The last week of practice has proven to be really good in its consistency and also the content that was covered. Overall, I am satisfied with the progress that I have made, committing to four solid days of practice being Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.
My main focus for the week has still been preparation towards the Funk Club 20 Year Reunion Show that was held on Friday the 17th of November. All of my sessions were aimed towards ensuring that the repertoire for the evening was well practiced and fluent by memory – this was my goal, to play the show totally from memory.
In reviewing my practice diary for the week, there are a few areas still needing some attention that have been highlighted throughout the week:
- Longnotes for tone and intonation.
I kept working on the development of my tone and intonation through 15 minutes of long tones at the beginning of each practice. My metronome has been set to 72 BPM with an aim of completing 16 beats per note. Each day I have chosen a different interval to focus on but have always started on G1 and ascended until playing F#3 and then returning to G1 before descending to Bb1. This week saw me using a different alto saxophone, using my Selmer MKVI rather than my YAS62 Series 1. I found that the intonation on the horn was pretty good, I needed to use some alternate fingerings for the high notes (especially from D3 up to F3) with the tuning going sharp. My front fingering for E3 and F3 were not as strong as the other notes, more work will be needed particularly regarding embouchure and the direction of air through my horn to strengthen the sound. In the bottom range I am still running out of air from D1 down to Bb1, only completing 12 counts before running out. Tone wise, greater work will be needed on my overtone series. I will aim to start this in two weeks time. On three days I managed to have this finished with enough time to start a review on some Hindemith technique, particularly looking at irregular interval movements as semi-breves, minims, and crotchets. I will aim to develop this further as I progress in my regime. - Set repertoire.
The work for the gig is coming nicely. I have managed to get a lot more comfortable with all the repertoire from memory and by the end of the week it was only fine tuning that needed to be done. Highlights for me have included working on the arrangements for “I Believe in Miracles” and “Fever”. “Natural Born Lover” and “Cleanup Woman” proved a little challenging due to the poor intonation on the recording (it is all a quarter of a tone out of tune due to being a copy of an LP I think). I have also started working on learning the solo for “Hip Drop” my aim is going to be to make this the solo to transcribe in the next week. - Solo transcriptions.
I have really enjoyed getting back into the Funk side of things. I am planning on completing the solo transcription for Hip Drop and then proceed into studying Maceo Parker in depth for the next few months. I would like to eventually work up to transcribing one solo a week, but this might take a little while to work up. I also need to complete the solo transcription for Lou Donaldson’s “Blues Walk” that I was working on prior to the Funk Club gig coming along. My aim by the end of next week will be to have both Hip Drop and Blues Walk completed and recorded with me playing them.
I have been recording all my practice sessions currently and will start looking at ways to share some for these videos. I am thinking I might do it as a private YouTube Channel which links from each weekly post. That will be my next challenge from a technology point of view to overcome.
