James Moody passed away today. Sad. Another legend has left the building…….
UPDATE: NYTimes has an article up now about him
Make Your Own Fingering Charts EASILY!
Bret Pimentel has hit it out of the park with this. Simply the best thing I’ve come across on the net for months……his online Fingering Diagram Builder…which also works on the iPad!
I’m pleased to present something I’ve been working on, on and off, for a while now. I’m pretty excited about it, and I hope you will check it out and let me know what you think.
This project developed from my own need to quickly and easily create fingering diagrams for the woodwind instruments that I play and teach. Frequently I find myself scribbling saxophone altissimo fingerings onto a scrap of paper during a private lesson, cutting-and-pasting at the photocopier to put together simplified charts for a woodwind methods class, or penciling cryptic markings into musical scores to remind myself which pinky finger to use.
Simply amazing and well overdue on the web. Thanks Bret!!!!!
Jazz Robots
The Original Auto-Tune
Ok, this is pretty darn cool….
Mario Meets Kinect
Ok, totally unrelated to anything saxophone or jazz but this is just really cool.
Tour Of The C.G. Conn Factory circa 1911
Found this link to a picture tour of the C.G. Conn factory from about 1911. Probably not much has changed. There are actually some iTunes Podcasts from Yamaha that show how they make instruments. Very high tech.
BuddyPress!
This has been on my list of things to do to Jazz-Sax, and now I have. We have gone BuddyPress now. This hopefully will enable more things to happen here, like Forum discussions, and perhaps some sort of group calendar for people’s upcoming gigs, etc, etc. Lots of possibilities. If anyone has any good recommendations on a theme for BuddyPress that would be cool. Or some good plugins for it.
Activity: http://www.jazz-sax.com/activity/
Members: http://www.jazz-sax.com/members/
Groups: http://www.jazz-sax.com/groups/
Forums: http://www.jazz-sax.com/forums/
Register: http://www.jazz-sax.com/register/ (This one doesn’t seem to work at the moment)
UPDATE: Ok, seems my Apache server was configured incorrectly. Things seem to work now.
Best Practices To Clean a Mouthpiece
Discovering Google Reader is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I now am updated on a TREMENDOUS amount of stuff I’m interested in. Curse, because I now monitor SaxontheWeb. Generally, the posts there are…..subpar to be nice. However, there are occasional questions that come up that some try to answer thoughtfully. Like this one on Can Bleach Damage a HR Mouthpiece.
As an owner of a Vintage Meyer Brothers Hard Rubber mouthpiece, and the owner of two Hard Rubber Slant Signature Otto Links, I’d NEVER SOAK my mouthpieces in Bleach. At all. Period. Even diluted. Period. My practices in cleaning a mouthpiece are to use lukewarm water, antibacterial soap, and a old soft toothbrush. I mildly scrub the mouthpiece out with the toothbrush and soap. That lasts maybe 30 seconds. I wash it off, then if there is some calcium deposits, I use Doctor’s Products Mouthpiece cleaner to remove them. This stuff works really well. Then, if I still want to make sure it is clean, I’ll take a Clorox Disinfectant wipe and run it over and through the mouthpiece (these don’t have Bleach).
Done. The short version of cleaning, like when I put on a new reed, is to run a Clorox Disinfectant wipe through the mouthpiece and on the outside. I think every other time (or every few months) I’ll do the more involved cleaning described above.
DYI Saxophone Reflector Project
Interesting project from the UK. Here, I think you’d need to go visit TAP Plastics and get a 8 1/2″ by 12″ sheet, and maybe a Pop Screen to modify.
Crazy Rag – National Saxophone Choir
Ever wanted to see ALL the saxophones in action. Here you go.
Astral Project
If you have never seen nor heard Astral Project, then you need to check them out. Tony Dagradi is a monster player that few, sadly, have heard about…….
Sonny Rollins Interview
The UK Magazine The Telegraph has a great interview with Sonny Rollins about turning 80, touring the world, and generally being awesome. Check it out.
Wither and die sheet music/music stands?
There are already several apps for the iPad for viewing sheet music PDFs, including apples iBooks. It makes sense, the iPad is just about the right size for viewing a page of music.
Now, there is a mount for iPads.
$39.95. Now we just need a Bluetooth foot peddle page turner…..for that price….
And for saxophone players, if you use this with a microphone stand, this also solves the problem of how to hear yourself….as in the iPad should provide some reflection of the sound back at you if you have it just above the bell. Wonder if that would mess with the microphone capturing one’s sound correctly…..I should get one and try it out….
UPDATE: Oh, the foot switch is coming!
Mouthpiece Rack
Most of the time saxontheweb is annoying, but sometimes a gem comes out. And here is one such gem….a mouthpiece rack.
Wood, brass door stoppers with the tops cut off. Genius. Good job!
Solo Sax and Electronics
While nothing really new (people have been doing this since the 70s), it’s good to see it still happening.