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Trinius – Tenor Sax
Hi, Everyone, just started today here and dove right into the rhythm changes lessons. Hoping to improve on my playing which is mostly reliant on stolen “ready mades’ from the greats. Currently playing first tenor in a bigband and in a couple of smaller groups. Living in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Also looking for composition ideas/inspiration, wrote and played this Dexter Gordon tribute a long time ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5KttlwY9A4&ab_channel=TrinusdeVries
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5 Replies
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Hey Trinus! This is very beautiful playing! What a marvelous tribute to a masterful craftsman.
What tune is this that you are playing over? I love it!
With regards to the feeling of relying on ‘ready mades’, I think what we have laid out here will force you to start believing in yourself and give you the tools to play from the top of your head rather than always feeling like you’re using something you worked out ahead of time. A big thing that will help if you don’t already do it is learning lines in all 12 and then learning how to apply language to a chord progression in a musical and motivic way.
Can’t wait to hear you improvise – See you around the studio!
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thanks for the compliment. 😃 I wasn’t fully aware at the time of writing but it turned out I used the changes ( more or less) of Body and Soul for the A sections in different key. the Bridge consists of repeating II V ‘s in two keys. You’ve got a ton of interesting stuff on your site, It will keep me occupied for quite some time, right now I’m transposing some of the lines of the F rhythm changes Bud Powell lines to C ( tenor key)
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the things that keep me from playing /applying language in a motivic way is mostly ( I think) that when I’m playing live in front of an audience is that I’m not relaxed enough to actually listen to what I’m playing while I’m improvising and build upon an idea. Still too busy with the form/structure of the tune and playing the changes without messing up I guess.
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Makes sense, I have been there before definitely. Repetition is a big factor in getting out of the ‘fight or flight’ feeling that comes in when the audience is there. When you are practicing also at the end of your sessions you can imagine the audience being there and how you would respond if you were there. A lot of people don’t think to do this, but if you make it a part of your practice session (5 – 10 minutes), you’ll get a lot better at it!
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Awesome about the different key centers. Thats the idea – theres always things to practice. If we as improvisers can learn to build a positive association with growth and improvement we can be in a blissful state every time we pick up the instrument 🙂 Enjoy!
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