Jazz-Sax, all things Jazz and Sax
I received some iTunes gift cards from students this year, same as in previous years, and I decided to use some of them on two iPad apps that a lot of people have been buzz about, unRealBook ($4.99) and Gigbook ($4.99). Let me start off by saying that both programs absolutely suck on how you…
Yes, the iPad is amazing. Ok, sure, there are some other makers coming out with devices too. Regardless of what you get, you are probably at some point going to want to convert some of your tattered books into digital format. But how? What should I use? Fear not, here are some guidelines to do…
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…
Ok, totally unrelated to anything saxophone or jazz but this is just really cool. Super Mario meets Kinect
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…
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…
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…
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!
From Kanascity.com “Buddy Collette, a Grammy-nominated jazz saxophonist, flautist, bandleader and educator who played important roles in Los Angeles jazz as a musician and an advocate for the rights of African American musicians, has died. He was 89.” If you have never heard of him, check him out, especially his flute albums. Great stuff.
Well, seems like the new version of iTunes has some social functions now. Though Ping is newly born, some people, like eternal Apple hater Peter Kirn seem to have already written it off. That is a huge mistake. Kirn also has said that the iPad is a failure as well. Heck, he thinks that because…
I came across this site which is selling used Silk Neck Ties as swabs. Kind of interesting. Might be a good DIY project. Though I dunno how you’d cram a tie through an oboe? And silk swabs for clarinet are and saxophone are well under $10.
Rico Reeds has some really great videos of Walt Weiskopf up explaining one exercise from his book “Around The Horn” (which I highly recommend!). They also have some great videos from other artists like Chris Potter, Mel Martin, Ronnie Laws, etc. But then, they have videos from this Shannon Kennedy chick which were……..what? I dunno…
Got an old EWI? Yes? Then check this out: “The META-EWI is a modified EWI (Akai’s Electric Wind Instrument) to which was added a whole new set of controllers based on sensor technologies, specifically eight continuous controllers and 16 digital switches. These clearly succeed at stretching the expressiveness and the range of musical gestures found…
PGMusic just released Band In A Box 2010.5 for the Mac. Improvements? Yes, several. Here are a few that I think are noteworthy: Styles can now be made that are set to use Half-Time and Double-Time RealTracks. For example, you can make a Jazz Ballad style (tempo 65) that uses a Sax Soloist at tempo…
Dave Liebman has an article up by Tom Alexander (with Dave Liebman) about searching for the perfect mouthpiece. On a cursory reading of this, one might take away that Links are the key to unlock your inner saxophone Budda. However, I think the point of the article is that one should pick something not to…
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