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I learned playing 5yrs ago mostly by watching you and a couple of others sax channels Thank you for helping me realize this dream.

@bettersax

27 күн бұрын

Awesome! Great to hear!

I'm 78 years old., singer songwriter, guitar player with no training of any type. Played in bands most of my life. I always loved the sax solo on the Paul Simon song "Still Crazy, so I bought a $600 beginner sax to try and play it. Never held a sax, didn't know if I could even get a sound out. Learned about how to set it up with the reed etc., by watching youtube, including a lot of your vids. You were a tremendous help. Played it till my face hurt, 3-4 hours a day. No scales, just tried to play songs, and high notes.. After about 2-3 months, went from a 2 reed to a 2 1/2 on a size 4 tip opening, and bought a $1500 sax. A few months later I bought a Yanagisawa AW01. It came with a #6 mouthpiece,.. so got so I can play it with a 3 Vandoren Traditional reed, and hit the notes I need up to high F#. I would play notes of a song until I hit the right note, write it down ,and find the next one, then eventually play the whole song. I started this about a year and a half ago, now I just hear things, and play it. I don't don't know what I'm doing, I just play the songs. I can figure out the notes if I want to, but I don't unless I want to put them in a song I wrote or something like that. I listen to Earth wind, and fire solos, and songs like "Never Tear Us Apart," by INXS, and stuff like that , that has a lot of feeling. That to me is fun. I'm not saying anybody should skip the basics, and go for the hard stuff, I'm just saying what I did. Not everybody is as obsessive as I am, when it comes to doing something.

Thanks for your advice! NO WRONG NOTES in the pentatonic scale! Right on!

Tips: 1-Fix tour tone (with your throat) 2-Work Articulation(legado, short, stacatto) 3-Dinamics (FF, pp) 4-Fingering (read the notes, think them, put the fingers, and later play it) 5-All this trying a good sound with the correct air (i play classic normally so i need Round sound and fast cold air)

Just started alto sax after 20 years of playing solely clarinet. Your channel and many others have inspired me to finally take up sax. I still got a teacher so I could work on breaking bad habits and hopefully that helps going back to clarinet.

@bettersax

27 күн бұрын

Great to hear!

As someone who’s been playing classical sax for 19 years and hasn’t been able to figure out how to get this jazz thing to work… I’m embarrassed. This is so blatantly simple and has been staring me in the face for all that time. Thanks for the tip!! I’ll get on practicing those pentatonic scales!

I know this answer. Was playing and matching in 6 weeks. 45 years later still need work.

A whole lifetime just like any other musical instrument. You never stop learning in music.

🎷Always a great motivator, Jay !!😉👍

always inspiring if I .get stuck on what to play .I check out your lessons .

I love when you upload, you got me into playing the sax. Keep up the amazing videos.

@bettersax

27 күн бұрын

Thanks, will do!

Hey Jay, I laugh at “no special license require” bit, I do feel like this ALL THE TIME when I practice. I’m going 6 months in at 35yo and the journey so far sounds A LOT like the beginning of the video. The pros of this is that I finally understand sheet music which was an old goal of mine but the cons is that I feel I’m stuck in the process learning weird exercises and read music I don’t cara about. Your resources have been a valuable escape route to learning more practical stuff and give me an energy boost to keep learning. Thanks for that and I’ll try your new free courses. Thank you so much

This man always spitting facts

Going from trombone, I started playing saxophone in concerts after about 3 months!

If your serious ..we never stop learning...its a life long vocation

This is the most advanced specificized micro-managed plumbing I've ever seen! :P

All well and good and I do agree, you should take at least 6 months of lessons but sight reading is a must. Makemusic cloud has a great sight reading program. Sight reading will give you time to understand the instrument and help you quickly figure out how to play songs without guessing all the time. I have been playing a year and a half with approximately 800 hours of playing time. I now am playing sixteenth notes, slurring and tonguing. All these things are very important and simply put, takes time. The more time you put and understand your instrument the faster you will get there and yes I have a ways to go but I'm getting there. Thanks for your advice about the pentatonic scales. I will work on them. By the way, you sound great.

Somewhere between an hour and a half and millions of years is the answer. I taught a very good clarinet player to play the saxophone fine enough in about two hours, but every musician always has more they can learn about the instrument.

WISH i HAD PAID ATTENTION TO A COUPLE OF GOOD TEACHERS I HAD BACK IN BKLYN NYC.. i ALSO LEARNED A LOT FROM JAMEY ABERSOLD WHO MANY YEARS AGO OPENED UP THE WAY TO PLAY & STUDY JAZZ. But there is no substitute for listening to the great players and picking up a few of their licks .. just sayin' Bobby G.

I have a tenor saxophone. I’m currently on my guitar and piano journey and it’s going well, could be better if I made more time, but I have a tenor saxophone 🎷 and i really want to start learning. I will aim to add it to my schedule around fall even if for 3hrs a week. It’s something. Thanks for the great videos.

@SlabHardcheese

23 күн бұрын

find someone to jam with. try searching youtube for "backing tracks" and find something fun

I started teaching myself 2 years ago, helps I’ve been playing church organ and keyboards since I was a toddler. I record my own backings on my keyboard and then play along by ear on my sax. Recently did careless whisper which was my goal 😂😂😂 not perfect but hey ho 😂😂

0:38 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I went through 6 years of school and two years of private study and nobody ever showed me the pentatonic scale. In hindsight, I feel ripped off.

Tu es le meilleur, j'écris en français parce que tu sais. A bientôt.

Just listen to Michael brecker every day...he might get into your playing

Beautiful Jay!

@bettersax

27 күн бұрын

Thank you Bob!

But what reed should I start with….🤔🎶🎵🎶🎷

Hey man! I would love to see a review of the Ted Klum alto mouthpieces on your chanel as their are none anywhere even those mouthpieces are very special I think! (I'd love to have your opinion on them especially the dark NY model)

While playing in any key by ear on the sax, it's good to be able to put the notes (that you should definitely know the names of, sounding and written) into perpective relative to the tonic, or the chord of the moment, iow, 1,b2,2,b3,3,4 etc. but starting with the basic major, minor, and pentatonic scales. That said, it's good to have reading skill, but it's something that shouldn't trump learning to play without sheet music. Eventually, with ear training, you get a great sense of intervals and how they sound in contrast, or from a diatonic chord, or having left the key entirely, or playing blue notes, chromatic passing notes, etc. When I started saxophone, I did the reading thing for too long and one day realized that I could read my ass off, but not play a simple jazz melody by ear.. these days it's 1) learn the melody by ear 2) learn the structure and the chord changes, along with any key changes for the tune. 3) Learn the solo and/or how to solo over the section changes. Lastly, I want to point out that it pays to place special attention to hearing what the player is conveying through articulation, fingering, intonation, etc. A lot of "simple" jazz melodies contain a lot of nuance that can very easliy be overlooked. It will also be advantageous to learn some altissimo, as command of the first octave worth of notes above high F is eventually a very valuable resource to have on alto and tenor. And make sure you can drop to the lowest notes with those right hand digits as well. I think it's just as embarrassing to miss on a low B or Bb as it is to miss an altissimo note.

I learned soprano sax listening carefully to Captain Beefheart.

1 year of practice 30/45 minute per day you can be already kinda good

@bettersax

27 күн бұрын

definitely

@voltagestorm1787

27 күн бұрын

If that was true, why has nobody who's actually good at saxophone learned how to play sax well within only a year? And if you mean "kinda good" as terrible tone, often technical mistakes, and little to no improv ability then you are absolutely correct Edit: this is coming from someone who is considered "musically gifted" since with 3-4 years less experience on average less than my peers I am playing at a level slightly above most of them (I do consider "musically gifted" to be completely fake btw)

@kvazium

27 күн бұрын

@@voltagestorm1787 1 year play yes. Play good not really. Play good starts at year 3. If you have musical background year 2. But it depends a lot of how you train, your ability to learn, and how much you want to learn. And the question is not really a question to ask. If you want to learn to play any instrument, you will learn one day to play good. 1 year, 5 years, 10 years it dosent matter. One day you will

@voltagestorm1787

27 күн бұрын

@@kvazium I don't understand your point

@kvazium

27 күн бұрын

@@voltagestorm1787 i go sleep sorry. Bye music man

As a middle school band director, I wouldn’t use the “traditional” band method books if I was teaching a private student. They work well to get an overfilled room of 10 to 12 year olds on a variety of instruments with no musical experience to play music. But, they are all lacking in terms of delivering the best instruction for each individual instrument.

Thank you!.....at this time in my life i want my new sax to belp me WAIL!!!!!.... (hope that made sense).....❤🤪

I wish I could afford a decent sax to start again…and a practice room away from everyone. I miss playing sax but I want something above a starter that’s not expensive. I can buy PRS SE guitars under $1000 that are high quality but when I look at sax it’s like $2500 for a quality mid level one. Then I have to deal with building up my lungs again. Somehow I’ve weakened over the years.

@bettersax

27 күн бұрын

Get the BetterSax alto which is currently on sale for $699 at Sweetwater. It is an amazing saxophone. Link in description.

@robertlucas9867

9 күн бұрын

@@bettersaxthanks for the suggestion. I’ll definitely look at it.

☮️🎶🎵🎶🎷

I wanted to have a job that entails music What is the worst part of your job or music

About 10,000 hours should do?

How good do you want to get?

And theirin lies the problem which explains why i have no students particularly ADULTS. everyone wants the six month plan where i show them how to play careless whisper and kenny G ( who i have no issue with btw) . but what so i know. I have only been playing for 40 years. 👀🙄

day 4 of asking for a bari sax

Dont mention the pentatonic scale to Pat Metheney .He will lock you up in the broom cupboard ...

@bettersax

15 күн бұрын

Nah he uses them all the time too.

6 years to starting to sound good

@espressojunkie6210

27 күн бұрын

agree, i play for 2,5 years and my sound is terrible. I play 1 hour a day.

@falsac006

26 күн бұрын

@@espressojunkie6210 actually with 4 or 5 u can, but i mean "reach the level of David saborn" and others saxophonist

@falsac006

26 күн бұрын

Just imitate them

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

All your life...just saying

The saxophone is an easy instrument to play poorly. To play it well takes a few years, if you have a really good teacher and PRACTICE DAILY, listen and absorb the recorded masters.