sax lessons : Volume III

Headline:

I've improved.
It's official.
My teacher said so.
So there.

other news:
still some work left to do - haven't mastered the saxophone utterly yet.


today's was rather a l-o-n-g lesson - poor Sophie, she must've been knackered by the end of it (as well as heartily sick of hearing the saxophone mauled by a muppet!). We both played the lunchtime service - she did piano and I borrowed her violin, which has been hanging out in the LAT office, and diddled along in the background. Djago preached from Matthew 18:1-14

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" He called a little child and had him stand among them.
And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come! If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.
See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.The Son of Man came to save what was lost. What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost".


[the Greek word for "to stumble" is, apparently, the one used where the word "sin" is used in this passage]

about Christians' utter inability to do anything about their status themselves, yet having immense value to Him because they're His & having to rely utterly on God - like helpless little children and about not causing other Christians or yourself to stumble in their life with God.

After the lunchtime service, and the lunchtime lunch of sandwiches & Christian-quiche that they always lay on afterwards, we got into the world of saxophoning. Sophie had her bari with her and I had the tenor & the alto. She gave Clyde (the tenor) a once-over, and seemed to quite like him - making me even more sure that he was good value for money.
We did lots of scales, long notes and arpeggios - same idea as last time - thinking "open". This week we were working on trying to get an even sound across the registers rather than hearing a clearly deliniated

-----
low
-----
break
-----
high
-----

This week's most consistently minging note (and therefore the note to work on) is C - the one an octave above middle C, mainly, but also the other higher one (also shown on the link). Part of the 'thing' is moving from not using the octave key to using the octave key without thinking of changing gear or tightening up!

We also looked at my thumb on the octave key - sometimes it's even levitating off the key, and often it travels far enough across the thumb rest to make it worth its while getting a travelcard. It should be just overhanging the rest so it can just go "plip" and pop the key down - not with the whole thumb-tip, just with the fleshy bit.

Also looked at tonguing - my ordinary smooth tonguing's improved - but when I have staccato I underestimate how much I need to actually stop the note. Also, must remember that accents are from a diaphragmatic squirt rather than from harder tonguing (unlike on recorders).

Still not always breathing properly.
filling up from the bottom
emptying from the top
with a supported column of air shooting out, unimpeded.

Looked at posture - my favourite chimp-like way of standing with my head poking forward slightly on the end of my neck. Not great!

We went through my Grade 1 pieces too - as well as playing through a couple of the tunes from Unit 3 of "Learn as You Play Saxophone". In my Grade 1 pieces, the main one I still haven't got a shape in my head for the solo is Mack the Knife. When I do solo, however, I need to resolve more, rather than leaving chords hanging over the ends of phrases in a precarious manner.

As you might have fathomed, it was quite a long lesson, just over 2 hours (yes, did get a little go of the bari - me want, me want, me want!!! lovely vibrating through you feeling - cozy & hug-like). Afterwards Sophie was off to Coventry (the place, not the imposed silence) on the train, so I went off down to Euston with her - acting as porter to the violin. We grabbed a coffee there, then installed her on the train (one of those flash new Virgin ones) before coming home, eating a sandwich & promptly conking out on the sofa until 9 o'clock.

It sounds like I haven't done any work (office-wise) today - but with an extra-special-superhuman effort I managed to ooooozzzze out of bed at around 7.30 and left the house about 8.20. Got in at the same time as Janet - and even before Annette. It's be great if I could manage to do that sort of timing on a Monday every week - mainly (though not entirely) because I discovered that SPRAS as a whole has now got into the routine of everyone coming together to pray at (around,ish) 10 o'clock each morning (10@10) - which is just such a good centring exercise. I'm hopeless at "Quiet Times" - and need, I know, not to be.

It's a bit like things like breathing, posture & relaxing in playing - I know I need to do them, but there are times, far more than there should be, that they get forgotten, abandoned, or just fail to happen, despite efforts to the contrary.