First, I’m really excited about your materials! This site is a vast resource for any aspiring (and maybe already inspired) jazz musicians. I’m not a sax player, I play mandolin and fiddle, but have been learning jazz and playing weekly with a quintet for the past 6 months and have been struggling with all of the issues you get into in your lessons. I bought several books and lessons and plan to continue with some others as soon as I organize my practice routine.
Thanks again for a great site and some of the best jazz lessons I’ve ever seen on the web. I’m looking forward to getting it together with your stuff!
Tony
I just joined Neff Music last month. I can’t tell you how excited I’ve been to be able to pick back up on lessons. I’ve been in a rut and you got me out! I’ve especially appreciated the Lesson Path section. It was so clear I knew exactly where to jump in and start. Many many thanks!
Hey Steve,
I’m a 22-year-old from Australia.
I thought it would be worth saying. You’re an absolute legend. I can’t thank you enough.
You have helped me rekindle my love for the saxophone and music as a whole.
All the best for the future, your work doesn’t go unnoticed.
PS. I am loving your devastating minor lines pdf.
Just wanted to send you a quick note to say thank you for being you, your playing, your website and your desire to help others. I’m a professional musician in the US Army and I’ve visited your website almost every day since discovering it a couple of months ago. Your lessons are profound and easy to use. I’ve purchased most of your PDF books and now am starting to delve more into the video and audio lessons. Thank you for being a great resource!
I’m an experienced player in the pop/soul/funk areas of music and, previously, classical. Over the decades I’ve been playing, I’ve always felt that I could do what I needed in those styles of music. However, recently I began to feel limited by my use of the same old licks. When I discovered Steve Neff’s website, and heard the audio examples based on the exercises in his books, I realized they were what I needed. I purchased all of them and have been working on them since. It’s very hard work – mind crunching sometimes – because I’m memorizing each exercise in every key, and using different rhythms as Steve suggests, but I can see the development taking place and the old barriers starting to break down already. Steve has obviously put so much of his experience and time into these books and I think it’s great that he’s made it all available for others to benefit from.-Paul
It is so refreshing to have a great player, who can provide lessons and examples in a manner which is understandable to most any enthusiastic saxophonist who is ready to improve. not just the, do this, do that, memorize this, memorize that… while all that is absolutely necessary, you go on to give reasons and examples to explain and validate why you have to do all of these things, the benefits, if you will… that is the key for me, you tell, explain, demonstrate, explain some more, you give personal experience and stories, it all comes together, a complete picture. so many “self-proclaimed ” saxophone teachers believe because they are a professional player, they are automatically a teacher, absolutely not the case. you must have the ability to transfer what you know, and most importantly, in my mind, the DESIRE to teach, and the need to know that your instruction is getting through, the constant search for more and better ways to deliver the instruction. the PASSION to teach. YOU have all these qualities, that is why i am a Neffaholic 🙂
I am enjoying your style of teaching, and you’ve done a great job with the videos….good sound quality and
well constructed lessons. Balances the more guitaristic material found on the majority of guitar based programs. Jazz vocab is what I’m all about at this point in the journey. I especially dig the fact that you’ve studied with Bergonzi…helps me see his voluminous output in a more bite sized way.
I have NEVER seen material like yours. Amazing!!
Thank you for all the educational information you provide. I am a classically trained musician. Professionally, I am a 4th and 5th grade band teacher. I have played piano and sax for many years, but now I am starting to gig out more. I have always improvised by ear in the past. I have gotten by with my strong sense of pitch, rhythm and melodic contour. However, I want to go deeper. I want to play with a greater variety of melodic and rhythmic ideas to pull from. I have studied to gain a greater knowledge of jazz and improvisational techniques, but I feel like I’m trying to catch-up for years of missed study (which is hard when you have a full time job, a wife, a daughter, a house, etc.) Your approach allows me to go past book knowledge and actually get these lines into my head and fingers. -Ray
Hey Steve, My name is Jason Freese and I play keyboards and sax in the band Green Day. I grew up taking sax lessons from Eric Marienthal when I was a kid and got out of it for a long time. I ran into you on youtube while searching for sax stuff. I bought a whole bunch of your lessons and have been loving it! Thanks! Here is my wikipedia so you can see the albums I’ve played on….Thanks again. It’s sparked my interest in practicing again. Jason
I bought Steve’s dominant bebop book and took a couple of online lesson from him. I really appreciated Steve’s careful listening of what I wanted to get done in a lesson and his clear, concise ideas on next steps to improve my playing and musical interpretation. His mastering the Dominant Bebop Scale has lots of exercises to use a scale that addresses the largest percentage of chords I come across in pop/blues music. The dominant V7. Needless say it has improved my playing. I teach and also have recorded lots of online lessons and Steve’s explaining style and demonstrating ability is top notch. I wish he was close enough for direct lessons. I plan to use him in the future. Thanks Steve
Thanks so much for putting all this great learning material out there. I don’t often have the time to take a lesson with a teacher, so the ability to download lessons is really invaluable. My playing has improved enormously (I think :)) – and the lessons are so varied there’s always something to be inspired by. Incredible value too!
I am enjoying your style of teaching, and you’ve done a great job with the videos….good sound quality and well constructed lessons. Balances the more guitaristic material found on the majority of guitar based programs. Jazz vocab is what I’m all about at this point in the journey. I especially dig the fact that you’ve studied with Bergonzi…helps me see his voluminous output in a more bite sized way.
Your lessons on playing the blues is so clear . I have been through many books on blues playing and not one of them explains as clear as your lessons . Most of them say “Play the same blues scale over all three chords of a 12 bar blues ” Its very misleading . Thanks
I can see from your instructional videos that you are a fantastic teacher – one that can truly relate to all ages – humble yet very positive in approach – never coming across as superior and yet so totally capable of demonstrating the principles and techniques that you seek to impart to the students. I have gained so much confidence in my playing from “pouring over” time and again these invaluable lessons. Invaluable not only in musical content, but also in human interaction content. I am absolutely loving your latest book Devastating Lines for Jazz and Funk Soloing.
Hi Steve,
First, I want to thank you for all of your great lessons. They are like a “For Dummies” version of all the books on my shelf. The lessons break things down into manageable pieces, and give me the confidence that I’m practicing the right pieces. I’m starting to make progress. Thank You, Kim
Hi Steve, I can’t express just how much I appreciate your teaching. My playing has improved so much over the past year since I have been studying and practicing with your lessons. It is possible to teach an old dog new tricks, these lessons are proof! Thanks, Michael Byington
Hi Steve,
I live in a gorgeous but rural area of Oregon-no music store within 80 miles. Your lessons are my lifeline! Truly the best there are anywhere online. Love your playing. Love your teaching. Thanks again.
Ed
Thank You Steve. I think that I will be busy for years. Thank You for your great contribution to jazz music. Your books, more than teaching “how to play jazz”, actually teach “how to speak jazz”. I wish I found your methods years ago.
For anyone living in remote areas away from live jazz sax teachers, Neff is the way to go. In fact this is a great resource for anyone seriously interested in mastering the sax. I’ve never been disappointed in a lesson.
I am a music book junkie and I have to say that your books are the most clear, user friendly, and helpful books I own. They are my absolute favorites and I only wish I had them years ago. I wouldn’t change a thing about the experience I had in acquiring my degree at Berklee, but my playing has perhaps grown more in the time I’ve spent buried in your books and lessons. Keep up the great work!!!
Thanks,
John
Your major diatonic patterns book is great. I”m studying the first twenty patterns (first twenty pages) each day with different articulation each day and slowly increasing the tempo each week or so. There is a noticeable improvement in finger coordination across all keys and its amazing how much more secure I feel on the difficult keys when attempting to play pieces with 5+ flats/sharps. I’m able to sort out the fingerings for these pieces now much more quickly than before, often in one or two sittings when in the past I would have been lost until I did a significant amount of slow practice on the piece.
Your going to do really well with this book. Keep up the good work. And the idea of putting patterns into single key also great. Thanks, Geoff
I’ve been having ‘ online’ lessons with Steve for a few months now. Being a teacher myself I had had some reservations with the idea at first and the practicalities of it . Let me just say that my playing has taken a huge leaps forward while studying with Steve and continues to do so.Steve studied with some renowned player/teachers such as Bergonzi and Garzone– this in itself is invaluable but Steve teaches from his own books, which cover a a vast amount of jazz language. Steve has some important qualities that are rare to find in a teacher anywhere these days- he’s a great player, great teacher and a great guy.”
DAVID WRIGHT Musician and Educator
I can’t say enough about my membership at Neff Music. Steve has taken the mystery out of playing the saxophone well and improvising both jazz and rock music. Like most struggling players I have a load of all sorts of books on my shelf just gathering dust. Books that I didn’t understand or know how to put to use…or just have the time to go threw them. Steve’s lessons really simplify things and he puts it in a way that I can understand. They inspire me to keep pushing and having him as my guide or coach keeps me from giving up. I look forward to new lessons every month, and I feel like a kid in a candy store choosing my new lessons. Lets face it…playing the saxophone well takes a lot of hard work and determination, but Steve shows me where to focus my energy on the horn and not waist a lot of time. Money well spent as far as I’m concerned. Sincerely, Ken
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