Saxophone Articles

Saxophone

Resolving Breathing Issues with the Saxophone

This article explores the critical role of proper breathing techniques in the performance and practice of saxophonists. Despite the extensive hours of practice and performance, formal education often overlooks the importance of respiratory health and control. The article delves into the anatomy of breathing, the impact of correct posture, and the benefits of using various respiratory training devices. Emphasis is placed on diaphragmatic breathing for relaxation and performance enhancement. Recommendations for integrating breathing exercises into daily practice routines are provided to improve overall musical performance and reduce physical tension and stress.

Resolving Breathing Issues with the Saxophone Open »

Woodwinds Clarinet Saxophone

Music and its Audience

When speaking about one artform I find it can be useful to view that medium through the lens of another. Having long held an interest in the art of poetry a question lurking in the back of my mind while writing music for ‘(after)’, my ninth album as composer and leader, was tied to an idea discussed on a frequently listened to poetry podcast called ‘Sleerickets’ hosted by poet Matthew Buckley Smith. The question often discussed is: ‘what should a poem be doing for its reader?’ I take this to mean: ‘where should the emotional weight of the poem be felt’ – with the poet who composes the work, or with the reader who takes in that work? I found myself asking this same type of question of my own work as a composer: ‘what do I want the listener to get out of listening to my music?’

Music and its Audience Open »

Music

Design and Implementation of Online Music Teaching in the Context of Closed Isolation for Epidemic Prevention and Control: A Case Study of Guangzhou Xinhua University’s Closed Isolation

Restricted access This content is exclusive to members of the International Journal of Music. Join now for as low as $1.67 per month… …or get

Design and Implementation of Online Music Teaching in the Context of Closed Isolation for Epidemic Prevention and Control: A Case Study of Guangzhou Xinhua University’s Closed Isolation Open »

Saxophone

Let’s Go Outside!

This article is aimed at the advancing jazz saxophonist. While not going into too much detail on any particular topic, I wanted to give an overview of how one might develop fluidity in non-diatonic sounds. I feel that the following concepts can provide ample material for the improviser who is looking to expand their harmonic/melodic vocabulary. It should be stated that having a good sound, time feel, and technical agility is our primary goal. No amount of advanced harmonic techniques can cover for a deficiency in the basics.

Let’s Go Outside! Open »

Percussion Horn Strings Winds

Endless Becoming — The Process of Lifelong Learning in Music amid a Landscape of Expectations, Goals, and Perceived Success

As a society, we are increasingly driven by immediate gratification. As artists and performers, this terrain can be quite tricky. We are encouraged to make goals and chase them, to dream, to look for inspiration from examples of excellence all around us. Yet it is often those same examples that lead to comparing, judging and negative thoughts. The goals we set in earnest can easily morph into unrealistic expectations, which in turn can lead to disappointment. Artists can find happiness and satisfaction at every level of the industry, yet so many that have found conventional success nevertheless find themselves unfulfilled. Meanwhile, thriving artists full of confidence and passion can be overlooked and judged for not meeting the conventional ideas of success. We’re often told to focus on the process, but in a business overly concerned with one’s lists of achievements and their timely execution of certain skills, it is easy to strive for results and miss the process altogether. In this article, I hope to offer different perspectives on success and how to manage goals and expectations in a healthy way. I offer practical advice for how to bring process-learning into our practice and performances, and how to find peace with every point on each artist’s unique path of endless becoming.

Endless Becoming — The Process of Lifelong Learning in Music amid a Landscape of Expectations, Goals, and Perceived Success Open »

Music

The Healing Power of Aesthetics

In this article, the author follows diverse aesthetic, therapeutic and educational facets of musical reception and production. From the levels of meaning of the aesthetic in art and music, she draws a bridge to the analogy between the love of music and friendship. It opens up listening and musical activity as a physical performance in the devotion to music, in which reflection, experience and action are united. This bodily-aesthetic potential of music can support healing and identity finding in music therapy. Therapeutic work with the medium of music offers sound spaces and resonating spaces that can be experienced by the compulsion of the body and enables one to find one’s own aesthetic meaning patterns.

The Healing Power of Aesthetics Open »

Scroll to Top