5 years in the writing, developed over 15 years of teaching at the RNCM in Manchester, and over a quarter of a century working as a professional Saxophonist in a wide variety of settings, from Concerto and Recital soloist to member of the Apollo Saxophone Quartet and my Equivox Trio, working with some of the UK’s finest orchestras, playing with bands such as the Michael Nyman Band & SaxAssault and recording many film and TV soundtracks, this book has been designed for the serious Saxophonist, who wants to bring their playing to the very highest level.
The book takes a multi-dimensional approach, examining the technical aspects of each individual skill on the saxophone, from breathing and posture, through articulation and embouchure development, to jazz articulation and inflections, extended techniques and beyond. There are inspirational chapters on performance and practice, and an insight into the mental and physical process involved in being a truly communicative performer. The book contains a comprehensive series of exercises designed to develop your saxophone playing in a methodical and logical way, building a technique that is robust, understood and trusted. Whether you play classical, contemporary, jazz, or many other styles of music, this book will help you to understand what the SAXOPHONE needs in order to function properly, and describes HOW to develop your techniques to enable your playing to “break through the glass ceiling”, and enable you to realise your true potential as a performer.
The central ethos of the book is based around an incredibly detailed analysis of the complex combinations of many many techniques involved in playing Just One Note, designed to open your mind and ears to the incredible diversity of sounds available to the open-minded and forward thinking saxophonist. The book will be launched at the World Saxophone Congress in St.Andrews this week, and will be available to order online from& Astute Music shortly afterwards. There will also be a series of video tutorials and free audio downloads to support the work in the book, available soon! I am really delighted that this book has finally come to fruition, largely thanks to the RNCM for a Teaching Award that enabled me to put the time aside to assimilate and collate all of my teaching notes from the last 15 years, and to Lauren Scott, from astute-music.com for the countless hours setting the text and putting the book together so beautifully.
See also “Playing the Saxophone book” with Video Support Tutorial videos and Audio Support files
