One profound way to make your saxophone practice more fun and rewarding is use your creativity to develop your own technical exercises.
If your practice sessions are anything like most saxophonists then they probably consist of…
- Warm up using long tones
- Scales & technique
- Etude study
- Performance literature
On the surface this looks like a great, ordered plan of action. However, most of the time we are simply reading out of books and minimizing our creativity in the process.
Now don’t get me wrong. I love to read books and reading music is a fundamental skill that I personally develop and recommend to my students. However, by using our own creative skills we can build a meaningful connection between our technical practice and our performance literature.
One way to break out of the monotony is to examine your performance literature and create technical exercises that are based upon. Take a piece of literature, the first movement of the Creston Sonata as an example. Look at the key, the rhythms, prominent intervals, articulations, the tempo, dynamics and any trills or ornamentation, and ask yourself the following questions:
- Which aspect of this piece is the most challenging?
- Can I easily read in the given key signature?
- Is there a repeating rhythm that is throwing me off?
- What interval(s) appear(s) throughout the piece?
- Does the tempo (fast or slow) challenge me?
- Can I easily play all the required dynamics?
After pondering these questions, the next step is to create some exercises that get at the challenges you are facing in this piece.
Articulation
If articulation is proving to be a problem, then overlay that articulation on top of a major scale or familiar melody like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or “Three Blind Mice”. Start with a slow tempo and progress to the performance tempo.
Dynamics
If dynamics are challenging you (extremes of loud and soft), then first practice playing long tones in the general register that the extreme dynamics appear. Play these at a comfortable mezzo dynamic to begin with. Then decrescendo down or up to the extreme dynamic.
Interval
If a particular interval is tripping you up (a tritone or a major seventh perhaps), then extract that interval and play it throughout the entire range of the saxophone moving up and down chromatically or by whole tone. Use a variation of tonguing and slurring.
Key
If key is an issue, practice playing the scale on which the piece is based at various tempos. If the piece is tonal, play the scale through all 7 seven modes. Practice intervals of 3rd, 4ths, 5ths, etc.
Rhythm
If there are one or two primary motives that are giving you a fit, then practice singing the rhythm at a slow tempo using the metronome. After successfully singing the rhythm in time, play the rhythmic motive on your saxophone using only one note extracted from the melody. Repeat this using another note from the melody. Progress next to playing the melody as it appears in the piece while slurring only. Now repeat tonguing the melody.
Tempo
If fast speed is an issue, play the passage down tempo by 30-40 clicks and then bump up in increments of 5 after each successful pass. If slow speed is an issue, practice setting your metronome to include a subdivision.
Trills
If playing trills with ease is eluding you, then practice playing the two notes (fundamental and neighbor note) back and forth in sixteenth notes at a slow tempo. Increase the tempo until the speed of the sixteenth notes approaches the speed of the trill.
In Summary
Walking through this creative process allows the student to generate technical studies that support and are extracted from the literature that she will perform. This gives meaning and a context for the technical studies that otherwise unrelated etude books can not provide.
The process of developing your own exercises can make your saxophone practice sessions incredibly fun. Using your creativity to this purpose helps to keep each practice session fresh and unique. No two sessions will be the same when you are essentially writing your own method book each time.
Not only is it fun to be creative, but it is also supremely rewarding. When we involve ourselves in the process of composing exercises based on existing music we are an active participant in the practice of problem solving. And in the end, practicing is really just problem solving.
_________________________________________________
Would you like to improve your saxophone playing?
Are you interested in getting started with saxophone lessons?
Having trouble finding the right teacher in your local area?
If you answered “Yes!” to any of these questions, then click here now to schedule your very own Skype saxophone lesson!
_________________________________________________
Related Posts
Saxophone Tips: New Patterns for Fresh Practice
Saxophone Lessons Online: South Carolina All State Band
Click here to read Wilton’s other online saxophone lessons.
If you like this article, I invite you to leave a comment below and spread the word by clicking the buttons below to share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, or any of your other favorite social media sites.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Wilton,
Cool article. All saxophone players are at different stages in practicing. Starting with the ‘standard’ practice routine at the top of your article does make a lot of sense, especially for a while.
For some time there will be creativity within all those pieces of the practice. When it starts getting mechanical, when you have mastered it, you don’t want to continue exactly the same forever.
For example, once you have your major scales down, you shouldn’t just practice them the same way at the same tempo. Maybe use your knowledge to learn a major lick in all the keys or practice improvising using a random key and that major scale, something like that.
Thanks for writing!
-Neal
@Neal: Thank you so much for taking the time to read and reply here. Your insight, as a player and a teacher, is greatly appreciated.
I agree with your statement about practicing majors scales with variation. I previously wrote about a way to make practicing majors scales more creative by starting at the top of the scale or somewhere in the middle and playing it full range. Using a variety or rhythms and articulations is another way of mixing it up.
I am wondering if you would be willing to flesh out the idea a bit more from the quotation below…
“…practice improvising using a random key and that major scale, something like that.”
Hey Elton,
Thanks for your kind words.
I just meant that once you have the major scales fairly well under your fingers, you can apply them in context.
Either with an Aebersold record that has all the keys, or just playing them on your own in different keys (you could go around the circle of fifths or use a bit more random order).
Using the scales to create music and also just connecting the notes of the scale in ways other than a linear scale.
@Neal: I often tell my students that you can’t use your scales until you can play your scales. Your second sentence speaks to this: first get the technique under your fingers, then use the technique in context.
Speaking to your third sentence, I will sometimes play scales or patterns in a whole tone progression or minor thirds to break up my usual organization or ascending/descending chromatics or circle of fifths.
Regarding playing scales in a more intervalic way, another idea that just came to me would be to play each scale degree without repetition in some kind of seemingly random order like 3-2-7-6-1-5-4 or 1-7-2-6-3-5-4 and then repeat that pattern through all 12 keys. I might like to add this to my practice process