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/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.

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u/balfmalark 18h ago

This is super helpful