Saxophone progress
Time for an update.
I have had a couple of lessons and learnt far more than I thought possible in the hour (total) with a proper saxophone teacher. He is very happy to work to my agenda for him, which was to tell me what I am getting wrong and tell me how to fix it, while still leaving me to do the bulk of the learning.
There’s plenty that I am getting wrong. The first was (as I perceive it) not being firm enough with the sax. He has helped me feel that my embouchure needs to be very much firmer than I thought, and so does my diaphragm – he pointed me to slightly harder reeds and we did some exercises on long notes and blowing through. All of which was a revelation and has made an audible difference very quickly. He has also helped me to work on articulation and breathing, with good effect.
The best, and scariest, experience is trying to play things with him accompanying on the piano. We’ve had a few goes at “Watermelon man” by Herbie Hancock. I can sight-read this pretty well when I am on my own, it is fairly rough when I play it with him listening and I always fall apart at some point when we play together, but boy what a rush! It is a blast – loud, joyful and glorious.
He’s even managed to get me to the beginning of improvising: we did some question and answer work around 3 notes and I began to realise what it is all about – lots and lots more to do, but it feels like it might be for me, rather than an alien universe.