How to Practice Altissimo Technique Lesson

Description

In this new video lesson, I show you how I go about practicing a new altissimo fingering.  In this case, I am working with a brand new altissimo G# fingering that I found in an Eddie Harris book called “The Intervallistic Concept”.  This is a brand new fingering for altissimo G# for me, but I am attracted to it because it is less awkward than my regular G# fingering when playing lines up in the altissimo range.

I have to be honest, this is one of those lessons that wasn’t easy for me to make.  Why?  Because I am not good at this brand new fingering.  Everything in me wants to delete this lesson and wait until I perfect it before teaching about it. Here’s the thing though, we always hear players play stuff they can already play and have perfected.  I would have loved to hear Michael Brecker practicing and working on something that he was really bad at!   What a learning experience to see how someone of his calibre goes about practicing something that he can’t do.   So for that reason, I am posting this lesson.  There will be lots of mistakes and probably horrible sounds but through the process of watching it, you might gain and understanding of how I practice something that is hard for me and learn from the experience.

I take you through my process of practicing the new fingering and then show you how I practice using it using triads, scales and chromatic lines.  This practice session is the first step to get acquainted with the new fingering and get used to it.  The end goal is to gain complete mastery of these notes and in the end be able to play all ideas I may think of up in that range of the horn with more ease and mastery.  Join me for this lesson if you are interested in an inside look at the process that I use to learn something I can’t do. (35 Minute Video Lesson)