Category Archives: Practicing Saxophone

Listening Beyond Your Instrument To Open Up Your Musical Imagination

“Some of my favorite saxophonists don’t play saxophone.” I remember saying that once, some years back, when I was being interviewed on a radio show. The host asked me a simple question, “Who are some of your favorite saxophonists?” This is a logical question to ask a saxophonist (me). But truth be told, at that point in my life, I wasn’t much influenced by other saxophonists. (My answer was quite spontaneous and sincere.)

I was more interested in listening to guitar players. I was crazy about a wide spectrum of improvisational guitar playing: Jimi Hendrix, Ralph Towner, Nels Cline, Wes Montgomery, Django Reinhardt, Jim Hall, Mike Stern, Derek Bailey, Charlie Christian, John Abercrombie, and many, many more. ( I still love this music!)

At that time I was listening to a large variety of music, and certainly a fair amount of that music involved the saxophone. But I continually gravitated toward the guitarists. You might be wondering why I just didn’t switch from playing saxophone to guitar. But truth be told, I wasn’t interested at all in playing guitar.

I was drawn to many of these guitarists because they played their instruments in such a way as to inspire me to think differently about playing the saxophone (my true love!) The first time I heard Mike Stern play, for example (with Miles Davis), I thought, “Now that’s how I want to play the saxophone!” The way Stern was thinking about his sound, organizing his melodic ideas, and using space and density was markedly different than any saxophonist I’d ever heard.

It was easy for me to imagine that coming out of a saxophone, spelling out a whole new musical language for the instrument.

Fortunately for me, I didn’t scrutinize and imitate his music. This is always a great temptation. We hear somebody who has really “solved” the musical problems we’ve been considering, with great clarity, originality and stunning self-expression. Why not just do what they did?

Well, I won’t digress here as to why that’s not a good idea. Suffice it to say that the whole point of this creative process is to solve the problems in your own way. That’s where the beautiful music comes from.

It’s not hard to understand why guitarists think differently than saxophonists: They play a different instrument. They have different challenges, limitations, possibilities, physical requirements, etc. They think and function within the world of the guitar. No matter what, part of what influences their creative thinking is the nature of their instrument.

And so it is for all instrumentalists. Because of this you have saxophonists listening to a disproportionate amount of saxophonists, as do you have guitarists listening to a disproportionate amount of guitarists, and so on with all instrumentalists.

There’s nothing wrong with that, for the most part. After all, you learn what your instrument can do. You learn about sound, articulation and other aspects of technique. You learn the history of the improvisational language as told through your instrument. All of this is good. It creates a context through which to explore and grow.

But if you really want to start thinking about your instrument in a different way, in a more expansive way, you might consider carefully listening to and studying musicians who play (or sing) an instrument other than  your own.

I remember once talking to the great tenor saxophonist, Bennie Wallace, about his influences. He was sort of amused that many critics compared his playing to Eric Dolphy’s, because Bennie’s improvisational language involved the use of “wider than usual” intervals (as did Dolphy’s).

But Bennie never really listened to Dolphy (although he greatly respected him). Instead, Bennie became highly inspired in his saxophone playing because of the way Thelonious Monk played piano. Bennie didn’t copy Monk, but he was led to think and imagine (through careful observation of Monk’s music) of an entirely different way of playing the saxophone.

Interestingly enough, Bennie was influenced by the sound that Monk could get on the piano (which was due in a large part to Monk’s more “vertical” conception of tonal organization throughout his instrument).

When I think of the greatest tenor saxophone sound I aspire towards, it’s the sound of Johnny Hartman’s singing voice. (Yes, I know he’s a baritone, not a tenor). Listening to him sing has influenced my thinking about the sound of the saxophone more than any saxophonist ever has. Again, I don’t try to imitate him. It’s just that I imagine that concept through the tenor saxophone. Flutist James Newton also has a sound that has deeply opened up my own conception of the tenor saxophone sound, as has the sound of Elvin Jones’ drumming and Bill Evan’s piano playing.

Sometimes it’s a good idea to think far outside of the world of your instrument. Let go of the “trumpet-isms”, “piano-isms”, “guitar-isms”, or whatever kind of “isms” you might hold on to.

Becoming inspired by another instrument can help you to imagine the “impossible” on your instrument, and make it possible. (Sometimes the “impossible” is nothing more than a limited imagination and the unwillingness to carry out a new idea to fruition.)

So see if you can find an instrumentalist or singer that really inspires you. Listen…frequently, mindfully, openly, joyfully. Try to imagine their sound, their conception, coming through your instrument. At the very least, you’ll deepen your listening skills and imagination.  You might even open up your creative world in a huge and unexpected way.

The Sum Total Value Of Non-Doing

Some years back, after I’d been studying the[ for a couple of years, a friend of mine, George McMullen (a highly accomplished trombonist), came to hear me play saxophone at a concert in West Los Angeles. He hadn’t heard me play in quite a while (since before I started studying the Alexander Technique).

After the concert ended, George came to talk to me and said, “You’re sounding great, but very different from the last time I heard you play. What are you doing differently?”

I remember answering him, spontaneously and without hesitation, “The real difference in my playing is not because of what I’m doing. It’s because of what I’m not doing.”

And that’s about as truthful as I could be. You see, what I wasn’t doing anymore was playing with all my old habits of tension: I wasn’t tightening my neck as I pulled my head back and down into my shoulders. I wasn’t tightening my left shoulder as I pulled my arms in toward my rib cage. I wasn’t thrusting my pelvis forward. I wasn’t locking my knees. I wasn’t clenching my jaw to produce my sound.

I was playing well, playing better than before, because of the sum total of what I wasn’t doing. F.M. Alexander (the founder of the Alexander Technique) said, “If you can stop doing the wrong thing, the right thing will do itself.” This turns out to be especially true in the act of playing music.

By playing my saxophone without my habits of tension, I become free to play in such a way that is in concert with my human design. I Become free to direct my energies most efficiently toward the act of producing a sound, and otherwise playing my instrument. And the results, as my friend could hear, are palpable.

And as I continue to teach the Alexander Technique I’m rewarded with seeing remarkable improvements in musicians as they learn the art of non-doing. Practically any musician, on any instrument (including voice) can improve how they perform by following this principle.

An example that comes to mind most recently is my experience teaching a young violist who plays in the local youth symphony. He came to me (as do an alarmingly growing number of young musicians) because of chronic tension and pain. His condition was worsening to the point that he couldn’t practice more than a few minutes without experiencing rather significant pain and muscular exhaustion.

As I observed his playing in our first lesson, I could see the manifestations of the tension that was causing his problems: stiff neck with his head pulled forcefully downward onto his instrument; left shoulder being pulled tightly upward and inward (impinging the muscles at the shoulder joint); breath being held; torso being twisted and held rigidly too far back; knees locked as his legs stiffened.

Though these are different things to observe, they’re all really part of one entire pattern of tension that is brought about by my student’s reaction to the thought of playing his instrument.

So I proceeded to help him the same way I helped myself (through the principles of the Alexander Technique). I helped him to become aware of all the unnecessary “doing” he was bringing into his playing (tension!), then I taught him how to change his thinking so he could stop doing so much (playing without so much tension and misdirected effort).

This is a process that takes persistence and time to make lasting changes. (But lasting changes are made!) He has to keep coming back to his tendency to go into his habit of tension, then make a conscious decision to not indulge in his habit as he proceeds to play his instrument. Simple in principle, but not always immediately easy to carry out. Again, persistence and time.

It’s been a few months since I started working with this student, and already things are much better for him. No more shoulder pain. No more neck pain. No more exhaustion. And what makes it all even better, is that his sound, intonation, technique and even his artistic expression have all noticeably improved.

So at our last lesson, in which my student was playing particularly well (easily, expressively, joyfully), I asked him if he could tell me what is different about how he was playing now in contrast to how he played before taking lessons with me. He, too, without hesitation answered with a list of things he wasn’t doing anymore: “I’m not scrunching my neck; I’m not pinching my left shoulder; I’m not twisting my body downward; I’m not locking my knees…” And so on.

He (like I was/am in my Alexander learning process), was very clear about why he improved, and that improvement had a great deal to do with non-doing. When he stops doing the wrong thing, beautiful, expressive, easy music is free to come forth.

And that’s the way it always is with musicians (and non-musicians) who study the Alexander Technique. They become very clear at why they are improving, at what they’re not doing anymore.

So if you notice yourself playing with great effort, notice yourself stiffening up as you play, feel blocked expressively, feel unstable as you make music, or lack confidence in your playing, consider the idea of non-doing. Notice what kinds of tension you begin to create in yourself as you go to play, and simply ask yourself if it helps you play better, or interferes with your playing.

Understand that all the the necessary skills to play your instrument well are already there, waiting latently. All you have to do is stop doing the things that interfere with this skill.

Of course, you can be greatly helped with this by a skilled Alexander Technique teacher. Consider taking a series of lessons from a qualified teacher. Allow yourself to discover the value of non-doing, and experience the possibility of positive change.

A Simple, Highly Effective Tool For Avoiding Fatigue And Injury

Well timed and well directed rest is one of the most important elements for a serious musician to maintain and develop a healthy practice regimen. Unfortunately, many musicians neglect this crucial element, sometimes looking at rest as a necessary evil, something that steals precious time away from “real” practice.

But truth be told, it is rest in any activity that optimizes effort. All effort and no rest leads to fatigue, lack of inspiration, compromised technical habits, unclear thinking, and injury. I could write volumes on the when and how much of effective rest. Instead, I’ll introduce you to a highly effective way to practice resting that is taught and used regularly in the Alexander Technique. It’s called constructive rest (also referred to as active rest).

In this rest practice, you lie down in a semi-supine position (on your back with your knees bent and feet on the floor) on a firm surface (e.g., a carpeted floor) with something  firm to support your head, such as books or magazines. Your arms are bent at the elbow with your hands resting on the side of your torso, somewhere between the bottom of your ribcage and your hips. You also leave your eyes open (remember it’s called active rest) so you can keep your senses in tune with your body. It looks like this:

Simply lying in this position for 15 to 20 minutes at a time can work wonders for you. Here are just a few of the benefits of constructive rest:

  • It helps to restore the length of your spine by letting your back and neck muscles release into their natural resting length.
  • It allows for your intervertebral discs (the soft cushions between your neck and back bones which absorb shock) to re-hydrate to their optimum thickness (this too lets your spine get back to its resting length).
  • It allows your breathing to return to an easy, natural and well-functioning state.
  • It calms your nervous system, clears and centers your mind and brings you back in touch with the present moment.
  • It helps you to become better aware of your habits of tension (and helps you connect thought to gesture to reduce your tension) thereby giving you a better gauge of effort and tension when you play music.
  • It puts you into a state of calm alertness, readying you to play music at your highest level.I’ve been practicing constructive rest for many years now, with ever increasing benefit.

For me it’s as essential as sleep, food and hydration to stay healthy and play my best. If you have chronic back and/or neck pain, this procedure can greatly reduce or even eliminate your symptoms. Here are the basic instructions for lying down in the semi-supine position for constructive rest:

Find a reasonably quiet place. If possible, allow yourself fifteen or twenty minutes to lie down.

Lie with your backside down on a flat, firm surface, e.g., a carpeted floor, or a wooden floor with a yoga mat or thin blanket beneath you. Do not lie down on a bed, cot, or sofa, as these surfaces are too soft and will not allow for the necessary feedback your body needs to release muscles.

You should also place something firm beneath your head for support, such as a few thin books or magazines. The height of this support will vary with each individual. If too high, the chin will be too close to the chest and will not allow enough space in the front of the neck; if too low, the head will tend to go “back and down” the spine, thus discouraging the natural lengthening process. Try different heights and find one that encourages the least amount of tension in the entire neck:

Too high

Too low

Good height

Once you are on your back, bend your knees to bring your feet flat onto the floor. Keep your heels in approximate line with your sitting bones. Your heels should be about twelve to fifteen inches from your buttocks.

Keeping your arms out and away from your torso (think of your arms as hands of a clock at 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock), bend your elbows to bring your palms to rest on the sides of your torso where your ribcage meets your abdomen. Make sure your hands are not touching one another, and that there is plenty of space between your ribcage and elbows:

Shoulders narrowing (arms too high)

Shoulders widening (better arm position)

Check your breathing by observing the flow of air in and out of your nostrils. Keep your eyes open during the entire session, from time to time noticing your environment. Scan yourself for any unnecessary tension or holding that you might be doing. Observe any changes within yourself that might take place. Rest and enjoy!

That’s all there is to it. By simply lying in this manner you activate great release and positive changes. If you like, you can also add the Alexander Technique primary directions. This is a simple set of mental directives to give yourself to encourage length and expansion in your body. They are as follows:

I allow my neck to be free, so that my head can release upward off the top of my spine.

I allow my entire torso to lengthen and widen.

I allow my knees to release forward from  hip joints, and for one knee to release away from the other.

I allow my heels to release into the floor.

You simply think the directions, but don’t do anything about them. In fact your entire aim should be to do nothing at all. Non-doing we call it in the Alexander Technique. Just let yourself rest.

You can use this tool anytime you like. In my musical practice, I tend to use it as follows: I usually lie down for about 5 or 10 minutes before I practice to help bring me to the state of calm alertness I need to play well. When I take brief breaks during my practice (5 to 10 minutes) I’ll also lie down.

Or sometimes I’ll take a nice long break in my practice session and lie down for an entire 20 minutes. When I do this I feel completely restored (mind, body, spirit) and ready to resume. I often do this when I have an unusually long practice day.

Also, if I’m at a gig where space permits, I’ll lie down before I start and during the intermission (or sets). I’ve been told that in the U.K. (where the Alexander Technique is widely known and practiced by professional musicians) you can see 40 or more musicians lying down back stage during the intermission at orchestral performances.

So incorporate this highly effective tool into your practice routine. If you can’t manage 15 or 20 minutes, do it for 5 or 10. It will still help. Remember, rest is part of the process to improve, so don’t look at it as time wasted. Balance rest with effort and you’ll greatly increase your chances of staying healthy, injury free and energized as you practice and perform.

Ten Things You Can Do To Improvise Over Familiar Material In New Ways


In just about any improvisational music discipline, there is a recognized repertoire of pieces that musicians are expected to be familiar with. These are pieces that are used as an easy and convenient means for musicians to play together with little to no rehearsal.  A template for immediate communication, as it were.

In the world of jazz we refer the these pieces as standards. Some of these are songs from the Great American Songbook, such as All The Things You Are, Night And Day, etc. Others are compositions penned by well-known jazz musicians, such as Confirmation, Joy Spring, etc.

It’s easy to become somewhat jaded when playing these pieces, being seemingly unable to find anything new to say when improvising over them. This shouldn’t be the case, as there are always new ways to play on familiar material, if you maintain an attitude of exploration.

Here are 10 things you can do (things that I do myself) to help you immediately find new ways to play over familiar tunes:

1.Change the key-As obvious as it sounds, you’d be surprised at the amount of jazz musicians who have never explored a standard in an unfamiliar key. Besides giving your thinking a good workout (by mentally transposing the melody and harmony) you’ll find that you come up with new ways to phrase and otherwise think about the tune. Take a tune that you know and spend a few days improvising over it in all 12 keys. (If you aren’t already doing this on a regular basis, you should seriously consider making this a part of your daily practice plan.

2. Improvise slowly-Set your metronome from anywhere between quarter note equals 60 to 80. Don’t launch right into double-time playing. Instead, really let yourself experience and embrace the slow single-time feel. Make your time feel beautiful and clear. You’ll find all kinds of new ways to combine notes and create melodies that you’ve never thought of or heard before, many of them surprising and delighting you.

3. Improvise out of time-I call this “unaccompanied playing”. Improvise off of the entire piece by embellishing the melody with the harmony in a manner that resembles an unaccompanied cadenza. Take the time way out, rubato style. Stay strongly connected to the melody in your aural imagination. Take liberties with the harmonic structure, completely ignoring or redefining the harmony if you wish.

4. Improvise off the melody only-Playing in real time (either with a metronome or play along track) ignore the harmony (as much as you can) and build your linear improvisations from the melody itself. One of the methods for this that Lee Konitz said he learned from Lennie Tristano was to play ten choruses in a row improvising over the melody: the first chorus is the melody unembellished; the second chorus is the melody with slight embellishment. From the third through the tenth chorus, you gradually embellish the melody to the point where the melody seems to disappear completely. The key point here is to stay close to the melody in your aural imagination, no matter what you play.

5. Change the time signature-By simply changing the time signature, you force your imagination to conceive of form and harmonic connections in an entirely different way. Putting a piece in originally written in 4/4 into 3/4 is a simple way to notice how immediately differently you’ll improvise. Putting a piece written in 4/4 into 7/8 (this is what I like to do) will radically change how you organize your musical thinking and melodic organization. It will broadly expand your possibilities when you go back to playing the piece in 4/4.

6. Change the time feel (and articulation)-If it’s piece that  you normally play with a swing feel, don’t swing it. If it’s a Bossa Nova, Afro-Cuban, or other type of latin feel, improvise with a swing feel. It’s also a great idea to improvise a swing feel piece with a completely legato articulation. You can do this both with a “swing” eighth note feel and a straight and even eighth note feel. It might surprise you to find how much of your improvisational imagination is defined by your pre-conceived notion of articulation.

7. Use negative space-Explore the power and possibility of silence in your improvisations. Here’s a method I use sometimes to help with this: I play only one phrase (it doesn’t matter how long or short) over an entire chorus of a tune. The rest of the chorus is silence. Next, I play two phrases over the entire chorus, letting the rest of the chorus be silence. I go on to playing three phrases, etc., all the way until it feels as if I’m not consciously “using silence” in my improvisations. I’m always surprised with how much more sparse, but more meaningful my improvising becomes when I do this.

8. Improvise thematically-I’m talking about using one of your own themes. Improvise a first phrase over a tune. Stop and play your phrase over and over until you internalize it. Then go back and see if you can play two phrases, the first being what you originally played, and your second being a variation off the first. Then play three phrases following the same procedure, and so on until you feel that you can improvise endlessly off of your own thematic idea.

9. Write an etude-Sitting down to really use your intellect and imagination by composing an etude over a standard is a great way to clarify your musical imagination. It’s also a good way to codify and apply any new harmonic, rhythmic and/or melodic material you might be practicing.

10. Displace the rhythm-Chose a simple rhythmic pattern (such as 4 eighth notes followed by 2 quarter notes) and use it to improvise over an entire chorus of a tune. Then, go back and improvise a chorus displacing the pattern by one eighth note (e.g., starting on the upbeat of one). Then displace the pattern by one beat for a chorus (starting on the downbeat of two). Continue to do so, chorus by chorus, until you’ve played the pattern from every part of the up and down beat of the measure. This will greatly improve your rhythmic and phrasing imagination.

By approaching familiar things in novel ways, you’ll give yourself the chance to always stay fresh and growing, now matter how many times you’ve played a piece. There are no stale tunes, only stale imaginations.

Imitating Physical Gesture: Try To Understand Cause And Effect

“There is no such thing as a right position, but there is such a thing as a right direction.”

F.M. Alexander

One of the traps that many thoughtful musicians can fall into is that of trying to recreate physically what it looks like to play efficiently. They see a musician perform who is playing with what appears to be “effortless efficiency”, and they aspire to imitate that musician’s physical gestures: postures, hand and arm positions, placement of the facial muscles, placement of the fingers on the instrument, etc. But what they are doing, in essence, is confusing cause and effect.

They’re looking for the “right positions”, as Alexander mentions above.  Keep in mind that the thing that always precedes physical expression, is thought. Alexander described the thinking that precedes and maintains an activity as being an individual’s direction.

So what you’re really seeing when watching a masterful, effortless musician perform is that musician’s direction. You’re witnessing the physical manifestations of his or her thinking during the music making process.

Much of this is a result of good training for sure, but it is also a reflection of the attitude of the musician. Anticipated effort brings forth effort.  Anticipated ease invites ease (and confidence!) This anticipated ease usually has certain identifiable gestures, many of which appear as a sort of efficient stillness: No excessive jaw movement, no fingers flying all over the place, no raised shoulders, and so on.

But if you go directly for trying to look this way without examining the thinking that supports it,  you run this very serious risk: Creating excessive effort in an attempt to appear effortless. (Yes, I did mean to say it that way.)

If you’re a saxophonist, for example, and were to watch many of the great technical masters of the instrument, from Charlie Parker, to Michael Brecker, to Marcel Mule play, you’ll notice that their fingers appear to hardly move at all from the keys (in fact their entire bodies seem to hardly move as they play). So you might say, “Aha, to get that great kind of speed and control I need to keep my fingers close to pearls.”

But what often results from trying to keep the fingers “close to the pearls” is a huge amount of tension and unnatural playing gesture. When saxophonists go after this directly, I often see them holding their fingers into place at the expense of tightening their necks, arms, wrists and backs. (These are sometimes the musicians who come to me for help because of the “mysterious” physical pain they are experiencing from playing their instrument.)

When you see really efficient, effortless saxophonists play, you’re seeing an interdependent chain of gestures that are the result of a clear and helpful thought process. There is no holding of anything in place. Just letting things move the way they need to move to support the best results. Lengthening and widening (through release) of their physical structure as they play. Good direction.

So of course the fingers aren’t flying all over the place. That would be inefficient, tense movement. Of course you won’t see the shoulders tightening up around the neck. That, too, would be tense and inefficient movement. (Not exactly lengthening and widening of the physical structure, if you know what I mean.)

If you were to trace this chain of events it might be something like this: Fingers staying relatively still and connected to the keys because the hands are staying soft ,supple and responsive; because the hands are being supported by arms that are freely balanced and releasing out of the back; because the neck is remaining free and mobile allowing the head to balance on the spine.

Fingers, to arms, to back, to head and neck…all determined by the quality of thought that precedes and supports it. Again, good direction is the cause. The effect are the physical gestures. (And do you notice that these gestures primarily involve release and mobility, not tension and position?)

There is a stark difference in quality between dynamic, efficient stillness, and stiff, self-conscious and limiting control of movement. No matter if they appear the same at first glance.

So if you want to play like the masters, don’t try to look like they do. Don’t go after their gestures directly. Instead, emulate how they think (their direction): ease, efficiency, expansion, mobility, balance, lightness, confidence and joy. Get clearer about your habits of tension, and work toward lessening them. Get to know what helps you and what doesn’t.

By better understanding the relationship between thought and gesture, you better understand the kind of cause and effect relationship that leads to continuous improvement.