Steve Neff Music Blog » steve neff

Let’s Get It On Lamberson 7DD Tenor Mouthpiece

steve — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 03:11:29 +0000

Here’s a video clip that has been on my site since it started years ago. I made this video back in 2006 when I was part of a great Boston function band “Soho”. This is a cover of “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye. I take a small solo towards the end of the video (until that pint I’m doing my best to try to look cool……….).

I’m using a white Lamberson 7DD tenor mouthpiece on this clip. This is a great example of how recording in a studio can change the sound of your sax. I had just gotten the Lamberson a few weeks before this recording and wasn’t sure how it would perform in the studio. I had a fear that it would be too bright sounding. I was very pleased with how it came out. I don’t think it is bright at all but nice and fat sounding. It actually sounds rather dark to my ears which really surprised me!

This solo was done on the first take. It was one of those deals where the guy in charge said “Steve, why don’t you doodle a bit on the end”. We recorded it once and when it finished I was about to say “Ok, can we do that again?” . Before I could, I heard “That was perfect……Let’s move on”. The perfectionist part of me thought I could do it better but it is what it is. I hope you like it. You can check out some more clips of the Lamberson 7DD elsewhere on this blog if you do a search for it in the top right corner of the site. Thanks, Steve

Mastering the Blues Scale Vol. 1-Minor Chords (PDF Book)

steve — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 23:34:13 +0000

Mastering the Blues Scale Volume 1: Minor Chords

“Just play the blues scale!” All across the country, you hear this advice given in every band room. Students sit with blank looks on their faces as band directors tell them to use this or that blues scale on their solo. The advice usually doesn’t go much further than that and many kids end up playing solos that they are less than happy about. What many of these students need is a jump start. A few examples of what to play and how to play it………..Here you go!

In Mastering the Blues Scale Volume 1, I demonstrate using the Blues Scale to create great blues licks you can use in your own playing over minor grooves. From slow Blues, to fast Funk, to Rock and Roll. I show you how to go about getting your blues vocabulary

together as you greatly improve your technique with these essential blues licks and scales. Play along with this book at your own pace, as you learn hundreds of great sounding and easily adaptable blues licks and patterns in all 12 keys. Playing these patterns is a fun and exciting way to make that transition from knowing the Blues Scale, to actually having it in your ears and under your fingers.

These blues licks combine many of the idiomatic sequences, intervals and finger patterns, you really need to have down, if you want to get burning on the blues scale. If you are stuck playing your blues scales straight up and down, practicing these licks will soon have you playing with the technique and flexibility required to be able to play what you hear.

Mastering the Blues Scale Volume 1 Minor has 100 great blues licks in all 12 keys. It is a PDF file that you can download immediately so you can get to work.

Thanks,

Steve Neff

This book is a pdf file and can be opened and printed immediately after you download it. The exercises are written in all 12 keys and are great concepts for any musician involved in jazz improvisation.

Bending Notes on the Saxophone

steve — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 20:34:10 +0000

A great sax player has mastered the art of bending and shaping their notes to express what they want to convey. It might be a mood, attitude or emotion. There is no doubt that bending notes adds excitement and emotion to a solo. Bending notes on the saxophone is one of the coolest things that you can learn to do. All the great jazz and R&B saxophone players bend there notes in some way. Usually, the most expressive players and the ones who convey the most emotion and feeling in their playing are the ones who really manipulate and shape their sound the most.

For me, it’s similar to being a great reader or storyteller. The worst thing you can do while reading a story to a child is to just have a monotone voice that drones on throughout the story……..never changing. That’s a great way to get a child to fall asleep fast but a horrible way to keep their interest and attention. You will find that the best storytellers are those that manipulate different aspects of their voice while reading. They talk slower or faster. They talk higher for a women’s voice or lower for a man’s voice. They try to match the sound and style of the way they are speaking with the character that is saying it. If the story is happy…..they sound happy. If it sad, they sound sad. If it is stressful they speak urgently and with some anxiety in their voice. You will find a ton of volume changes while they read to help them convey different emotions to the listener. They might whisper and the child will lean forward to hear. They might yell and the child will jump back startled. All these elements are brought together to tell a story in a rich and expressive way. I find that the great sax players use these same techniques to convey a story to their audience. The best ones use many different techniques to create a mood or emotion.

One of the most common is the bending of notes on the saxophone. In this video, I am showing you the technique I use to bend notes by just using your tongue and throat. Many players will learn how to bend notes by dropping their bottom jaw early on in their development. The technique I am using here is a bit more nebulous and hard to define. As I have taught over the last 10 years I have found this to be one of the hardest elements to teach to a student. The problem is teaching in such a way that the student understands what I am saying and how to implement it without actually being able to see and experience the movement or action. The other problem is trying to understand what is going on within the students throat and tongue position. Many times a student is unaware of what is happening or is even mistaken about what is happening inside their own body.

This video is in response to a great player on the internet who sent me an email asking me to go into further depth about this bending with your throat concept. He is an amazing player but has never been able to bend notes without using his embouchure and was very curious about the method I use to do this.

I try my best in this video to show you how I can bend the tenor mouthpiece pitch down while I blow by “voicing” the note lower. I explain in the video how I am not knowledgeable at all about the medical terms for what I am describing (and I’m not so sure it would help students even if I was) but I try my best to describe what is going on inside my throat and mouth. You can see first hand the affect that this manipulation has on the mouthpiece pitch as well as the sound of the tenor sax as a whole.

Learning this concept has huge benefits. It helps with expression but it also helps with intonation in a great way. If you have certain notes that are sharp or a top register that is sharp then you can very easily use this concept to bring the pitch down without using your embouchure at all. This frees up your embouchure for vibrato and other tonal aspects that you might want to manipulate.

I hope you enjoy the video and find it useful. If you have any comments or questions I would love to hear them. I would also love to hear any teaching concepts or illustrations on this subject that you use or have heard. I love hearing new ideas so that I can become an even better teacher! (Feel free to enlighten me on any medical terminology also) Thanks, Steve

I also have a longer 32 minute full length lesson on this subject “The Art of Bending Notes Lesson” if you are interested in hearing more on this subject.

The Best II-V-I’s Overview Lesson

steve — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 04:00:17 +0000

The II-V-I progression is one of the most common progressions in jazz. A number of years ago, I wrote my popular “The Best II-V-I Patterns” book. This book is a collection of the best II-V-I patterns that I have come across in my 30 years of playing and teaching. While there has been much praise and accolades for the book since it’s release, many beginner and intermediate students have not understood how to work out of the book for the most benefit. I have received many emails asking how to use the book to becaome a better improviser and jazz player. This lesson is my solution for all those players.

In this 33 minute long lesson, I show you exactly how I work out of the book myself as well as teach from it. I cover the basic theory of the II-V-I as well as intermediate level theory and practice concepts. I explain in detail what the progression is, how to figure out the chords, how to practice it, how to apply patterns over it, and how I practice them myself. I includes many samples of me playing through different examples. This is a great companion lesson to my “Best Major II-V-I” book which is highly recommended if you want to get the most from this lesson. (33 Minute Audio Lesson)

Lesson Level: Beginner = 1 - Advanced = 5 ★★★☆☆

Best New Neffmusic Lesson Intro?

steve — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 02:36:44 +0000

Ok, so for awhile now my wife has been telling me I need to step up my video production……… I am all focused on the sax and teaching content but need to get focused on the flashy important stuff. She says I need to focus on getting a quality intro for the lessons. Something people remember and that is catchy. In a moment of frustration I told her she could come up with an intro using her awesome skills if it bothered her so much! (Ok, maybe I raised my voice a little……..) No joke, In 20 minutes, while I ran to the store and back she came up with these two intros for my video lessons. When I got back my jaw dropped to the floor when she told me she had my intro done. Now keep in mind that she is kind of messing with my mind here, but when I saw them I just cracked up laughing…………..I just had to share them with the rest of you. Let me know which one you think is the best……………..

Intro #1

Intro#2

Mastering The Dominant Bebop Scale (PDF Book)

steve — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 02:25:12 +0000

The dominant bebop scale is an essential tool in playing jazz. It is used all over the place in jazz music. If you’re transcribing jazz solos you won’t have to go long before you find some variation of this scale being used. In my Approach Note Books I tackled Major and Minor tonalities pretty thoroughly. In this book I focus on the dominant tonality and what to play over it. The book starts out with the basic dominant bebop scale. the next section deals with what I call “Bebop Scale Links”. These are small phrases or patterns that can be inserted into the bebop line to add variation. The next section deals with “Dominant Resolution Links”. These can be added to the bebop scale when the dominant chord is resolving down a fifth. I have written out each of these sections in all 12 keys so that you have a handy reference if you want to quickly jump to a specific key. The last section of the book I write about how to use and practice these scales and links over a standard blues progression. I provide a 4 chorus blues solo to demonstrate. This book is a gold mine of bebop ideas and lines. It is filled with many musical gems that once mastered will add greatly to your jazz vocabulary. The cost for these patterns is $9.99. You can print this file and get to work immediately. Have fun. I hope you dig these as much as I have over the years. Thanks, Steve

Here’s a clip of me using some of the concepts from the book on a blues progression.

Approach Note Velocity Major (PDF Book)

steve — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 01:50:01 +0000

A number of years ago, I was frustrated with my playing over static major and minor grooves. It seemed like I always ran out of ideas and the ideas I had were stale and unoriginal. At that time, although I could play in all keys, more often than not I was held back to the same old diatonic patterns and licks I had studied as a kid. Besides this frustration, I felt like there were many keys with which I wasn’t comfortable. As a solution, I decided to come up with a comprehensive method using approach notes that I could use to systematically solve these perceived weaknesses in my playing. I started by writing out every approach I could think of in every key. For about 4-5 months, I worked on these approaches while playing along to Jamey Aebersold’s Volume 24 “Major and Minor” CD. As I worked on, and added to, my collection of approaches, I saw the positive results in my performances. Not only was I able to play faster over tunes, but I was feeling a confidence that I could start an idea on any note and find a way to resolve it and make it sound good. As I worked on them in depth, I began to notice that my confidence in every key was improving. Also, the method I was using was helping my ear to more easily hear key centers, and something cool was happening to my time concept. I was starting to play ideas in odd meters against 4. I wasn’t tied down to the 1,2,3,4 groove, but was playing across the bar lines. I really believe that working on these exercises has helped my playing immensely. I hope that you get as much out of these exercises as I have and that they will improve your performances. Thanks, Steve

The Best Minor II-V-I Patterns (PDF Book)

steve — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 22:04:40 +0000

The II-V-I pattern is the most common pattern in jazz music. The more adept you are at playing this pattern in all the keys the better your facility in the jazz language. In the past 20 years I have been keeping a notebook of these patterns. I’ve tried to limit the ones in this 80 page book to the hippest ones and to strain out the ones that are more popular or overused. In my opinion these are the best Minor II-V-I licks that I’ve come across in the past 20-25 years. There are 80 licks in this 80 page pdf file. Each lick is transposed into all 12 keys in treble clef and is easy to read. Trust me when I say that these things will keep you busy for a long time but once mastered your playing will improve incredibly. The cost for these patterns is $9.99. You can print this file and get to work immediately. Have fun. I hope you dig these as much as I have over the years. Thanks, Steve

Here’s a sample of some of the lines that are in the book. I’m playing them on the tenor sax.

The Best Major II-V-I Patterns (PDF Book)

steve — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 21:17:18 +0000

The II-V-I pattern is the most common pattern in jazz music. The more adept you are at playing this pattern in all the keys the better your facility in the jazz language. In the past 20 years I have been keeping a notebook of these patterns. I’ve tried to limit the ones in this 122 page book to the hippest ones and to strain out the ones that are more popular or overused. In my opinion these are the best II-V-I licks that I’ve come across in the past 20-25 years. There are 120 licks in this 122 page pdf file. Each lick is transposed into all 12 keys in treble clef using Finale and is easy to read.Trust me when I say that these things will keep you busy for a long time but once mastered your playing will improve incredibly. The cost for these patterns is $9.99. You can print this file and get to work immediately. Have fun. I hope you dig these as much as I have over the years. Thanks, Steve

Here’s a sample of some of the lines that are in the book. I’m playing them on the soprano sax.

Improvising over “On Green Dolphin Street” Video

steve — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:44:03 +0000

Here’s another video of me playing with that Hal Crook play along. I’m not even sure if this is still out there and published. It’s called “Creative Comping for Improvisation”. I haven’t seen it since the early 90′s. It is such a ball to jam to because the comping is not traditional at all. There are some really cool alterations, substitutions and out of the ordinary comping on it that really are cool to play with. I use to play duo with a great keyboard player for years and this reminds me of those times.

Green Dolphin St.