Practice Log, 1-7 August 2024

Although I started getting physiotherapy for my back problem, I’ve still managed to be quite consistent with practicing over the past week, though I had to miss a couple of days—one due to my wife’s schedule, and another due to inability to book the practice room when I was available. 

I’ve continued with the Ferling studies and also working my way through the altissimo fingerings in the Larry Teal. I should be doing a couple of altissimo fingering charts for myself soon, one for alto and one for tenor. (I haven’t started working on that on my bari yet.) When I’ve done them up, I’ll share them, just like I did my preliminary one for my model of tenor sax years ago.

My tenor’s back to being in great working order, so I have had fun playing on it.

I also replaced the too-narrow, too short strap on my tenor flight case with something that’s not perfect, but is pretty good for now. I found myself wondering what happened to the original strap all those years ago. It was broad and wasn’t slippery, but I guess it snapped or something. Since I intend on getting a Wiseman triple sax case as soon as I can afford one. (It might be a while, but it won’t be forever, and the Wiseman case conversely will be forever.) 

The tunes I’m running these days mostly are on the following list:

• All the Things You Are
• Bemsha Swing
• Black Orpheus
• But Not For Me
• Days of Wine and Roses
• I Can’t Give You Anything But Love
• Waltz for Debby
• Waters of March (Águas de Março)

Of those, I think I’m close to putting about half on my list of tunes I now know, though there’s a wrinkle: since I’ve been practicing them alternating on alto and tenor, I tend to forget what key each one is in and to start playing the head in the wrong key. I’d like to have to right key dialed in before adding them to the “I know these tunes” list, and since tenor and soprano are my primary horns, I guess maybe I should do a little exclusive practice on those just to really hammer the keys into my mind.  

I’ve been doing a mix of tenor and alto, but on both my routine has been to start with the Ferling (mostly studies 1-3), then try altissimo for a while, do some long tones, and run tunes. I have been neglecting my scales, but mostly just because they’ve bored me lately. I’ll get back to them soon. 

I’ve been clearing space on my iPad for real books, though if I’m honest I don’t know how much of a use I have for some of the later volumes of Hal Leonard’s Real Books. I feel like maybe (at most) thirty tunes out of 300+ being useful to me is a bit steep for a real book, even if it only works out to like $1.50 a tune or something to purchase them in ebook form. We’ll see. I have no need for now, as I have all the digital fake books I currently need for quite a while.