I see there are many more possibilities to this and will post some more ideas when I find them.

All about jazz forum

Ive been following several music forums by RSS feed for some time including the excellent saxontheweb. Somehow I had missed the forum at allaboutjazz.com but its another very good resource with alot of reading on just about every area of jazz possible.

http://forum.saxontheweb.net/
http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/

Famous Jazz Quotes

“A jazz musician is not a jazz musician when he or she is eating dinner or when he or she is with his parents or spouse or neighbors. He’s above all a human being . . . the true artform is being a human being.” - Herbie Hancock

Here's a nice idea by Matthew Mullenweg, a founding developer of WordPress who has added a section to his site dedicated to famous jazz quotations. He has collected quotes from different sources and categorised them by musician. Apart from the more humorous ones, some of them are very beautiful and I think there is plenty to be learnt from these too.

“My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being … When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups … I want to speak to their souls.” - John Coltrane

http://ma.tt/jazzquotes/

Guitar and Drum Trainer

For practising aebersolds and other such play-alongs this is a must have program.Ive been using the freeware v2 for years and now have been trying the latest version. It easily and quickly allows you to slow or speed up recordings as well as change pitch with little noticeable breakup of the audio. On top of that it has a great EQ which can even be used to filter out the drums. Available for download is version 4 which comes as a 15 day trial version.

http://renegademinds.com/Products/GuitarDrumTrainer/tabid/65/Default.aspx

Piano Practise

Being a part time pianist but still having gigs to play, I needed to find effective exercises to help me develop my jazz playing - particularly finger exercises to aid my soloing. The two books that I have found most useful are the well known Hanon "Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises" and Alfred Cortot's "Rational Principles of Pianoforte Technique". Both books, particularly the latter, cover well beyond the limited scope of my technique but nonetheless have offered many great exercises. The Cortot book in particular is very thorough and covers an entire range of techniques under the categories listed below. In fact I understand that by practicing these entire areas one should be able to master any technical problems!

1. Equality, independence and mobility of fingers.
2. Passing under of the thumb (scales - arpeggios).
3. Double notes and polyphonic playing.
4. Extensions.
5. Wrist technique, execution of chords.

The Hanon is in comparison a little more down to earth. I started adapting the exercises to a more "jazz" approach by firstly playing them in every key and then adding various rhythmical exercises to them. As they are laid out in endless 16th notes playing them with varying accents and rhythmical patterns made them alot more interesting to play. I took this further by practicing them on the saxophone too. In addition to this, varying the placement of the metronome was also a good exercise.

For more information check out the articles below. The Hanon seems widely available but the Cortot looks like it’s out of print and hard to find.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Cortot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virtuoso_Pianist_In_60_Exercises

Youtube Ballads

Herbie Hancock has always been one of my favourite players. Here are a couple of truly beautiful ballads, one solo and the other featuring the great Joe Henderson. Someone to watch over me, is in particular quite breathtaking, the musical colours and textures Herbie creates, great examples of the things I like most about his piano playing. Reminds me of his poignant Stella by starlight solo with Ron Carter and Tony Williams on Miles Davis famous 1964 live recording; something else to check out too!

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qf6tphTKuA&NR=1

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=aW-wIFZuYgg&feature=related

More mind Scales

Due to a cyclone in our area that put off the power for a week I was forced to find alternate ways of practising in the evening as playing in the dark was getting quiet difficult. Since I couldn't afford time off as some gigs were approaching I decided to spend some time reviewing pieces and applying some of the visualisation techniques I had mentioned before. Although I was not able to do for long periods of time because my concentration wouldn't allow it, I was really very happy with the results. Using a metronome to avoid 'cheating' I went through scale choices in my head in various combinations and speeds. Once I got back to the sax the results were quite noticeable and I already felt more comfortable particularly in tricky spots of certain pieces. Working this way highlights those weaknesses very quickly. Now I just have to apply this more often even when the laptop is available for practise!

Jazztrumpetsolos.com

The other night I was transcribing Lee Morgan's solo on Moanin' and wanting to check my work I found jazztrumpetsolos.com. It's a really nice site with 98 transcribed solos which you can download in pdf, as well as listen online to the first 30 seconds of the solo while watching the score scroll down. Thankfully I found this site because the solo was more challenging than I first thought!

Away from the Sax 2

I often like to work on things away form the sax, i.e. transcribing and rhythm work, but recently in order to make this work more organised and productive I started making a more in depth list of things I can do. This is particularly for situations where I would like to study or practise and I am not able to, or it is not appropriate to start playing my horn.

1. Rhythmic work: This is very important part of my work and I try to do at least 15mins a day. It can be done anywhere. Just need a metronome and something to tap on.
2. Transcriptions: I try to do both writing things down and learning things purely by ear. Of the two I find the latter more difficult yet more satisfying and beneficial for my general work in music. Writing things helps both my ear and as well as my written rhythmic vocabulary.
3. Visualising chords and scales: I still am slower at mentally picturing certain scales and chords so I work on seeing these as quick as the "easier keys". Some times I also write out scales to help this, and also visualise playing them on the sax.
4. Singing or humming melodic and rhythmic ideas over tunes: I use aebersolds to tryout certain rhythmical and melodic ideas. Personally, if I can't sing an idea in my head I can not play it on the sax so this is very beneficial work.
5. Listening: This influences me alot and the more I listen, the better my musical vocabulary. I try sometimes to do a more focused listening where I will only focus on certain ideas in a piece, i.e. bass line or piano comping etc.
6. Composing: I would like to compose more, and do have periods when I do alot, but I see that if I could do a little bit each day I would go alot further. Now I try to keep a book that when an idea comes, even if it's a small phrase I write it down with the hope that I may eventually use it.
7. Memorising tunes: My aim here is to memorise and understand a chord structure of a tune in such a way that I can then also transpose it into other keys.

This list is clearly not exhaustive and all these are very much work in progress, so I would be happy for any comments on further additions and ideas.

Bopland.org

I saw this site while browsing the jazz improvisation forum on saxontheweb. Bopland.org is a free database for musicians. It contains hundreds of licks over common jazz progressions. You can browse the licks there by entering the desired progression, as well as entering your own licks that you have transcribed. A great idea for a collective internet resource.

stevekahn.com

I stumbled apon this site completely by accident when looking for the lead sheet of a great tune called Descarga Khanalonious by guitarist Steve Kahn. Firstly I was pleasantly surpirsed to find it on his website, but even better was that the website has a huge section dedicated to both transcriptions and analysys by Steve himself, as well as a section dedicated to Steve's own lead sheets and compositions. Compositions are also presented with a corresponding sound clip, and an analysis. Check out Kahn's Korner 1 and 2 for a veritable goldmine of great stuff to study.

http://www.stevekhan.com/