This is my regularly updated practice log, mostly for accountability with my saxophone practice. Below you can see my practice for the week. If you’d like to check it out, here’s my goal list of tunes for the year.  I’m still working on “Four” but I’m pretty much happy with my progress on “Skylark.” I’ll be choosing another tune this week. (The second week covered in this post, for reasons covered below.) Below, you can see a log of my practice sessions for the week.

This is my regularly updated practice log, mostly for accountability with my saxophone practice. Below you can see my practice for the week. If you’d like to check it out, here’s my goal list of tunes for the year.  I’m still working on “Four” and “Skylark” for this week. I know the form of “Four” but actually navigating it in real time—especially at the popular tempo—is tough!   Below, you can see a log of my practice sessions for the week.

This is my regularly updated practice log, mostly for accountability with my saxophone practice. Below you can see my practice for the week. If you’d like to check it out, here’s my goal list of tunes for the year.  I’m still working on “Four” for this week, but I’ve selected my next tune for my study project: “Skylark.” The chords are challenging but overall playing over them isn’t so tough. I’m planning to do a harmonic analysis, though, just to see how it ticks. I’m surprised at how few versions I could turn up on Youtube.  Below, you can see …

This is my regularly updated practice log, mostly for accountability with my saxophone practice. Below you can see my practice for the week. If you’d like to check it out, here’s my goal list of tunes for the year.  Having gotten a good handle on “Fly Me To the Moon,” I’ve selected my next tune for my study project: “Four.” It’s a tune I’ve known of for years, with early exposure due to my interest in the music of Miles Davis right when I was starting to get into jazz as a teenager. (Here’s an early, slower-tempo version by Davis. …

This is my regularly updated practice log, mostly for accountability with my saxophone practice. Below you can see my practice for the week. If you’d like to check it out, here’s my goal list of tunes for the year.  This week, I learned “In A Sentimental Mood” and started work on “Fly Me To the Moon.” I don’t love the latter song—it’s a staple in Korea and I’ve seen too many people trying to make it profound and melodramatic in a way that turns me off… but I like the idea of doing it as a bossa nova or something, …

This is my regularly updated practice log, mostly for accountability with my saxophone practice. Below you can see my practice for the week. If you’d like to check it out, here’s my goal list of tunes for the year.  This week, it seems I’m finishing up work on “Up Jumped Spring” (especially on Eb horns, where I feel a little weaker on it) and casting about regarding what I’ll transcribe next. Maybe that Dexter Gordon solo on “Misty” I mentioned last time, but I’m not sure. I’m taking a little break for now, or rather, I’m focusing on preparing for …

This is my regularly updated practice log, mostly for accountability with my saxophone practice. Below you can see my practice for the week. If you’d like to check it out, here’s my goal list of tunes for the year.  This week, it seems I’m continuing my work on “Up Jumped Spring,” and casting about regarding what I’ll transcribe next. Maybe that Dexter Gordon solo on “Misty” I mentioned last time, but I’m not sure. I’m taking a little break for now, or rather, I’m focusing on preparing for the coming semester this week, since classes start on the 4th of …

This is my regularly updated practice log, mostly for accountability with my saxophone practice. Below you can see my practice for the week. If you’d like to check it out, here’s my goal list of tunes for the year.  This week, it seems I’m concluding my work on “Misty”—I think I “have” the tune, as I “got” Lonnie’s Lament last week. Maybe when I finish transcribing one Lonnie’s Lament solo, I’ll do the same for a version of Misty—maybe one of Stan Getz’s, like this one. As far as picking other tunes, I was tempted by Anthropology or Ornithology, but …

This is my regularly updated practice log, mostly for accountability with my saxophone practice. Below you can see my practice for the week. If you’d like to check it out, here’s my goal list of tunes for the year.  This week, it seems I’m working on two tunes: “Lonnie’s Lament” and “Misty.” There are reference examples I’m working off and listening to linked from the list of goal tunes.  Below, you can see a log of my practice sessions for the week.

Horn Acquired! Last Wednesday, I made a trip to Seoul to purchase a second-hand baritone sax. I should pause to mention that buying a bari sax in Korea is a hell of an undertaking. Nobody plays the damned things here: second-hand tenors and altos are common, and even sopranos are pretty easy to find, but almost nobody seems to have any interest in the big horns. Of the four I found for sale over the last few months, one was exorbitantly overpriced (a guy was asking 35 million Korean won—let’s call that about $30,000—for an early Selmer Mark VI low-A …