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Zinn Practice Regimen For Saxophone

December 25, 2008 in Articles, Sheet Music

Ok, I think this is the FINAL version of this. Last updated in 2005, this version took out some stuff I had in there, and put in some stuff I have been practicing lately (triad things). 32 Pages of Saxophone goodness.

It is FREE and available here
  Zinn Practice Regimen For Saxophone 2009 version (1.8 MiB, 633 hits)
You do not have permission to download this file.
and via Lulu here

Plus you can buy a copy for about $13 if you want something already bound and what not. Expect an update to the II-V patterns soon…..it is gonna be HUGE.

Oh, and that is a Conn-O-Sax on the cover. Why? I dunno, it looks cool….thats why!

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The Music of George Garzone & The Triadic Chromatic Approach DVD

October 28, 2008 in News

George Garzone has a 2 DVD instructional set coming out next month. $89.95. Sounds interesting.

“The Music of George Garzone & The Triadic Chromatic Approach”, is a Jazz Improvisation Instructional DVD and much, much more.
MADE FOR ALL INSTRUMENTS

  • Performances: Solo, Duos, Trios, an Sextet performances
  • The Triadic Chromatic Approach: 23 Chapters & 30 Examples of In-Depth Lessons
  • Trading Play Alongs: George Plays / You Play w/ Rhythm Section
  • Pure Play Along: You Play w/ Rhythm Section
  • Garzone On Sound: In-depth Lesson of Saxophone Sound Production
  • PDF Supplements: Transposed for all instruments, examples, exercises and lead sheets
  • Bonus Features: Interviews, Alternate Takes, Extra

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Jazz Piano Site

March 2, 2008 in Articles, Videos

One of the best tutorial sites I’ve seen. Doug McKenize’s Jazz Piano Site. If you play piano, or want to play, or just get better, check out his videos he has up.

Very well done!

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The Finale School

February 20, 2008 in Articles

I use Finale for notation. True, I did buy Sibelius when they were offering that sweet upgrade price. But, honestly, I haven’t used it. I haven’t had the time to learn it. I’d rather spend it learning, oh, Logic Studio, or ProTools. I like to complain about Finale, cause I use it daily. I want it to be better. It is a great notation product.

Finale has been tagged with the perception that it is hard to learn. That might have been true back in 1999, but that is certainly not the case with the latest versions. For many versions now, MakeMusic has been making Finale much easier for a new user to use. Finale’s real strength is it’s power. You can tweak your music to your hearts content. Learning how to do this can be a long, lonely road.

Enter The Finale School. Matthew Voogt has put together a nice site that has a lot of videos showing how to do stuff in Finale 2007. While the video quality is not great (fuzzy when you blow it up), the content is straight forward and easy to follow. You can learn a lot of new Finale things by watching a few of the videos. Check it out.

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SmartMusic 10.2

February 18, 2008 in Reviews

MakeMusic finally released SmartMusic 10.2 today. Highlights of the new features:

  • Support of Mac OS X Leopard
  • Microphone Check Wizard ensures proper microphone levels for recording and assessment
  • Easier-to-Use – many aspects of SmartMusic have been simplified and made more intuitive, including the installer, login process, activation, and update messaging
  • Create assignments with audio-quality accompaniment for any concert selection. Simply upload the audio file and distribute sheet music; then your band, orchestra, and choir students can practice their part with accompaniment in SmartMusic.

There are some other “features”, but these are the ones that are interesting. Especially the last one. The update is about 80 megs for Windows, 97 Megs for Mac. So, how does it work? In a word, the same as before…. Read the rest of this entry →

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Steinberg – Classroom Resource Pack

February 15, 2008 in Articles, News

Not sure what happened to the Music Education Alliance, but Steinberg announced their Classroom Resource Pack.

“Computer technology is increasingly being used for teaching music in schools world-wide,” comments Mark Porter, Steinberg’s International Sales Manager. “But often the task of providing classroom resources is left to the individual teacher, even if their personal experience using modern music technology products has been somewhat limited. So the huge quantity of structured, high-quality resources provided by the Steinberg Classroom Resource Pack will be invaluable to music teachers everywhere, whether they are experienced Cubase users or are completely new to using computers – because it gives them more time for applying their teaching rather than preparing for it,” he continues.

Blah, blah, blah. Look, kids don’t want stupid worksheets to do. They want to play. The want to learn music, not do some generated worksheet. Technology. CMEA just discovered Band in a Box. Maybe in 10 years they will discover this? Maybe? Perhaps?
UPDATE: 02/16/08 by E: The latest issue of Time Magazine has an article about “How To Make Better Teachers”. Funny thing is that technology is not mentioned in the article. Hmmm….

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Music Education Alliance

January 19, 2008 in Articles, News

This was announced today:

Leaders in their respective fields, Garritan, MakeMusic, Steinberg and Yamaha have formed a partnership that will provide integrated solutions to the music education market in the United States.

Announced at Winter NAMM 2008, the Music Education Software and Hardware (MESH) initiative brings together hardware, software, sound content and curriculum to provide compelling and complete turn-key solutions for today’s music educators, who are often faced with an array of products that can be difficult to navigate and integrate. In addition to aggregating four major components of music education technology into a seamless bundle, the alliance will also provide training to teachers based in the U. S., enabling them to fully utilize the power of computer music technology solutions.

Honestly, why? It sounds to me like a way for school teachers to waste money. Again. Spending thousands of dollars or more on some “solution” to make kids learn better. Money like that could be spent on lowering the student/teacher ratio. Very strange bedfellows as well. Leaders in their fields? Marketing speak at it’s finest!
Read the rest of this entry →

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Wii Nodame Cantabile Game

January 7, 2008 in Articles, Videos

Nodame Cantabile is a Japanese Manga, a TV show, and Anime about a pianist and violinist of a famous pianist who wants to become a conductor. It is a very entertaining Anime. The TV Show, I didn’t care for. The Manga is good. If you went to music school, you’d like it. Brings back memories. Nodame is the name of this unfocused genius piano girl who is a total slob, but has a crush on Shinichi Chiaki (the pianist/violinist who wants to be a conductor).
Anyhow, there is a Wii game coming out that has some interesting things, and potential applications. It’s a little goofy in the beginning, but in the middle you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Wii controller used as a baton. The other instruments, probably not all that great for. But to use a Wii as a baton, now that is pretty darned cool. Can you imagine using this to practice conducting? Maybe some sort of music game where you have to conduct and if you don’t keep time or mess up, the audience starts heckling you. Or maybe the orchestra starts coming apart. Could be pretty cool thing for music people. Probably WAY beyond the scope of this game, but it is very interesting to see stuff like this coming out.

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Jazz Saxophone Etudes By Greg Fishman Vol. 2

November 20, 2007 in Reviews

Greg Fishman has been at it again. This time, he has come out with yet another book of Jazz Etudes. Again, he has named each Etude after a street in Chicago. I’ll just take Greg’s books in lieu of a tourist map if I ever visit Chicago. Really. I believe he’s covered every major street in the town, or at least the ones worth mentioning.

Back to the latest book. Greg says “I think that the new etudes are even more melodic than they were in the first book.” Eh, well, perhaps. The tunes in the last book were pretty good as well. I think my gripe with the first book carries over into the second book, i.e. still not a lot of explanation about voice leading. Perhaps that will be in a forth coming tourist’s guide to voice leading? How many streets does Chicago have? Are we going to run out if you do a voice leading book and another etude book?

For $19.95, with two CDs (one for Tenor, one for Alto) that have an etude track and a track where you can blow a few choruses, it is a simple choice. Duh! Get the book! 10/10 for the price, and the quality of the tunes.

(P.S. Greg Fishman is moving to Phoenix, Arizona. Why anyone would want to move there is beyond me. It gets so hot it can melt your dashboard. This last summer I think they had weeks of triple digit heat. My mom visited my brother who lives there, and she said it was like being in an oven the whole time she was there. Anyhow, I’d expect to see the next etude book filled with Arizona street names, assuming Fishman runs out of Chicago streets)

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Herbie Hancock Talks Math, Music and Mastering the Tech Toolbox

October 3, 2007 in Articles

Wired magazine has a very interesting interview with Herbie Hancock out. Way too short of an interview. But some interesting insights from the piano master.

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Sightreading Jazz by Bob Taylor

September 30, 2007 in Reviews

First off, I need to apologize to Bob Taylor. He sent me this book a while ago. Months ago, and I just plain got busy. So, finally, here is a review of the book.

Sightreading Jazz is a 130 page, spiral bound book that addresses jazz sightreading. Being able to come to a musical situation, and play stuff for the first time with a high degree of accuracy is an essential skill. Bob Taylor’s book focuses on sightreading jazz music.

The first part of the book gives you some history, things to look out for, counting rhythms, swing rhythms, articulations, and accents. The second part is where the meat of the book begins, the Rhythms. 2 and 4 bar rhythms. Mr. Taylor recommends practicing these with one pitch, or two or three pitches that you pick out, or using a scale (going up or down as the notes go by), or an arpeggio, or two octaves, or using thirds. Whew. PLUS, you can do the rhythms across the page, down the column….and upside down (just kidding).

Actually, upside down come in the next section, where Read the rest of this entry →

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PG Music JazzU

September 12, 2007 in News

PG Music has a new product out, JazzU

JazzU offers all students of Jazz — players, teachers, arrangers, and Jazz lovers – an invaluable computer-based resource for the study of Jazz music with top instructors and players. JazzU faculty members are professionals whose credentials embrace both formal study and a wealth of experience as performers on the bandstand, the concert stage, and in the recording studio. For the student, JazzU offers the insights of top professional musicians and teachers who combine an appreciation of the rich Jazz tradition with the ability to play and teach in all styles and genres – Traditional, Dixieland, Swing, Bebop, Latin, Modern, Fusion, and beyond.

For $50, it sounds like a good deal. The only thing that it lacks, it seems, is a way to evaluate how you played them. Programs like Teach Me Piano do this, and they are brutal. But it is an effective way to get better.

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Interactive Video Tutorials

September 10, 2007 in Articles

Sometimes, you need to get help with stuff. Mostly, it seems nowadays people need help with tech stuff. Finale, Sibelius, Protools, Digital Performer, etc. What if you could, for a small fee, have access to an expert guiding you through these and other programs? You can. HowAudio.Com offers a growing number of online tutorials. They have a woodwind section, a Protools section, a Digital Performer section, and more. There are some samples that you can view to get a taste of what the tutorials are like. $19.99 a month for all of the tutorials. Interesting stuff!

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SmartMusic 10.1

September 4, 2007 in Reviews

One of my favorite whipping boys is SmartMusic. This program could be so great, and yet, MakeMusic seems not to want to put that little extra polish on it. Case in point, the latest “update” to SmartMusic is a large download, some 95 Megabytes. Took some time to download. Here is what is listed as being “new”

  • Compatibility with SmartMusic accompaniments created in Finale® 2008.
  • Support for Windows Vista.
  • Improved Clarinet assessment.

I emailed MakeMusic’s tech support about the first thing a while ago, when Finale 2008 came out. Never heard back. Figures. Well, at least they didn’t wait nearly a year to update SmartMusic to read the SmartMusic files generated from the latest version of Finale (last time, it was August 2006 when Finale 2007 came out, and not until April 2007 when SmartMusic could read the SmartMusic files generated by Finale 2007).

Ok, new stuff. Read the rest of this entry →

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Tabuteau Lessons/Note Grouping

July 29, 2007 in Reviews

Two related items I finished recently. The first is a very interesting CD, Marcel Tabuteau’s Lessons, which Tabuteau himself explains his phrasing system. Well, it is more than that, it is lessons on music from a great master. It was started in August of 1965, using a tape recorder in Tabuteau’s apartment, and abruptly finished in 1966, the last recording made the day before he died (or, as Tabuteau called it, his audition date with St. Peter). It is oboe specific in areas (reeds), but most of it easily applies to saxophone (or any other instrument for that matter). Well worth a listen if you want to gain insight from a master on how to play music.

The second item is Note Grouping by James Morgan Thurmond. This is basically a written down version of what the Tabuteau CD is. Same idea, different author. Keep in mind, this book was originally a thesis paper, and reworked/written to be a book. Parts of it are very “thesis paperish”, but the information contained within is invaluable, especially the insights into how modern music has come about.

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