One thing that came up in my jazz ensemble rehearsal this week was my realization that sound and tuning are a challenge because many of the band members practice more than one instrument each day. It is difficult to switch between different instruments/mouthpieces to play in various ensembles and private lessons. It is hard to play one instrument — how did Roland Kirk make playing three instruments at a time seem so easy?
Young players are juggling several instruments and struggle to have a sound that is focused and in tune and there might also be issues with precision. Here are ways that musicians can toggle between setups (electric/acoustic bass, various saxophones, etc.) and play with the best control:
Warm up on one instrument each day
Don’t spend 20 minutes warming up each instrument because that is not a great use of time.
Practice technique on only one instrument
If you are a saxophone player, just play scales on alto and don’t also spend an equal amount of time playing the sax scales on tenor, bari, and soprano.
Play all of your instruments every day
If you play bass, get your hands on an upright every day. Use all of your mouthpieces, reeds, and instruments every day. Live with the instrument!
Determine a focus of practice for each instrument
For me, the focus of flute is sound, the focus of clarinet is agility, the focus of soprano sax is sound and embouchure, etc. An upright bass player should have the focus be technique and sound if there is a significant amount of practice being done on electric bass. The focus of a trombone or trumpet player on a jazz setup should be sound and phrasing if a lot of other time is spent playing orchestral music.
Set a timer
Always practice with a timer. Twenty minutes is a good marker for how much to practice various foci.
Here is my favorite warmup and my ultimate practice session—
I like to start with the flute because it centers the air and the sound. The goal is to not sound like a sax player playing flute. The challenge is that I have too much air for the flute so I have to use a small amount of air, focused, but at a fast rate of speed. I like to simply play jazz standards as a warmup. It’s great practice because by virtue of the fact that flute is in the key of C, the tonic of well-known standards is a different key than alto/bari or tenor/soprano. For instance, the tune There Will Never Be Another You is generally played in the key of E flat for flute, F for tenor and soprano sax, and C for bari and alto sax. (But you could play the tune in any of the 11 other keys as well just for fun.)
I like to then pick up the alto sax. My goals with the alto are:
-equal pressure with the embouchure
-limited finger/hand movement
-ability to play from the lowest register into altissimo with ease
I like to practice harmonic devices and rhythmic exercises on the alto. I do this in these ways:
-practicing harmonic tensions over a drone note (like a cello on youtube, etc.)
-playing blues (major and minor) or other tunes in 12 keys
-playing simple progressions in 12 keys over the following rhythmic grooves such as 2:3 clave, 3:2 clave, mozambique groove, mambo, pilon, son montuno, songo, timba, plena, etc.As an alternative to scales, I practice various arpeggios, triad progressions, diatonic groupings, and chromatic approaches. I really don’t practice scales like students do with the exception of a cool four note grouping scale pattern that I got from Jerry Bergonzi. In general, I only practice this technique when my ears and mind are tired or if the chops don’t feel good.
On to the bari sax - at this point, the fingers and air are all in the right place and music happens. I either work on tunes to learn for gigs or write music. My favorite ways to write music are to play over drum grooves and programming tunes into my computer in the program Logic (playing key bass and virtual keyboards).
What about bass clarinet? Clarinet? Tenor or soprano sax? I practice those when I have gigs on them.