Saxophone journey: the first 4 months

Comments · 124

• TG

  @tguit-fiddler5692 · 2 months ago · pinned

  Your tone is really good honestly. Arch your fingers and they will loosen up. Take your saxes to a tech and have them evaluated professionally, or if you want to do two birds with one stone, maybe find an instructor and he/she will notice anything you haven&apos;t. If you want to continue teaching yourself I understand. I&apos;ve been teaching myself music for nearly 20 years. I picked up the sax almost two years ago and it&apos;s my favorite by far! A tip about memorizing scales is to simply learn what it sounds like, that&apos;ll help immensely with everything. Once you have that down, you&apos;ll be able to choose a tonic and play every note in that major scale. To take it a step further once you can play a major scale, you can learn which notes to change to get other scales. It takes a long time to memorize the major scale in every key in the way you&apos;re likely thinking, rattling off every note name, but it&apos;s more important in my opinion to have the intervals memorized with your ear, even if you can&apos;t name them. Learn the relationships between the notes, learn arpeggios. As for controlling your low and high notes, this exercise is the one that really helped propel me forward. Once you get it down it really puts everything into perspective, and it almost turns the octave key into a placebo. &nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2nP60JyXoQ">https://youtu.be/x2nP60JyXoQ?si=_NCQaQnm2ZqvY3tj</a>

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• BA

  @BabeAbeBloom · 1 day ago

  I played for about 4 years when I was a child. I remember doing really well back then, but that was about 20 years ago now. I&apos;m about to pick a saxophone back up for the first time since 8th grade and im so excited! Thank you for the inspiring video!

• HI

  @hilarypavey1695 · 1 month ago

  I think you&apos;re amazing! So dedicated. I&apos;ve been learning alto sax for 3 months and loving it. I&apos;m nearly 70 ❤️

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• SH

  @shoogabooga2072 · 4 days ago

  im just starting sax as well my man! youre sounding great! us old geezers can learn new tricks after all. keep up the great work

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• SM

  @smoothvelvetsinger · 2 days ago

  Can&apos;t wait to see your next video 😉

• BU

  @businessstandard1737 · 1 month ago

  Thanks a lot Rick.<br>Your calm tone, your own journey and your encouragement to keep going are really what one needs to give up quitting.

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• SA

  @saxophoneevolution · 2 weeks ago

  Man you made amazing progress in 4 months. Your air control, vibrato, and breathy sound were impressive. I play tenor, and with those low notes youve got to really open you throat, kind of like you were yawning. Combine that with a looser/relaxed embouchure and you might find they come out more easy. Keep up the good work dude.

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• OL

  @olahaldor · 3 weeks ago

  This is encouraging, fun and interesting to watch. I&apos;m 40, I played the trombone for 6 years as a kid, but I&apos;ve always been fond of the warm sound the saxophone can portray.<br>I am so, so tempted to order a saxophone and get going. 🤞🏻

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• WO

  @wolfobrian3048 · 2 months ago

  I’m 58 years old started to learn to play the tenor saxophone six months ago. Thank you for posting the video as I have the same struggles and it’s nice to know that somebody else is going through the same thing. I find that some days I feel great about my practice and the next day it’s terrible and at the moment I feel like I’m going backwards rather than forwards. The problem I find is that I am so obsessed by the tenor saxophone even when I’m not practicing I’m watching YouTube videos and reading, blogs, etc. for some reason that distracts me by pulling me in 100 different directions. There are so many great tutorials on YouTube, but everybody has a different opinion and it’s difficult to stick to one learning path. Anyways, well done and keep practicing.

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• ER

  @erikrides7937 · 1 month ago

  Your journey in learning the saxophone is commendable, and you are making great progress. <br>I started learning in 6th grade, at the age of 12, and played the next 6 years until I graduated high school in 1998, at the age of 18. I just recently began playing again, about 9-10 months ago after 28 years since my last note so, I understand the struggles. I feel like a beginner, too, and like you, i have made great progress. I recent purchased a tenor sax back in April of this year, and have enjoyed learning to play some of my favorite epic sax solos of the 70s and 80s. Keep going, and I love your black and red tenor!

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• CO

  @Cooper86411 · 1 month ago

  I’ve been at it for a year. I’ve played guitar for 24 years and this has been fifty times harder than anything I learned on it. Best of luck and keep going 🎉

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• TG

  @tguit-fiddler5692 · 2 months ago

  I do want to add, there&apos;s never a shortage of things to learn, start early on theory, you have a good ear, and theory just explains how it&apos;s built. I&apos;m ADHD and I have trouble learning songs start to finish, sometimes it takes a long time for concept to set in. I have to hammer it in repeatedly, eventually it sets in, and usually sets in my ear and my playing before it ever sets into my brain and I can clearly explain it.

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