What am I doing?
I will show you, but...
first of all...jingle!
 
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I want to follow the schedule and upload one vlog a week
I don't want to "break the chain"
I have discovered that uploading new videos every week
is a great way to keep me focused on what I am studying
leave a comment if you have any suggestion
for the next vlogs
today I want to show you an exercise that can be
extremely musical and can be "more" than an exercise
I had this idea while I was teaching to a student of mine
sometimes teaching can be a great occasion to look into yourself
and finding new paths to overcome your difficulties
let's take a short passage from a theme or a solo
or even both
let's start with something that we have already played before
I am doing this on "Billie's bounce"
the tune that I played with my student
it is a very famous tune composed by Charlie Parker
this is the first part of the melody
first: we have to sing the melody accurately
I strongly believe in singing while studying
never underestimate the importance of singing
it is by far something that I am working everyday to improve
you don't have to be a singer, I am a really bad one
you just have to sing the right notes
By singing first we can train your ears and develop a better connection with the horn
the final point as a jazz musician and and improviser
even if music doesn't have an ending point!
the saxophone should be an extention of your voice and an extention of what you are hearing in your head
imagine first and then play it on your instrument
a great way to link your mind and your horn is singing
we play with our hands, our knowledge of rhythm, harmony, but
we play with our ears!
let's play this fragment
now take the last note
and use it as the starting note for the melody in a new key
1 Sing
2 try to figure out what are the intervals in the melody
we are in F concert
you can do this exercise on every saxophone
and on every instrument...
it is not forbidden!
we start from the 5th
5th, b5th up to the 5th again
root
minor and major thirds
min 3rd, maj 3rd
root and 6th
root, 6th, root
I landed on D
what is D? the 5th of G
so the melody will be
and so on we can move it through all the 12 keys
in this case we moved from D to G so a 4th up, or a 5th below, it is the same
so I start in D, move to all 12 keys and come back to D
it is like the "lego" blocks
the final note is the block that connects two keys
I should do a video series called "lego melodies"...
lego cells...
play with your building blocks and your saxophone...
naah I don't know...
I personally find this "link note" more musical than transposing by semitone or whole tone
because you (and the listener) have something to latch on
that final note acts like a "pivot note" that belongs to the 2 keys
or course we must be able to transpose in other more usual ways too, like semitone or whole tone
the other important thing
is that this exercise is a workout on different areas
1 ear training
2 harmony
I must be confident with the intervals in all keys
3 techinque, because the phrase becomes more difficult in some keys
we can also do this exercise faster
and if we want to play faster we must be able to think faster
a faster techinque is useless if we don't have a faster mind
now I will try it faster
at some point I made a mistake
on Db key
I want to keep it in this video, these vlogs are
extracts of my practice sessions and I want to be honest with you and myself
doing mistakes is normal while practicing
but let's stop and try to figure out what happened
like me now
so it was on Db
this was my mistake
on the minor and major 3rds
this can be useful to identify what are our "weaker" keys
now let's take a smaller part of the melody
this reed is really old, but I don't want to change it now
this phrase ends on the 6th
I want to play it faster
remember to practice by singing first
I try
and so on... if you like my vlogs subscribe to be always updated
Bye!
