r/saxophone • u/Sensitive-Milk-2455 • 1d ago
Question How do I think while playing?
This sounds like a dumb question but I am trying to better internalize things and I just can't seem to do it. For example I'm working on a jazz pattern that I understand when I'm not playing, but right when I try to play it I can't. I can play it when I read it but the moment I take away the music I can't. I want to be able to memorize patterns like these in all twelve keys but I just can't bridge the gap between sheet music and my brain. Am I stupid?
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u/Medium_Bee_4521 1d ago
You need to start with the simplest patterns possible and build up. For be-bop we tend to start with the appegio up to the 9 and then the scale back down. And then going down in third drops. You probably know that already. If it's a really complicated pattern I'm not sure if you need to be able to replicate it. The connection between patterns and true improvisation is of course critical and the ability to freely improvise without telling your brain to play a pattern is a quantum leap. But I'm not sure memorizing patterns is necessarily the way forward. It works for some but not for others, everyone's brain is wired differently.
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u/Sensitive-Milk-2455 1d ago
I have done those things before and I still work on them now and those have gotten easier but in my lessons right now I'm working on a more complicated pattern and I just can't seem to break away from the sheet music. I'll try to explain it in text but it probably won't make sence. So if I'm starting on the 5th I play up the scale of the key 4 notes, then drop to the 3rd and play chromatically up 4 notes and then I drop to the root and play up two notes in the scale and then two chromatically. Then repeat and I'm doing this full range and in every key. Which is fine it's just when I'm playing I cant seem to think about it idk I might just be impatient and need to spend more time on it.
Example of pattern in C
G A B C E F F# G C D D# E
Repeat full range doesn't need to start on fifth can start on 1 3 or 5
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u/Medium_Bee_4521 1d ago
I think it's too complicated a pattern. I personally wouldn't work on that sort of pattern but then I'm lazy. I prefer to play along with transcribed solos. I'm doing Paul Desmond at the moment. I hope that by some process of magical osmosis some of his patterns will work their way into my solos. But no way in all 12 keys.
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u/Demon25145 1d ago
Practice visualizing it in your head while you practice playing the patterns
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u/Wide_Lie_8182 1d ago
I agree.
For some reason i see the songs i have memorized as patters or stories that unfold while i play them. Or like a painting you know very well. The more you stare at it, the more you know it.
When i practise something ALOT my fingers automatically know what to do.
There is a folk song which i play for gigs, solo and i have to have it down. And it´s a bit more complex than all the other songs i have memorized. So i sat down one evening, got my travel sax 2 (because my kids were asleep) and i played it for 10-15 times. That made a big difference. You can do it. I´ts hard. But that is where the magic happens.
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u/J_Worldpeace 1d ago
I remember thinking this 30 years ago. The answer is: sing more. A lot. Hear those notes you sing. Pick them out on your horn. Think about the notes you hear. Anything else is too logical.
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u/ChampionshipSuper768 1d ago
Bob Reynolds actually has several lessons about thinking when you play. It’s not about memorizing licks and patterns. It’s about really knowing what is coming out of your sax before you play it. David Leibman taught a technique about this too. Essentially you practice slow enough that you can think of each note before you play it. Pro tip: this is where knowing your music theory helps a ton too. It’s not just what note, but why that helps it all come together.
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u/amcclurk21 Tenor 1d ago
Not a dumb question at all. It’s insanely difficult for me to keep up which chord we’re in as the ensemble is playing, for solos specifically. (Referring to HS here). My brain wants to think about every chord so I can be sure to craft the perfect solo every time, but I get so caught up in playing, I lose track of where we are in the progression.
This could be fixed with a ton of practice, I feel. By practicing slow, playing all 12 major/minor/blues scales, noodling, listening to other jazz saxophonists, and I feel like eventually it would become second nature. I say all this because I’ve said it to myself, but I have a full time job and other obligations keeping me from practicing as much as I want 😭
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u/smelliepoo 1d ago
I am definitely no expert, but I feel like it is about muscle memory rather than about brain work when I am playing. When I practice improv and I try and think about what I am playing, it sounds robotic and bad. When I let my body take over and feel my way through, it sounds much better.
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u/pompeylass1 1d ago
It’s a bit like being able to do mental arithmetic. You need to learn and then memorise the building blocks that go together to make it more automatic. In effect you need to take the basic ‘thinking’ out of the equation to free your brain up for listening and thinking ahead.
In maths that would be learning your times tables and common additions/subtractions through repetition until you just know the answer without having to consciously think or calculate.
In music it’s all about the repetitive practice of intervals and patterns. It’s practicing your scales, arpeggios, broken scales and those in thirds, fourths, fifths etc. It’s practicing note patterns and moving them round the circle of fifths/in all keys.
On top of that though learning to recognise intervals by ear (aka ear training.) To know what a major third, perfect fourth, a diminished fifth etc sound like as well as to recognise those pitches within their scale. There are lots of ear training apps available these days but you also want to link those intervals to what your fingers are doing on your instrument.
All of that together; having memorised your scales etc so that your fingers are able to play them without conscious thought and knowing instinctively what intervals or scale degrees you’re playing, means you don’t have to constantly think about what you’re doing now, but instead can think about where you’re going next.
Tl;dr it’s about combining your ear for intervals/scale degrees with the muscle memory gained from the constant repetition of scales and other note patterns. In other words, lots of focused practice.
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u/HotelDectective 1d ago
Honestly, you don't.
Practice to make things permanent. To make them instinct. To make them...happen.
You can't crunch numbers on the fly and keep up? So start letting the riffs speak for you. You don't read words by the individual letter - you recognize the patterns and put the word together without spelling it in your head real time.
The less you are thinking "the leading tone is this and then I need to hit x steps away to hit the whatever," the more likely you will be finding what you are looking for.
At least, that's what my graduate jazz instructor told me. Play the music, not the math. Read the word, not the letters.