Recently I've been finding it hard to get out some of the higher notes in the song I'm working on. I decided because of the difficulty and because the project is coming to an end soon, that I will do this as my final presentation. The rhythms aren't very hard, except for a few 16th note runs, but my problem is the notes. I occasionally do wrong fingerings due to playing the notes on my instrument in band. With more practice I hope to be able to stop doing that, and maybe even add a different song with it.
It has been quite a while since I started playing the saxophone and I feel I am progressing well. I printed out sheet music and played through a couple of different songs and decided to try to play Fireflies by Owl City. As I started playing it I found myself realizing that I did not really know all the notes necessary. I had played most of them before, however I had just been memorizing the rhythms and notes, rather than actually learning them and being able to play a note without looking at a fingering chart. Knowing how to read music has definitely expedited the process of learning the saxophone, but there are many occasions where I play a note as I would on a clarinet rather than the saxophone. This has been causing a bit of problems in my learning experience, but I am practicing more often and it's helping. My only fear is that I will end up messing up in band class and mixing notes of the saxophone and clarinet while playing. Hopefully this will not happen and I have decided to make my goal to be able to perfectly play Fireflies by Owl City and record it. It is a pretty tough song, nothing as hard as what we play in band, but with playing a new instrument it is difficult for me. Anyways, I hope I'll be able to play this very well in the next few days and weeks and I expect that it will allow me to play even harder songs.
The saxophone has been going well lately. I am currently mirroring what I do in band, for the saxophone. I use the first pages of the book to warm up and play some of the excerpts that are in the book. The high school book that I have has a lot of different and random things to play. My goal is to learn a song and the notes required for it. I haven't decided on a song, but it will most likely be a more modern song.
Over Spring Break I was able to get the saxophone fixed at the store that it was purchased from. Apparently the register key on the neck of the saxophone was the part that was broken, I had expected it to be something wrong with the key itself. Now that playing is working again, I have decided that the current middle school saxophone book that I am using is not advanced enough for me.
I practiced some songs that don't require using the register key and have been working on my intonation. Usually I am flat, which means that the pitch is slightly lower than it should be. I have to push in the mouth piece and tighten my embouchure, it fixes the issue most of the time, however once the instrument warms up when I first play it will eventually become sharp, which is when the pitch is slightly higher than it should be. I use a tuning app on my phone to make sure I am always in tune and it tells me how sharp or flat I am. Next week I've decided I will bring in my saxophone into band sometime during smart lunch and see if some of the alto players can help me. If they can't help then I'm going to try to get my mom to take it into a store and get it fixed. Once it is, I'll be really starting to play some fire music.
Unfortunately I didn't really have time this week to get the saxophone looked at, but I did try to fix it through the internet. I found out that it may be slightly bent and I have made arrangements to get it looked at by the store it was purchased from. Until then my fix for it has been taping down the top part which works for the most part, but prohibits me from playing certain parts of the music book. My goal for this week is to get the problem fixed and learn some more of the pieces that are in the music book I bought.
I have gotten a book for my alto sax, however I am having some issues. My alto sax's register key seems to not be working properly. I am playing the correct notes, but an octave higher due to the key being slight too high. My goal for this week is to try to get that fixed and maybe learn a new song.
Hello there friends, I have recently been able to play Mary had a little lamb. I have only learned most of the notes on the treble clef staff for the alto saxophone and the high notes should be easy for me because they are the same as the clarinet when you press the register key.
My goal for next week is to get a book for the alto saxophone and use that to play all the cool songs that are in the book. Sorry for missing this, I've been a little busy and sick. I have bought my saxophone and now I'm working on how to hold it and correctly play it. I'm going to try to get a new neck strap and my goal for next week is to learn how to play a couple of notes. I'm a quick learner so by the end of next week I might even know how to play "Mary had a little lamb"
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