PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Gig Prices

Good for you. It is definitely slower starting that way, but in the long run the student will surpass the song learners to become much better musicians.

I remember seemingly endless hours of practice memorizing scales. And unlike the guitar, the same scale in each key has entirely different fingerings. So there are 12 different major fingering patterns, 12 natural minors, 12 harmonic minors, 12 melodic minors, 12 pentatonics, and so on. Along with the scales are the arpeggios (chords played one note at a time, ascending and descending because sax plays only one note at a time). Again 12 majors, 12 minors and so on.

But when I need one of those scales or arpeggios, what I hear in my head simply flows out of my fingers with no verbal thought involved.



Shredders are like Bebop players. Most of them simply play as many notes as they can with no relevance to either the song or musicality. IMO Instead of music they are playing empty notes.

But there are others who play a lot of notes but still play music. Being sax oriented I point to Charlie Parker and Richie Cole. They play a lot of notes, but it is rarely boring.

My favorite players have great technique, but unless you are listening to evaluate technique, you rarely notice it. Instead you notice music; melody, dynamics, phrasing, etc. -- vox humana. Stan Getz, Paul Desmond, Stanley Turrentine are a few sax players that are masters at that.

When I solo I keep in mind two personal rules (although there are times when I break them on purpose).

1) Keep the melody of the song in mind - this doesn't mean be a slave to it, but use it. This was something Thelonius Monk advised people to do when improvising.

2) Know your audience and remember playing music needs a certain balance of predictability and surprise.

Predictability: The audience must be able to predict what you are going to play next some of the time, but if it is too predictable they will get bored.

Surprise: Sometimes the audience must not be able to predict where you are going next - surprise them. But if they can hardly ever predict where you are going they will get bored.

It's like playing with a cat using a toy on a string. If you let the cat catch it too often it gets bored and quits playing. If you never let the cat catch it it gets bored and quits playing.

Of course this varies with the audience. What you might play for a jazz audience might be too much surprise for a country audience. What you play for a blues audience might be too predictable for a jazz audience.

I'm aware of these things, but after the first song or two I'm no longer thinking about predicting my audience, seeing what they react to registers with me and my experience and instincts take over from there. Even with my eyes closed, most of the time I can tell if the audience is with me or not.

Music is a mixture of art and technique. To be a better musician you need a healthy dose of both.

To bring this back on topic, if you can entertain your audience, thrill them with surprises, keep them from being bored with your music, you stand a better chance of getting better gigs than your competition.

Insights and incites by Notes