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Welcome to the brand new Sax School Online Podcast. In this very first episode, we're going to be discussing the things that you can do to make the best progress on your saxophone this year.
Presented by Nigel McGill, Joel Purnell and Fred Vigdor from the Sax School Online tutor team.
N: It's not just listening to the big picture, it's all those little details, that's where the magic happens, right?
F: It's educational to work on stuff that's not necessarily your instrument.
J: I just start almost playing it like a record in my head.
N: What do you think is the first point that we could, that we all think about, that we think might benefit other people too?
N: G'day, Nigel here, and welcome to the Sax School Online Podcast. In this very first episode, we're going to be discussing the things that you can do to make the best progress on your saxophone this year.
Plus, we're going to be giving you a little peek behind the curtain at what's coming up on the podcast throughout the rest of this year. It's a brand-new project. We're super excited about it.
And to help move the discussion today from the Sax School Tutor I've got my two favorite guys. Fred Vigdor and Joel Purnell. How are you doing guys?
The Sax School Online Podcast Trailer
Season 1
Tuesday, March 12, 2024 • Duration 01:15
If you love playing sax but want to improve your skills this is the podcast for you! Each episode is packed with pro tips, techniques and advice from the Sax School Online Tutor team. We are helping thousands of learners like you every day and will be sharing some of that with you here too! Plus, you'll hear from special guests from around the saxophone world for behind the scenes info about new products, stories from the stage and more.
Whether you are just getting started on sax, getting back to playing or already lighting up the stage, there's something for you in every episode. So, follow the Sax School Online Podcast now and we look forward to hanging out with you!
Joel talks to the incredible saxophonist Jesse Bannister - world renowned performer and composer of Indian classical music. Jesse breaks down the techniques he's developed to incorporate saxophone into Indian music, including tonguing, fingering techniques and even physical adjustments to his sax.
Following the sad news of the death of saxophone legend David Sanborn, Nigel and Fred share their memories of Sanborn, and chat about his influence on their own playing. Plus they share their recommendations for Sanborn recordings you should check out.
N: Yeah, I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Hey, just before we do get started, though, if you do love learning about how to play the saxophone better and you enjoy the podcast today, it would just mean the world to us If you could share this podcast, with somebody else, it would help us to reach more friends like you and spread the message about what we're doing with the podcast.
N: So we've got a lot to dig into in this very first episode, and we wanted to choose an important topic because although we're recording at the beginning of the year, I think through the year, we should be thinking about how we can make the best progress in our practice with thinking about it as tutors and I'm sure you guys should be thinking about it, too.
So we've got six points that we all think about that help us with our practice and we also share with our thousands of students inside sax school and we're going to be sharing them with you today as well. before we dig into that though hey I'm curious to know what you guys have been up to so fred what's been going on with you this past week or so
F: Well, we're gearing up for the 2024 Average White Band final tour: This Is It. it's the The Pack Up The Pieces tour That's what the t-shirts are going to say.
And yeah, we're getting ready to do that. We have a nice three-week tour of the UK, Scotland and England coming up. And of course, the dates for the U. S. are just starting to come in, but it's going to be a pretty busy year for me, I think. For us, yes. Looking forward to it.
N: Wow, that sounds cool. I'm looking forward to seeing you over here, Fred. I know you've got some dates in the UK. We'll be, we'll be coming along and watching your fingers closely from the from the audience.
F: I'm so nervous! So much pressure.
J: Might do a bit of heckling as well.
N: Yeah, maybe. What about you, Joel? What's been keeping you busy?
J: Oh, I've been working on some new courses for Inside Sax School Online. Lots of stuff on training your ears and oral resources. So we've had some pitch matching courses and this month we've got some interval courses being released and lots of others to come as well.
Modes, chords, all sorts of stuff. So I've been working on all that content. I've also been doing some recording sessions with an artist I work with from London called Ashley Reaks, who's a bit out of my comfort zone to be honest, it's not, it's not jazz as I'm used to. It's prog rock.
So and very difficult prog rock as well. Lots of odd time signatures and stuff. So it's a real challenge and some are somewhat a bit different, but I've been working with him for about 10 years. He's prolific. We're working on his next six albums. So so yeah lots to do there. Lots to do.
N: Wow. And does he have a written out charts or are you doing it all by ear? What's the process?
J: No, no, nothing's written out. He kind of sings or plays it all. And then I have to go in the studio. He plays it up me. I've got to kind of. Memorise it on the spot and work it out and then put it down and then create all the harmonies for it as well. Because I'm, the horn player for the entire horn section.
N: Wow, it's the Joel Pinnell horn section.
J: It is. It's intense. Good fun though. Great stuff. interesting music. Very dark.
N: Yeah, I think, you know, even if it's out of your comfort zone, I think that can make the project even more interesting because it forces you into places that you don't normally go with your playing. So, yeah, that sounds fascinating.
J: Without a doubt. I like a challenge.
N: There you go. Well, I've been busy, I've been busy challenging myself too. My thing that I've been working on for last, well, throughout January really, is trying to transition from a bigger mouthpiece to a smaller mouthpiece. I've traditionally played size 7 or 8 on alto and tenor.
And I've got a size 5 on my alto, a size 5 mouthpiece, and a size 6 on my tenor. And I've just been sort of bringing things right back to the basics and seeing if I can get a good sound on a small mouthpiece with a light set-up. So that's been a fun process. I'm sure we'll talk more about that on the podcast.
The other thing I've been super busy with is we've got our Sax School Weekender coming up in April. So, I've been busy writing music and planning and preparing stuff for that. Still, a lot of work left to do. But it's going to be awesome. We've got 60 people, 60 of our members from all over the world who are joining us in England for four days this time.
So, it's going to be a whole lot of fun. So, that's been keeping me busy.
N: Okay, well, let's get stuck into our main topic for today. So I wanted to dig into this important topic because I think it's so important for all of us to be thinking about. But before we start showing these six points that we are all using that I think you guys can benefit from, I'm curious to know what things in your playing you guys are working on.
Like, so Fred, have you got some playing goals that you've set for yourself for this year?
F: I'm just, you know, for me, it's just doing the work constantly, just keeping at it. I've been working on a lot of transcriptions of instruments other than saxophone. I'm right now working on a Clifford Brown solo because it's a, it's a whole different head when you're not.
You know, you can get a lot out of out of working on solos that are not necessarily saxophone. So I've been doing that. And that's a challenge for a lot of reasons. Because sometimes you have to go, like, working in the altissimo, working out of the range of the instrument, or figuring out how to, how to execute it.
But that's, that's my big that's my big time. That's what's taking up a lot of my practice time right now.
N: I think that's interesting, Fred. So Trumpet solo is one thing. Do you ever, have you done other instruments as well? Like, I don't know, a guitar?
F: I did an I did I worked on a Brad Meldow solo, which, on a song that I'd never heard before, and it was a standard called Nobody Else But Me, I think.
His whole approach to time is very unsaxophonic. Unsaxophonistic? Yeah, so yeah, but those are, it's educational to work on stuff that's not necessarily your instrument. There's a guy on the internet that does like blues guitar solos on the saxophone, which is, and it's, it's amazing really.
So it's, it's inspiring. It's very inspiring.
N: Yeah, I think it's interesting because when we, if we're a tenor player, let's say, and we're transcribing a tenor solo, there's a lot of stuff I find when I'm transcribing that I, you can work it out quickly. After all, you know the sound when you move from that note to that note.
We're all used to the technical hurdles on a saxophone, and you can hear it in somebody else's mouth. playing, right? Even if they're great player, it makes it easier. But then if you start transcribing another instrument, like I remember when I was doing a lot of flute practice and I'll be working on some violin things, for example, completely different technical hurdles there.
And so pushes you into all these different places. Yeah, it's a great challenge. Oh, you're making me want to go do that now.
N: So I've been working on, in my practice, the big thing that I've been focusing on already in January and what I want to keep working through, apart from the changing mouthpiece thing, is just building confidence more in my super high altissimo. So I want to get that. I enjoy playing up there. I enjoy the challenge of it, but I'm just trying to get it even more in tune.
And also the other thing I've been focusing on is just revisiting some advanced technical things. So that means going back to the basics and slowing stuff down and trying to get my fingers faster and faster because I haven't done a lot of that sort of practice for a while. I enjoy that.
So those have been my main things. What about you, Joel? What have you been working on?
J: Yeah, well a similar one to you, Nigel. I'm wanting, I like to try and match the ranges as much as possible between the two saxes that I play, which are alto and tenor. And I'm pretty comfortable up to altissimo D on alto, so I've decided this year that I'd like to be very comfortable up to altissimo G on tenor, the one above the first altissimo G.
I'm kind of there, I'm quite happy up to F. But G's still a bit of a gimmick note for me, but I like to just make it part of my scales, and part of my arpeggios, and just part of the horn in a bit more of a natural, usable way. Not that I'm going to use it too much, because it's very high.
N: Well, I'd like to just stop you there, Joel, because I don't think that it's physically possible to play a high G, and I think you might need a special license for it. That's very high.
J: Well, I won't be doing it when my wife's at home, put it that way.
F: How to do the dogs in your neighbourhood feel about this?
J: Well, I've got a little little pack outside. They come at practice time every day, every day for food. But yeah I mean, it's, it's, it's only as high as an Altissimo D on Alto at the end of the day, and plenty of people do that. So, it is possible. I know the fingering. I just need to kind of get more used to it and not feel like it's too stratospheric, from that point of view.
I find that If you play things often enough, they start to normalize and become something a bit more usable. So, that's one of the things. It's not one of the main things I'm gonna look at. I've also recently, and I think Fred's got this book as well, got the new Rick Margitza book. Is that how you say it? I think that's how you say it.
F: Rick Margitza, yeah. Margitza, yeah.
J: Yeah, Margitza which is such an interesting book, it's called 365 Days of Practice. Basically, to kind of paraphrase the entire book, it's basically 365 very contemporary phrase ideas over certain Progressions, but technically, they're all quite challenging and conceptually, they're quite challenging as well.
Just an interesting, interesting book. It's just, I love working through things like that and just trying to find some different ideas and different ways of thinking about things and I find books like that fascinating just to, just to dip in and out of I don't know, I'm not necessarily going to do it in the order he suggested, but it's one of those.
One of those books you can dip in from. So they're my main two things, and from a transcription point of view, since we're all talking about transcription, I've decided this year I'm going to focus on Chris Potter is going to be my focus this year. Someone I've listened to, obviously but I've spent most of my life focused on transcriptions of certain other players like Bugonzi and Brekker and Alto players like Parker and Phil Woods and realized I haven't done lots of Chris Potter stuff which is a bit weird, so there's a gap and I intend to fill it this year.
N: So, that's what I'm up to. I'm excited to hear more about how that goes. Also, brilliant to hear that I think all three of us have got some interesting things to be digging into because we're all practising hard as well. And I think a lot of our students inside sax school forget that although, although they're practising hard, we're also practising hard every day too. We've all got things that we're working on.
N: So getting on to these six points then, Joel what do you think is the first point that we could, that we all think about that we think might benefit other people too?
J: Well, I think a couple of things. As we've all just said, you know, I think it's good to have long-term goals and not feel that everything you're working on is what am I doing just this week, or where I want to be in two weeks.
You know, you can have these larger goals that can last you All year or a couple of years and that's fine as well. It helps you break them down and it gives you a bit of time and patience to get on with them, particularly if they're complicated. But I think the key thing here is just to keep everything simple.
Think about the way that you split those up in your practice time. You know, remember those, those kind of key things that you need to do in your practice. You need to do some warmups, but you can make them interesting. You can always find it. Different ways of warming up. It doesn't have to just be a chromatic scale with long tones.
You can use overtones, you can make tunes out of them. You could do two notes, you can apply them. There are always ways of doing it to make it interesting, but ultimately pick one and stick to it for a while. Keep it simple. Then I tend to move on to some kind of technical work that might be some scales or patterns or arpeggios, or maybe at the moment it might be working on those areas in the altissimo as well.
But that might be a warm-up too. Who knows? And then I move on to some, some repertoire. And, you know, do a bit of a warm-down after that. So I keep it quite simple from the point of view of that. I don't try and take on too many tasks. But I think by taking on bigger tasks, i. e. over the whole year, you can simplify that process and it all becomes a bit clearer and plannable, which is important. Plan your practice. Don't hope it just kind of happens.
N: Hmm. I guess it also reminds me of that famous saying where people overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year, right? So we try and pack too much stuff into our practice, but then forget that if we do a simple practice routine we see greater benefits over the long term of the year.
So, yeah, I love that. Fred, what's the next thing you think we should be thinking about?
F: Well, I think it's important to kind of commit to a schedule and, and keep that, and keep that schedule because you got to have some sort of routine as far as, you know, with the time of day and those times, those type of things.
And I also feel like I, for a long time, I would just put it off every day, and because I would feel like, oh I don't have enough time to do my normal practice schedule, whatever it is, two hours or 90 minutes or whatever. So I would just put it off and I would say, oh, get to it the next day. And then, unfortunately, doesn't always happen that way.
You know, life gets in the way and you don't, you don't get, you don't get to do your, your, and the next thing you know, it's like three or four days have gone by. And then, by then, you don't want to pick up the saxophone because It's going to sound awful. After all, you're, you feel like you're starting from scratch.
So I, I feel like I, I kind of set myself a goal of, and this is going to sound ridiculous, of, of 15 minutes and it rarely ends up being just 15 minutes. But if you give yourself at least the permission of just putting the horn in your mouth. I keep it on the stand. So it's always here and you play it and then you'll get you won't be facing that blank page every day and you won't and it'll keep you from, you know, procrastinating.
It's just knowing that everybody has 15 minutes. Do the 15, whether it's, you know, five minutes of long tones, five minutes of, you know, technique and one tune or something, but almost inevitably It's going to end up more, you're, you're going to do whatever an hour, two hours, even it can, but permit yourself to just do 15 minutes.
N: Yeah, I love that. I love that permitting, a self-permission idea too, Fred. It's brilliant. And I think the other thing that I've found helps me is prioritizing the practice, as the first thing that I do in my daily schedule. So it's funny you say 15 minutes because, you know, I do that too.
I've got a lot going on with sax school. I've got a family. There's a lot of stuff going on. So I have to be organized with my time. Maybe you guys listening, but you also have a busy schedule. But I know that if I commit to doing that practice, the very first thing on my long list of stuff to do, then it'll get done.
Whereas if I don't do it in the first 15 minutes, which may end up being an hour or two hours of practice as it turns out, then invariably I won't get to it later on the day because stuff happens, right? Life happens and I get busy. So I try and prioritize it. But yeah, great tip. 15 minutes.
N: My, tip to share here is about listening. This is something I'm always trying to do more of. I want to do more of this year. So, it seems like an obvious point, however, I think most of us don't actively listen, we just have music happening around us, but we need to actively make decisions about what we're listening to and then engage with what we're listening to.
So, as saxophone players, it's so important to do a lot of your learning through listening. So that means exploring other artists. So easy these days. Do you remember the old days when we used to go to the record shop or go and buy CDs or whatever, save your money up and, ah, you know. Oh yeah. And now, Spotify, YouTube, you've got everything, right?
So, I think it's a great practice to be mindful about exploring new artists all the time. And then when you find something that you like, stick that in a playlist and come back to it and listen to it deeply. Because if you can unlock all those little secrets, like for example, Joel listening to Chris Potter and transcribing, it's not just listening to the big picture, it's all those little details.
N: That's where the magic happens, right? And so whether you're doing a Chris Potter solo or whether you're doing Baker Street, it's the same process, listening to all those details and connecting with those recordings. So I find inspiration all the day, every, all the time. Just today you guys were talking about Altissimo and I was telling my son about the Michelle Camillo album One More Once.
Do you guys know that one?
J: Yeah, it's a great album.
N: Blew my mind in the mid-90s, early 90s when it came out. And I put on one of the tracks for him on that. And Paquito D’Rivera is doing a solo there. And oh my god, his altissimo is just like otherworldly. I don't know how he does it. Yeah. And I'd forgotten. So there you go, a little bit of inspiration in my little bit of listening today.
So Fred, now that we've got those things in place, what's the next important thing to be mindful of?
F: I think you have to anticipate that things are not going to go as planned when you're practising. I had an accelerator student who was a marine, and they have a saying in the Marines, Embrace the suck.
That's them, that's what they say, and if you, if you go into it knowing that things are not going to go as planned, and it's not always going to be, you're not always going to get, be able to play the scale and the hard keys or, or anything like that, then it, you know, you'll, you'll, you'll be much better off if you anticipate those kinds of things.
And, don't let it stop you from being consistent because if you don't Do it again Every day, you can't expect to have to get results and you're going to have days that are good and bad, but be prepared for it. And then you, you know, you won't feel as bad and you'll keep going. That's the it's it's keep motivated is the thing, you know.
N: Yeah, I love that. Yeah, you know, it's never a straight path, is it when you're practising something?
And to be honest with you, that's often when the great things happen too, you know when you come across those little boundaries in your practising when you push through them, it's You know, there's so much more learning to be done there. So yeah, that's a great tip.
What about you, Joel? What's your other tip that you should share?
J: Yeah. I mean, you know what, what Fred's saying as well is that, is important if you want to progress in playing an instrument, no matter what instrument it is. You should be constantly looking for things that you can't do, you know. So you should expect not to be able to do them.
You can't do them, you know that. But if you pick those things over all the stuff that you can play easily and you constantly search out stuff that is, seems impossible, I promise you, you practice it and you practice it. In a long-term way, in an organized way, one day you'll play it and you'll think back to that first day when you couldn't even play the first part and you realize you've made real progress.
So, I constantly only look for things that I can't do. There's no point in me practising things I can already do. So I think that that's one thing that maybe separates prose from beginners to some degree. It's, it's nice to find that comfort zone when you're a beginner. I can play this tune.
I'll play it again. I'll play it again, but you're not necessarily progressing. Find another tune that seems impossible and commit to it. Might take you a long time, but you'll get there. I think the other thing that I try and do as much as possible in my practice is look for habits. So maybe that could just be the way that I'm practising warm-ups.
Let's just say, for example, I play from a low Bb and I move up chromatically playing long tones. As soon as I notice that I've been doing that for a few days, I say this important phrase to me, which is, What if? What if,? Instead of doing that again, what if I start right at the top and play down chromatically for a few days, you know?
So I'm always trying to do that to mix things up. I do it in improvisation all the time. I always play up the chord tones. Today then, I'm going to play down the chord tones. I always seem to land on the third. Today, I'm going to make sure I land on the fifth. And as soon as you do that, Everything changes.
It forces you to completely look at things in a new way. And ultimately you find discoveries and you learn more. And that's something I try and ask myself as often as possible. What if?
N: Yeah, I love that. What if? And you know, the last point that I want, to mention that ties in with all of what we're talking about today is just a reminder to record yourself as you're going through your practising because you'll come up with those what-if moments and you'll realize the things that are the hurdles and what things you want to improve by listening back to your recordings. So it's something we talk to our saxophone members about all the time, and it's wonderful to see that same process.
We've got a lot of people learning with us, thousands of people learning with us, so we see the same things happen over and over and so many times I've seen that. reluctance from a new student to make a recording and then share it. It's scary. You're going to make a recording and share it in front of 3,000 of your peers, people who are also going through the same journey as you.
But every single time when they do share, they realize it's not scary, it's liberating, and it's brilliant, you get feedback from people, and they do more and more of it. So, we've got such an active community of people sharing these recordings.
And by the way, it's not just the students who are recording themselves, I'm recording myself constantly every single day when I'm practising, I'm recording myself, I keep these long logs of, well, this is the recording from last week, oh yeah, and this is where I am today, and then sometimes I'll make a note on, this is what mouthpiece I used, and this is what reed, and it gets a little bit over the top. But it's so good for you, to hear.
Because, if you're only practising and playing for yourself, and then not listening back, you don't get a picture of what you sound like.
J: Just to jump in there, I mean, I think the thing as well to point out, particularly for people that have been playing a while, and maybe aren't in the habit of recording themselves, is it costs nothing to record yourself anymore.
You know, everyone's got a mobile phone that can record, everyone's got a computer, you just press a button, and you just leave it running, you don't have to go to maximum effort. you're not releasing an album or anything just press record why not if you never listen to it you never listen to it But it's there anyway if you do want to listen to it, and I think that's important to realize particularly for the older generation like us.
N: Hey, who are you calling old? No, you're exactly right though, we're so lucky just like we said before about we're lucky with being able to listen to lots of stuff. The amount of recording power technology we've got in our pocket now is just amazing. So yeah, these tools can help us.
So we've got six important points for you guys to think about.
Think about keeping it simple.
Thinking about committing to a schedule, even if it's just 15 minutes to start with.
Thinking about listening to more recordings.
Anticipating that there are going to be setbacks along the way but you can overcome them and that's where the great Progress moments happen in your development
and asking yourself ‘What if you approach things differently today than what you did yesterday?’ Maybe that's going to unlock a whole bunch of new exciting things in your playing
And then finally using Recording to help you monitor your progress as you're going through.
So I hope that inspires you and you put some of those things into practice in your Practice schedule starting from tomorrow or today.
If you're going to go and practice later on after listening to this, why not go on? But before you go off and practice this saxophone just a quick reminder that if you do enjoy the podcast today. Particularly as we're just sort of trying to get things up and running here. It would just be great if you could remember to follow the podcast, so you see the future episodes that we will be bringing out.
And if you feel particularly motivated, then a five-star review would be awesome. Thanks so much.
N: Okay, I wanted to share a little bit about what's coming up on this podcast. This is episode number one, and we've been talking about this podcast for ages, haven't we, amongst the team?
Yeah, yeah, we have.
N: Planning, scheming. Doing research and thinking about all the great things that we could do talking to our members, but we do have a load of stuff Planned what sort of things can you let people know that we're going to be doing coming up Joel? What sort of things can people expect to hear on the podcast?
J: Well apart from other super interesting discussions like we've just had about what we're up to We're also going to have some guests on. I'm not going to tell you who they are yet. You'll have to wait and see for that. We're going to have some guest players on. We're also going to have some visits from saxophone designers and makers and people who make mouthpieces and other gadgets and goodies for the saxophone.
N: Absolutely. And on that topic, Fred, can you give us some ideas of some of the other things we're going to be covering?
F: Nope. Sorry. Yeah, sure. We're going to have some tips. We're going to have tips on gear and we're going to talk about our various gigging experiences and also, you know, how to learn saxophone better. That's why we're here.
N: That's what we all want to know about. And the other thing we want to do on this podcast is answer your questions. So if you've got something that you need some help with, or if you've got a guest you'd like to see us talk to, or if you've got a piece of equipment that you're curious about, then send us an email at support at Sax School Online.com.
And if we can make it happen, we would love to do that for you. And speaking of questions, we've got our very first question, and that's from one of our saxophone members Todd. Todd wrote, that there are three points to this question, so there's a lot for us to talk about here, Todd writes that he's now the lead tenor in a fun jazz group, but he needs some help.
So he's asking what's the right way to count in the band when they're doing standards like tenor madness or something like that. Also, he's curious How much should he play when somebody else in the band is taking a solo? I thought that was an interesting question. And the final thing he was curious about was if he is taking a longer solo, well, how does he let the rest of the band know that he's finished with a solo and he needs to get out?
So lots to talk about there. Joel, let's start with counting in the band.
J: It's easy. When you're counting on a band to get a little bit excited, you're a bit nervous, especially if it's something you're not used to doing. And the one thing you don't want to do is count it in at completely the wrong tempo and before you know it, you're playing Tenor Madness, like it's Coltrane's Impressions or Giant Steps, something like that.
And it just doesn't sound right, doesn't sit right, you know. Ballads, obviously you want to get those tempos right, so the way that I generally always go about doing that is I just sing part of the tune. I don't think about tempo, I try to completely not think about what speed I want the tune to be. I just start almost playing it like a record in my head.
And once it's clear in my head, then I get the tempo from what I'm hearing. And I find that's a natural way to get that correct tempo, because as soon as you decide on a tempo, and then hear the tune in your head, it seems to fit. And then you count it in, and when you start playing, you realize that that is completely the wrong tempo.
So, always doing it that way round is useful for getting that speed before you start. And then, just basically, make sure you're looking at the band, they need to see you they need to see some kind of physical movement that could be clicking your fingers or it could be just you verbally kind of mouthing the numbers, which is something you're going to want to do.
I always give two bars in so it might be one. 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, for example, because quite often tunes have pickups as well and if you only give one bar in you might, particularly as a saxophone player, where you've got to shove it in your mouth if you like unfortunately you might get one too and you don't give a nice clear counting to the band.
So just making it clear, making sure that you face them when you do that, give them enough kind of Cue, if you like, from the point of view of your counting, two bars are generally more than enough. And I think most importantly, listen to that tune in your head before you decide what tempo you think it should be at.
F: And relax. Relax, take a breath. Always relax.
N: Yeah, definitely. It sounds like such a simple thing, but it takes a bit of practice and a bit of thinking through to be good at that. And also the point that you made there, Joel, which I think is super important that a lot of people don't think about is the eye contact point.
You know connecting with everybody, making sure they're watching you and They're, they're watching for the count off that you're giving, easy to forget.
J: I think I think the eye contact thing is, is key to all these points in one way or another, to be honest.
N: A hundred percent. And on that point Fred, what would you say to Todd about how much he should play when somebody else is doing a solo?
F: That's, that's an interesting question. I, it, when somebody else is playing a solo, if you're the saxophonist Unless you're playing like a rhythmic, you know, a riff or something as a backing part, you shouldn't be doing any kind of soloing if somebody else is soloing. But you can come up with, you know, some sort of rhythmic thing, or maybe you hear the drums playing something and you want to accent, you know, repetitive.
You don't want to just play sporadic stuff that doesn't make sense, because then it takes away from the actual soloist. But, yeah, you can come up with little backgrounds, background things, but try to be consistent with them, you know, and, and stick to the groove. But yeah, that's it's, I'm not, yeah, I think that's what, that's my answer.
N: Yeah, I completely agree with you., I wouldn't, I don't know what you think about this, Joel, but I would default to not playing anything when somebody else is playing a solo because that's their moment.
J: Yeah. Yeah. I think the clues in the name, it's their solo, not yours. Yeah. So, I tend to never. Play unless I'm requested to by the soloist unless the band leader says I'd like this particular thing in the last chorus of the guitar solo then, then maybe I will come up with something like Fred said, some kind of riff or some long tones or something like that, but generally, my default position is not to touch the saxophone.
It's one of the beauties of being a saxophonist, you can have a rest. Exactly. Don't feel, don't feel like you're not. Giving the band their money's worth or anything like that. It's fine. It's the right thing to do. What you don't want to do is get in the way of somebody doing their solo.
Because if it, that happened to you and the guitar player started riffing halfway through your subtle kind of beautiful kind of solo, then then you're not gonna be very happy with them and you'll find the same's true of other instrumentalists if you start fiddling around behind them. So just don't do anything. Just listen and enjoy it. Nod your head and look like you like it. That's what I did.
F: It's great, it's a great time to go to the bar. Go get a beer.
N: Yes. So, the third part of Todd's question was that he's decided to take a few extra choruses over Tenor Madness. How does he let everybody know that he's gonna get, he's getting to the end of his solo and he wants to get out and wants the band to come back in?
So I would just say to you, Todd, going back to Joel's point about eye contact with everybody. So this is a tricky one, right? A lot of us will have seen a great band up on stage, or maybe a YouTube video of a great band that played together for a thousand gigs. And then, sort of, like, miraculously, when someone finishes a solo, they just know what's happening, and there's all this stuff that just happens, and no one seems to ever indicate anything.
And that's because they are all so used to each other's body language, but also the way that they play solos or approach solos. I'll bet on an Average White Band. You probably don't have to give people a lot of visual cues, Fred, because you have been doing it for years, right? Right. However, then it can be confusing if you're relatively new to the thing of playing in a band.
And you have this situation where you get to the end of your solo and nobody else seems to realize that you're at the end of your solo. Okay, so we need to build up this communication, is what I'm trying to say. And so I think at the start it needs to be quite obvious. And there's nothing wrong with making eye contact, giving people a clear visual cue that you're at the end of your solo and then it's time for the next Section.
Similarly, if you're coming to the end of a song, or if you're doing a tag, or if you've got some sort of, you know, big section change in the music. So I think it's always good to be very careful about your eye contact and be very clear with your cues as well.
J: Yeah, 100%. I mean, it is all about, you know, cues come in many forms. They can be visual cues, for example, if it's my solo and we're going to go back into the head after it. Little classic cues like tapping your head are enough to let a band know that you're back to the head. Just simply turning around as a sax player, you're generally at the front. So if you turn round and face the bar, the band, to some degree, you can still keep on the mic, you just stand to the side of the mic and start to turn round four bars before you want to end, and then that's generally enough of a cue to let them know that things are about to move on.
And also musically, the way you kind of bring your solo to an end, so you don't want to be ending At the peak of your solo, you know, you want to bring down and you're probably going to play a little bit less and leave a bit more space and finish that last phrase and things like that. So it's the combination of all those things.
One thing I would say is don't assume that they're going to pick up just from a cue like that. It's the. combination of these cues. I'd turn to the side, I'd tap my head, and I'd bring down my solo. So, it's all these things make it really, clear to the band that it's time to move on to the next section of the next soloist.
J: Or you could just give a nod to the next soloist. Generally, you should have agreed to a solo order beforehand, so hopefully if it's the guitar next, they're already kind of looking at you at the end of each chorus that you're playing, waiting for you to cue them. So, just give them a nod take the sax out of your mouth and get yourself to a bar.
N: Here you go. I'd just like to point out it's not all about the bar. By the way, we always know when Fred's solos are coming to an end because that's the point where all the audience has just gone mental and everyone's screaming and applauding and that's yeah that's so we know. Rosie's coming up on stage.
Okay, well, we've covered some great stuff today. So thanks so much for sticking with us. And if you'd like to revisit this episode or you're curious to listen to some sections again or learn more about it, well, we've got the full transcript of the episode over at Sax School Online.com/podcast.
Yeah, so go check it out over there. That's where you can find the resources for all the episodes.
J: And remember that if you're not already a member of Sax School, then there's the 14-day free trial. Just go and visit Sax School online and click on that and you can get access to all the thousands of lessons in there and a bit of help from us while you're at it.
N: Yeah, why not? And also connect with some of the other members of our community that we were talking about earlier on. So Fred, tell us what's coming up next next episode.
F: Nigel, I thought you'd never ask. We're gonna, we're gonna be back. Next time we're going to talk about our faces and some of our favorite warmup routines that work and hope you can join us for that one.
N: Yeah, it should be great. It's a great topic to dig into too. So, hey, thanks again for sticking with us today. I hope you've enjoyed it. All that's left to say is keep practicing hard and we'll catch you next time.
