Category Archives: Practicing Music

Your Sound: Hearing What Is There Instead Of Listening For What Is Not

The sound you produce on your instrument is a product of several components: your imagination (conception), your equipment, your physical structure, and your coordination. To get the best sound you can at any given moment, all these components need to be in place and working in harmony.

This is perhaps more immediately evident for some instruments than others. If you play a wind instrument, like I do (saxophone), you know how absolutely crucial it is to coordinate breath with embouchure (including tongue and oral cavity) in response to your equipment as you aim toward your conception of tone.

For an instrument like piano, for example, you may not have to coordinate as many different things physically to produce tone, but you still have plenty to deal with in order to touch the keys with the kind of attack and color you imagine.

Part of the work I do as an Alexander Technique teacher is coaching my students with their sound. What I  find with  many new students  is that they’re not hearing the beauty and resonance that is already there in their sound. Instead they’re in a state of frustrated distraction as they struggle to produce a sound that doesn’t match their exact preconception.

In essence, the problem is that they’re trying too hard to listen, but aren’t really hearing. When this is the case two unfortunate things arise:

1. Unnecessary strain: stiff necks, jaws, backs, arms, legs …all in an effort to muscle the sound into submission.

2. Withheld enjoyment: not being able to take pleasure in the process of music making.

Whenever I work with these students I’m usually taken aback at how they’ve cut themselves off from fully realizing their sound. I hear things like, “It’s really thin”, or “It has no color”, or “It’s not well-focused”. Yet it doesn’t sound that way at all to me when I listen to them. I hear resonance, energy, rich color, intensity, expression…I hear what’s actually there. It’s just that I’m just not listening with my student’s expectations.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying that my students shouldn’t try to find that “ideal” sound. Of course they should (and you should, too!) That’s part of the journey an artist makes.  It’s just that they might be closer to producing that sound than they think. (You might be closer than you think, too!)

Does you ever struggle like this to more fully realize your sound? If so, here are some things to do and/or keep in mind to help you:

  • Broaden your listening-Rather than listening closely to your instrument, let yourself hear your sound as it resonates in the room you’re playing or practicing in. I tell my students, “Listen out into the room. That’s where the sound is.”
  • Take care of yourself-No matter what you’re hearing (or trying to hear), don’t lose sight of what you’re doing with yourself as you play. It doesn’t help at all to stiffen your body to produce yours sound (makes it rather worse, actually). Instead, think of releasing your sound.
  • Hear with more than your ears-Resonance can be felt all over your body if you’re open to it. Notice how your chest, jaw, neck, back…even your fingers feel as you make your sound. Notice that you can hear more when you’re not stiffening your body.
  • Learn to discern-Instead of immediately judging (as in good or bad) your sound, aim towards being able to identify and describe more objective data, such as pitch, overtones (can you hear the partials?), volume and balance of color. Recording yourself regularly (on good equipment, of course) can help tremendously with this. Learn to hear yourself in a more detached way, as if you’re simply observing something with no personal agenda.
  • Seek out goodness-Even when I’m playing on a bad reed, in less than ideal acoustic settings, I’m actively listening for what is good (what I like!) about my sound. I can always find something that pleases me, as I reconnect to what makes my sound mine. In fact, sometimes I intentionally practice tone exercises with these challenging conditions just to give myself a chance to put this into practice.
  • Be grateful-To play music  is such a huge blessing. Most people who’ve never played and instrument envy even the mediocre musician’s ability of musical self expression. Sometimes in the quest for improvement, it’s easy to lose sight of what you already have. Let yourself enjoy and fully embrace where you’re at with your musical development right now.

It’s natural to want to improve your sound (I’m always working to improve mine; and yes, I’m helping my students to improve theirs, as well), but please do let yourself hear what’s already there. (You might be surprised!) You’ll play better, feel better and enjoy yourself more.

I’ll leave you with these old words of wisdom that I first heard from my mother many years ago: Happiness isn’t having what you want; it’s wanting what you have. 

 

 

The Most Useful Scale In Jazz Improvisation

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The primary sonic material of melody is scales. Sure, arpeggios, passing tones and symmetrical intervals are in the mix, too. But so much melodic beauty comes directly (and indirectly) from the scales themselves.

It’s highly unlikely you’ll study jazz improvisation without going deeply into the study and practice of scales, and how they relate to harmony.

Of course, simply running up and down scales isn’t going to help you make beautiful music. To improvise expressively, you have to be able to imagine (hear) and create pleasing melodic patterns and shapes from the scalar (and other) material and develop them into an improvised composition.

Here are some of the many scales that are used in modern jazz improvisation: diminished, augmented, whole tone, major, minor, blues, pentatonic (and altered pentatonic), hexatonic, harmonic major…

There is a lot of music to be found and made with these scales, and I’ve spent much time studying and applying them in my practice as an improviser. But the one scale that gives me the greatest amount of musical possibilities is the melodic minor (I’m talking about the ascending form, i.e., a major scale with a lowered 3rd). Here’s 3 big reasons why:

1. It has a compelling contour. Take a look at the example below, a C melodic minor scale:

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There is a tritone formed between the 3rd degree (Eb) and the sixth degree (A), as well as one from the 4th degree (F) to the 7th (B). The first four notes of the scale imply a strong minor tonality. The last four (G through C) imply a major tonality. The 3rd through the 7th (Eb through B) imply a whole tone scale. The 4th through the 7th degree (F through B) imply a Lydian tonality. Lots of different colors for melodic creation. When you arrange the notes of the scale into chords, even more tonal implications (and richness) emerge.

It has such natural melodic contour, that if you were to simply improvise over the scale itself in any key, without passing tones, you’d easily find lots of beautiful melodic shapes and patterns that fit well into the jazz language.

2. It relates well to dominant 7th chords. In the example below I demonstrate the use of the C melodic minor as the “jazz minor” scale (the scale from the raised root of the dominant 7th chord, in this case the B7):

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If you analyze the above melodic idea, you can see that there is lots of harmonic tension, some of it diatonic, some of it as altered, upper partial notes: A (7th), D (+9), C (-9), Eb (3rd), G (-13) and F (+11), resolving to “E”, the root of E Major.

But look how this exact melodic line over dominant resolves to tonic in other ways:

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Again, if you analyze the above examples, you’ll see that the harmonic functions of each note changes in relationship to the dominant chord, but the melodic sequence with the minor scale stays the same.  Play through these patterns and you’ll hear 5 different colors of tension to resolution, some with lots of upper partial harmony. When you’ve mastered these scales, you give yourself a huge amount of possibilities over iiV7-I chord progressions, as you expand your thinking and your ears.

3. It can be organized and combined to form many interesting “modern” tonalities. One of the great things about melodic minor is that it can be the basis for lots of other tonalities and harmonic substitutions that have become part of the jazz language of today. Triad pairs formed from one scale (G Major and F Augmented from the D melodic minor scale) work well over several ii7-V7 sequences:

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If you combine the minor scales, you can find an almost unlimited new resource of tonal possibilities, like harmonic major pentatonic scale sequences (combining Bb minor,and Ab minor, for example):

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You can also find new ways to combine triads for harmonic substitution. Here I extract major triads from the C minor, F minor, Ab minor and D minor scales and combine them in a way that implies movement around the circle of keys (with a bit of a surprise in the last two beats of the second measure):

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About 3 years ago I plunged deeply into the study and exploration of melodic minor scales, particularly as they relate to dominant 7th chords, and how they resolve to tonic. In studying this way I’ve come to have a clearer functional understanding of so many other tonalities in modern jazz, and my ability to improvise freely and melodically has grown significantly. Above all, I’ve learned to hear and imagine music in a different way.

I’ve documented and organized all the work I’ve done with the scales and put it into the form of a downloadable pdf book, which I’ve made available for purchase. The book is called Melodic Minor Scale Jazz Studies: Tonal Organizations And Applications Over Dominant 7th Chords. There are over 200 pages of notated exercises and instructions, from basic to very advanced applications, along with downloadable backing tracks for you to use to practice the material in the book.

If you’d like to gain deep mastery over this highly useful scale, and open up your improvisational thinking and possibilities, I encourage you to consider it. If you’d like some more examples of the material in the book, please visit my Jazz Etudes page, where you can test drive several different ideas and applications. Enjoy!

Practicing Music: Balancing Subtraction And Addition

To improve and grow as a musician, you have to practice with very specific aims in mind. When you’re practicing effectively, you’re doing either one or two things:

  1. You’re unlearning habits that interfere with your ability to play better.
  2. You’re learning new ideas, skills, information, repertoire, patterns, etc., to expand what you are able to do.

So in essence, you’re subtracting (unlearning) or adding (learning). Learning to balance your efforts so you’re working on both is key to your progress.

As an Alexander Technique teacher, I always give subtraction top priority. All the musicians that come to me for help do so because they have movement and postural habits that are creating problems for them as they play their instrument. They need to learn how to subtract these habits, so they can play with greater ease, efficiency and precision.

As a saxophonist, I spend a good percentage of my practice time specifically devoted to keeping my habits in check.

Today, for example,  I spent a period of time consciously preventing myself from tightening my neck and jaw as I played scales into the altissimo register. When I’m able to stop myself from indulging in this excess tension, my sound is so much more clear, round and warm (not always an easy thing for saxophone altissimo).

In Alexander Technique jargon, we call this kind of conscious prevention inhibition. It is this inhibition, this conscious subtraction of habit, that has helped me improve more than anything else.

In fact, I would say that most issues involving instrumental pedagogy are best addressed with subtraction. Stop doing the thing that’s causing the problem, and you’re “half way home”, as F.M. Alexander would say.

Of course, if all you do is work on subtracting habits, you’ll deprive yourself the opportunity to expand in other areas. To grow as an artist, you also need to add things (see number 2 above). You need a nice mix of both.

As a teacher, I’ve encountered musicians who are out of balance with their practice routine in this regard.

I’ve worked with jazz guitarists who were so concerned with adding repertoire, learning licks, transcribing solos, etc., that they were completely out of touch with how sloppy their technique and time had become through all the excess, unconscious tension they created in themselves as they play.

When I get them to become aware of their habits, and get them to address them (subtraction) through practice, they are pleased with how nicely all their newfound knowledge and skills integrate into beautiful, expressive music.

But I’ve also seen the reverse of this imbalance. For example, I’ve worked with brass players who spend so much time on “habit control” (especially with embouchure), that they get kind of stuck in their progress. Stuck, not only because they’re doing nothing to increase their ears, repertoire, etc., but also, because they’ve become so obsessed with controlling their habits that they’ve grown stiff (physically, emotionally and mentally) in their playing.

With these students, it’s been a matter of teaching them how to better approach their subtraction process so they’re not trying for absolute perfection. And then getting them to gradually step into the unknown by learning some new musical material.

So aim for striking a balance between these two aspects of  your practice. Strive to be clear about cause and effect. If you keep adding to what you do, but find yourself sounding worse (time, tone, intonation, articulation, control), remember that unless you get those habits of misdirected tension under control, you’ll just amplify bad results. You may have more notes you can play, but with far less beauty.

I recommend doing these five things:

  1. Write down, in great detail, the short term and long term goals you aim to achieve through practice.
  2. Make a list of the things you’ll have to do in your practice to reach your goals.
  3. Determine which of these things you’ll practice are subtractive or additive by definition, and mark then on your list accordingly using a plus mark for addition (+), and a minus mark (-) for subtraction.
  4. Keep a practice log everyday, again putting plus or minus marks next to each thing you practice.
  5. Reassess regularly to see how you might need to change the balance of pluses and minuses to continue on toward your goals.

And just to emphasize again, always begin each practice session with subtraction. Ask yourself, “What do I need to stop doing to play better?” Start with this everyday, then enjoy all the new things you’ll study and learn.

Staying In Touch With Your Reasoning

This morning I gave an Alexander Technique lesson to one of my most dedicated students, a professional guitarist who’s been taking weekly lessons from me for over a year and a half. During his lesson I was reminded of one of the ultimate benefits of long term study of the Technique: You cultivate the skill and confidence necessary to solve your own problems.

You do so by learning to analyze the needs of a particular musical task, discerning what you’re actually doing (as opposed to what you believe you’re doing), and deciding if what you’re doing is best for the task, or not.

Then you’re modifying your thinking, reorganizing your efforts in such a way so that what you’re doing gives you the best chance of success in achieving your goal. This more often than not primarily involves subtracting the habitual (unconscious) patterns of tension that interfere with your natural coordination. It rarely (if ever) involves adding something to what you already do.

When you learn to work this way, all the inconsistencies of practicing and performing music become less mysterious, less daunting. As my student said this morning:

“If something is not going well as I play (that normally goes well), I stop and think about what in my thinking has changed to make the outcome of my playing change. Before, I used to get discouraged, believing that things just go bad for no particular reason. Now I realize that if things aren’t going well, it’s because the conditions in myself that encourage things to go well have changed. And I trace that right back to my thinking. I improve the conditions by changing my thinking, then things go back to running smoothly. I don’t go back into panic mode anymore. All I have to do is to remind myself to stay in touch with my reasoning.”

I love that last sentence, especially his words, stay in touch with my reasoning.

F.M. Alexander (the founder of the Alexander Technique), in his book Man’s Supreme Inheritance, wrote that when most people face the unknown in a fearful way, they become “absolutely out of communication with their reason.” When this is the case, he found, the chances become slim that they’ll be able to help themselves, as they are guided by unconscious habit and fear.

Much of what Alexander advocated in his work was staying in touch with the ability to reason, to discern, to make true choices (based upon what can be discerned, and what is possible), not to be exclusively guided by habit. He talked a lot about being able to “step into the unknown”, not only as a way to learn to change your habits, but also, as a way to continuously grow and develop as a conscious human being.

The really great thing about the Alexander Technique is that it is just that: a practical technique that teaches you how to reliably change and improve what you do.

When my student started with me, his thinking was all over the place. He’d tried numerous things to solve some of his technical challenges as a guitarist, most often with inconsistent (or worse) results.

As he put it, “I was always looking for the magic bullet, that one thing that was going to make everything work perfectly. Maybe it was a new hand position, or maybe it was some new form of concentrating on one part of myself, like my fingers. But what I’ve come to know is that there is no magic bullet. As I bring too much attention to one thing, something else always suffers.”

So what has he learned by taking Alexander Technique lessons with me? He’s learned how to notice his habits in relation to the natural coordination that is already established within himself.

In the lessons (through hands on guidance, visual demonstration and verbal explanation) he’s learned how to discern and judge what this natural coordination is. He’s been able to create a set of criteria to act as a sort of lens as he observes himself. When things go wrong, it always comes back to the fact that he’s doing something he needs to stop doing. (Yes, stop doing.)

And most important, he’s learned a reliable way to say no to these habits of tension that interfere with his optimum performance.

This doesn’t mean that everything’s perfect. In the realm of human experience (and especially with musicians and other artists), nothing is perfect. But, it has given him a reliable way to improve. It’s taken him out of the guessing, the trial and error, the frustration, the mystery. It’s put him back in touch with his reason. And that has helped him improve considerably.

If you find yourself becoming frustrated, beguiled and stuck in your improvement, it might help you, too.

Playing Saxophone: The Alexander Technique (And More)

Being that I’m both a professional saxophonist and a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, my fellow saxophonists often ask me about how the Technique applies to playing their instrument.

This is actually a topic for a book that I’ve yet to write (though I have been sketching some ideas out and documenting and organizing my thoughts about it for some time now).

When playing saxophone, a moment doesn’t go by without me thinking about and applying the Alexander principles. I literally wouldn’t be able to enjoy a performing career these days without using what I’ve learned.

The Alexander Technique has not only helped me address certain physical problems I was having as a saxophonist, but also, has given me a failsafe method for improving the efficiency of how I practice saxophone (even how I approach improvisation). By looking through the lens of the Alexander principles, I’m able to gain a clear idea of why something works, or why it doesn’t.

Some time back, I was asked by Doron Orenstein, the Webmaster of the highly popular Best.Saxophone.Website.Ever, to participate in a multimedia educational product he was developing for saxophonists. When he told me who the other contributors were, I felt honored to be asked, to say the least.

I would be in some heavy company in this project, contributing my knowledge and experience alongside that of such saxophone superstars as Walt Weiskopf and Rick Margitza, et.al.

The product is called Bulletproof Saxophone Playing, and I’m very pleased with how it turned out. The format is essentially a series of interviews (eBook and audio format) with six different (and highly diverse) saxophonists about such things as technique, tone production, breathing (I had lots to say about this!), articulation, embouchure (both the external and internal embouchure), equipment, practice routines, trouble shooting, and so much more.

Besides having a fine panel of experts, what makes the whole thing really practical is that the interviewer (Doron) asks such thoughtful, essential and insightful questions. He also does something many interviewers don’t do: He actually listens with genuine curiosity and interest to his subject.

In interviewing me, Doron covers what I consider to be some of the most fundamental points about how the Alexander Technique can help improve your saxophone playing: recognizing postural and movement habits; the importance of head/neck balance (and how the jaw and tongue  need to be free to work together); and how breathing actually works (in contrast to all the mythology passed on from teacher to student about this crucial subject).

And of course, the input from the other contributors is great. I’ve learned lots from exploring the ideas and suggestions of the five other saxophonists.

I virtually never address saxophone issues here on my blog, as I aim at finding ways to help musicians in general, and improvising musicians in particular. Yet all of my teaching, whether saxophone pedagogy, improvisation, or practice coaching, is always done through the principles of natural coordination that are the cornerstone of the Alexander Technique.

So I’m pleased to be able to offer some of my saxophone-specific thoughts for those saxophonists curious about the Technique. And the fact that I’m in the company of giants, makes me recommend Bulletproof Saxophone Playing with great enthusiasm. Click on the banner below to learn more.

Play Saxophone Like a Pro