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Make sure the basics are OK. Wind players have to play in tune! Tone must
be at least acceptable even though individualistic. Mini-disc recordings
of live sessions can be surprisingly good, with the mike placed to get
a good balance, every member of the group should hear themselves clearly
enough to check these fundamentals. (It is not always a pleasant experience
of course!)
Tone and tuning are allied to breathing and embouchure. Many never
get these right, but it is possible. For saxophone players I would
thoroughly recommend (there are link problems here, see footnote
below*): http://www.employee.potsdam.edu/crane.faubra/tone.breathing.html
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Rhythm is so important for all music and cannot be practised enough. Build
a vocabulary of rhythms from the styles that you enjoy. Take a few notes
from a scale or mode and practice as many different rhythms as possible
just using those notes. To help with reading skills visually imagine the
count of the beat as you play (this can take time to develop and should
be started slowly, a visual stroke in ones mind with a number above it
can be mentally transferred to the printed page to subdivide the bar, particularly
when reading syncopation)
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Listen and keep listening and try to expand your listening repertoire.
Your natural way to improvise will depend on what has been absorbed into
the sub-conscious, probably many years ago. Beginners and even advanced
players will play and repeat phrases they may not be aware of and on listening
to the recording will not like at all. See next bullet.
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Develop a critical facility while playing. That means listening to what
you are playing while practising and be resolved never to practice
anything you do not like! Stop if necessary and make a mental note. (Of
course when playing with others one should be listening to them but this
is another situation). Try to anticipate the musical sense of the phrase
you are about to play.
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For jazz and related styles, articulation, phrasing and stylistic characteristics
make the sound authentic (I always remember Sonny Rollins demonstrating
this on a TV interview, he only played the first five notes of the scale
up and down in straight tempo to illustrate something quite different,
but it was unmistakably jazz.) This is listening again but in the traditional
way jazz players have always learned, i.e. by imitation. Literally try
and copy the sounds that appeal and work with the recordings of the best
players (this is not trying to be a carbon copy of a favourite player,
it is to get a feel for style and find a way to put notes across that sounds
convincing).
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Try and invent. Do not be put off by your own self-criticism, e.g. 'I'm
not imaginative enough,' is a phrase I have heard more than once, sometimes
from quite serious players. Invention like everything else has to be developed
by study and practice. The way forward is to mentally assemble some basic
materials and work with those; the basic materials can be gradually expanded
with time. Basic materials could be scales and arpeggios, but do not stick
to those or it will not sound very interesting, much better to experiment
with a limited number of notes, like a pentatonic scale. (It does not have
to be the pentatonic scale). Chord sequences are basic materials,
why not invent your own! Choose a sequence of five chords, spaced
out interesting intervals. Change them if you do not like. This is good
for group improvisation. If it does not work, it is probably the fault
of poor rhythms rather than the chords themselves. Rhythm sections might
wish to go home and practice developing some interesting rhythmic patterns
that they can feed off each other at the next rehearsal.
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Some will not want to invent. They would prefer to copy perhaps to keep
alive the tradition of a certain style of music, or maybe just a desire
to sound like an admired player. That is fine, the only problem is that
even with the greatest technique one will never sound like that player
except in a superficial way. Ones own individuality will still come through
of course, but is it not much better to try and develop something of ones
own? To me this is the essence of improvisation and what is to be found
in all great players; most of us will probably never be that great, but
we can be individuals.
(*The series of files indicated
above appear to have been withdrawn, the author 'faubra'? has apparently
left the music school and taken his files with him. This is a pity since
they are very good and would be worth tracking down. I can e-mail
copies to anyone who is really interested.)
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