I had a lesson the other day with a student and I realized that he was really having a hard time coming up with melodic ideas and phrases. \u00a0I asked him “Do you ever sing?” \u00a0“No!” \u00a0“How about humming?” \u00a0 “No!” \u00a0“How about in the shower?” \u00a0 “No!” This really got me thinking about things and are started asking my other students about this. \u00a0The thing that I’m noticing is that the students that hum and sing a lot are the ones that have an easier time improvising and creating melodic ideas. \u00a0Why is that? \u00a0Well I think the answer is that they are spending hours everyday practicing creating melodic ideas and improvising. \u00a0Hours that the other students are using.<\/p>\n
To be honest, \u00a0when I practice something on my sax for an hour or two, \u00a0you will usually find me humming or singing what I was practicing for the rest of the day. \u00a0I noticed this last week when i was practicing a tune that I didn’t know. \u00a0It was “I remember you” I \u00a0played it for about an hour and was really trying to memorize the melody and the changes. Later that day as I was taking a shower I was humming the tune and \u00a0scatting a little improvised solo over the changes. Later in the car I was doing the same thing! \u00a0It suddenly struck me that I do this all the time without even thinking about it. \u00a0It’s a way to practice what you love all the time. \u00a0The more you sing and hum a melody the more you will internalize it and be able to reproduce it. \u00a0The more you practice coming up with melodies and scatting solos the better you will become at playing them on your sax.<\/p>\n
I have had many students over the years that refuse to sing or even try. I think they are doing themselves a great disservice. \u00a0 I freely admit and tell people that I am one of the worst singers I know. \u00a0I can sort of carry a tune and match pitches but it isn’t pleasant to listen to. \u00a0Sometimes I’m a little flat, sometimes I’m a little sharp………the point is that I don’t think that’s important. \u00a0The important thing is to practice these melodies that we are learning and to practice creating melodies by ear. \u00a0Sometimes I will sit at the piano and just play the changes to a tune I’m working on and try to sing the melody while I play. \u00a0Sometimes I sing guide tone lines to it. \u00a0After that I will try to sing a little solo and try to hit the changes. The thing is, improvising is creating \u00a0something musical from the ideas in your mind. the fastest way to do this is by singing. \u00a0It’s right there coming out of your mouth.<\/p>\n
I have also learned through the years that if I can sing a song then I can figure it out and play it. \u00a0If I can’t then I don’t have a chance.<\/p>\n
If your serious about music and jazz improvisation then sing a little. \u00a0Maybe you’ll like it. Think of it as self improvement and a way to improve you playing while you are away from your horn. \u00a0It will do you a world of good (even if those around you can’t stand it.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had a lesson the other day with a student and I realized that he was really having a hard time coming up with melodic ideas and phrases. \u00a0I asked him “Do you ever sing?” \u00a0“No!” \u00a0“How about humming?” \u00a0 “No!” \u00a0“How about in the shower?” \u00a0 “No!” This really got me thinking about things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1322,13,227],"class_list":{"0":"post-716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-jazz-improvisation","7":"tag-jazz-improvisation","8":"tag-practicing","9":"tag-singing","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}