Tips for Woodwind Players

I found this nice article and free PDF to download from the Canadian Musician website. It's a series of articles on 'Tips for woodwind players' which includes everything from, embouchure to sound and rhythmic exercises. It even has an article on Carnatic saxophone which was quite a nice surprise. This is a really nice read so do check it out:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/33731898/Tips-for-Woodwind-Players

Health Benefits of playing the Saxophone

So here it is. Why we all play! OK, I'm joking but actually this is something I'd like to do some research on. What are the health benefits of playing the sax and what we can do for our bodies and mind to play better. More coming up on this subject:

http://www.jazzassassins.co.za/live-music/index.asp?q=health-benefits-of-playing-saxophone

Mortens Lessons

Twitter is increasingly becoming a useful resource these days. Even if you don't like to tweet i would definitely recommend following some of the jazz tweeters as there are plenty of interesting things to read and learn. Hopefully over the next days I'll make a list of the more interesting ones and post them here. For now here is another great site with video lessons by Norwegian musician Morten Faerestrand. Its mainly for guitar, but the lessons are very well explained and they are surely interesting and relevant for all musicians.

http://www.mortenslessons.com/

Altissimo Demystified

As small continuation on my last post on Altissimo. I found this nice article by
Dr. Dave Camwell originally written for the Saxophone Journal. It contains a huge amount of advice, practice methods and excercises; an excellent read for anyone hoping to improve in this area.

http://tinyurl.com/3ryafv6

Jalshaghar - Shiva on the mountains

Here is a clip from a recent concert by our world music group Jalshaghar. It was a great gig in Auroville with everyone in top form. Will be posting more clips as they come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnlrK33JwGs

Altissimo

I have been putting quite some work into this in recent months and finally some results were showing - well I had to look up alternate fingerings for notes C and above so something must be moving.

Here are some excellent charts with many alternatives for each notes and even comments regarding suitability for different saxophones:

http://www.wfg.woodwind.org/sax/sax_alt_4.html
http://www.wfg.woodwind.org/sax/sax_alt_5.html
http://www.wfg.woodwind.org/sax/sax_alt_6.html

Update:

Check out http://tamingthesaxophone.com/saxophone-altissimo. An excellent site and useful page not only with fingerings, but tips on how to reach these notes better. Looks like there is alot on this site. I need to look closer.

http://www.saxlessons.com/embouchure-2/the-altissimo-register/ Another good site to be explored.

I found this nice article by Dr. Dave Camwell originally written for the Saxophone Journal. It contains a huge amount of advice, practice methods and excercises; an excellent read for anyone hoping to improve in this area.

http://mattlangley.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Altissimo_Article_PDF.pdf

Top Jazz Blogs

You can never have enough Jazz Blogs. Here is a list of top jazz blogs ranked by various means. Unfortunately mine is missing so lets hope that this is remedied over time!

I'm going to have a look at some of them in the next days, and post my findings here regarding the more interesting ones.

http://www.invesp.com/blog-rank/Jazz

Embouchure - shifting the lip

I dont know how many players i asked over the years about this and never got a real answer. How much of the bottom lip do you tuck over the teeth? Why do i see all the modern players with the bottom lip stuck out? There are probably old posts on this very blog about this. Finally some very good answers and explainations from Doron Orenstein and educator George Garzone on the Best Saxophone Website ever.

This website is certainly living up to its name.

http://www.bestsaxophonewebsiteever.com/small-shift-of-the-lip-big-shift-in-the-sound/

Jazz in India

If your interested in Jazz in India you are going to really enjoy this site. At Bluerhythm's blog you can find a 1992 BBC documentary on Jazz in Bombay. Its absorbing stuff, especially if you play and enjoy jazz in India. Lots of well known names from the scene are there.

http://bluerhythm.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/bombay-and-jazz-a-documentary-1992/

Best Saxophone Website Ever

Well, this website kind of speaks for itself. Its absolutely fantastic and im glad to have found this, again via Twitter.

http://www.bestsaxophonewebsiteever.com/

Brilliant stuff!!

lynnbakerjazz.com

I came across this excellent site on Twitter. As well as information on Lynn Baker's work as a Jazz saxophonist and educator it features interesting articles on practising Jazz. I particularly like the blog, especially the article on "What I'm practicing". It makes a fascinating and insightful read.

You can find the page here and you can also follow Lynn baker on Twitter.

http://lynnbakerjazz.com/blog/?p=58#comment-2211
http://twitter.com/#!/lynnbakerjazz

African and Afro-Cuban rhythms

In my attempt to improve my playing in 6/8 and 12/8 I have been working quite hard recently on some African rhythms, particularly Bembe with its distinctive bell pattern.

Once i get a bit further down the road i will organise this better, but for now here are some useful links. The drummerworld one is particularly good and really offers alot of information on resources to improve your playing in this area. Song Trellis is also a fantastic resource for midi files and explanations on a huge number of African and Afro-Cuban rhythmic patterns.

http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65796
http://www.songtrellis.com/rhythmPage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJxRxXkFRlI&feature=related (Bembe played)
http://www.drumchat.com/showthread.php/african-bell-afro-caribbean-20045.html?s=b25cf944595f3c9f050d1906578537f9&p=376523
(Another drum forum with excellent links and advice)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_pattern

Ted Rosenthal

A nice page with more articles by Ted Rosenthal, includes interviews with Keith Jarrett and Billy Taylor.

http://www.tedrosenthal.com/edu.html

How Jazz Pianists Practice

A nice little article by by Ted Rosenthal on how jazz pianists practice.

http://www.tedrosenthal.com/practice.htm

James Mahone

Now and again you find something really great on the net. By accident while looking for information on Lennie Tristano's composition '327 East 32nd Street' i found saxophonist James Mahone's practice portal. There are lots of very interesting articles on tunes, featuring analysis, transcriptions, original compositions as well as links to the original recordings. I have been listening alot to Mark Turners version of this tune and was very happy when i read his article on it, which also included a transcription. Wonderful stuff, with plenty more to discover on the same site.
http://jamesmahonemusic.com/bloglink.html

Jazzdiscography.com

Today I was searching around the net for a Mark Turner album for which having converted it to Mp3 i had lost the names of the artists. I searched in vain for some days on the net until i came across www.jazzdiscography.com. Its a great tool with lots of detailed information on hundreds of artists and many thousands of albums.

http://www.jazzdiscography.com/

Digital Pianos - Yamaha P95

This week i was fortunate enough to be able to buy a new digital piano for gigs. I chose the Yamaha P95 having regularly performed with a friend of mine who has the P85. This is a great piano, ok not the most expensive in the world, but for the price has a great action and very good quality piano sound. Furthermore it's light! Very useful if you travel alot. Only 12kg compared to more than 30 of my S90 with the flight case.

For help choosing a new digital piano i found these resources very good:

http://www.pianoworld.com/

http://www.ukpianos.co.uk/

http://www.yamahamusician.com/

I should add the S90 is a wonderful piano too, and for a keyboard synth has a beautiful piano action and sound to match the best.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec03/articles/yamahas90.htm

New Blog

Considering that i would like to keep Saxindia relatively free from posting of my own material since it is dedicated to more educational postings, I have created http://mattlittlewood.blogspot.com/in order to promote some of my work. Do check it out in a few days when i have had time to put it together.

Please feel free to mail me with any comments or suggestions at matt-jazz@hotmail.com

Little Waltz

This is one of may favourite early compositions, and one we continue to play quite regularly. This was recorded live in 2008 on January 1st. This was a special gig for me as the band came together at the last minute (Patrick didn't even know he was playing till just before) and the playing was so fresh and together.

http://www.toofiles.com/en/oip/audios/wma/littlewaltzlive2008.html

Just click on the file to play or download it. You may need as i did to have the latest update of Firefox for this to work.

Matt Littlewood - Tenor Sax
Patrick Goraguer - Piano
Mishko. M'Ba - Bass
Suresh Bascara - Drums

Stella by Starlight

Several people have been asking me to be able to listen to my music on my blog so from time to time i will post some material. Here is a little home recording i did sometime back of Stella by Starlight. I play both Soprano Sax and piano. Originally this was left on my hard drive untouched for some months but when i came back to listen to it i liked it very much. The photo is taken outside the practise studio in Auroville where this was recorded. Please feel free to give any feedback - in fact it would be much appreciated.