Activity

Tenor Madness is the only known recording of two of the greatest ever saxophonists, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane playing together.
It is a simple 12 bar blues form, with a (relatively) simple melody.  The […]

‘Bleeding Gums Murphy’ (RIP) said that playin’ the Blues isn’t about feeling better, it’s about making ‘other people feel worse!’
Joking aside, the sax player who gave Bleeding Gums his voice, LA session player […]

Groovin’ High is a 1945 composition by trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.
The song is a complex musical arrangement based on the chord structure of the 1920 standard originally recorded by Paul Whiteman, “Whispering”, […]

Whilst it’s not strictly a ‘Bebop’ tune, Four, (possibly composed by Miles Davis in 1954, although authorship is disputed) is still a challenge and contains some great jazz language.
The song is a ABAC form and […]

So it’s time for the most important letter in the Alphabet, letter ‘D’
Donna Lee is credited to Charlie Parker, (although Miles Davis claimed it in his autobiography as one of his own, which, may or may not be […]

So it’s time for the most important letter in the Alphabet, letter ‘D’
Donna Lee is credited to Charlie Parker, (although Miles Davis claimed it in his autobiography as one of his own, which, may or may not be […]

We’re on our third Charlie Parker tune for this course and it’s probably the hardest one we’re going to do, ‘Confirmation.’
Confirmation was composed in 1946 by Parker and is quite a challenging tune to get […]

Billie’s Bounce is a fantastic blues head composed by Charlie Parker in 1945.  If you want to take your blues language to the next level, then get stuck in!

Download Lead Sheets

Alto Lead Sheet

Tenor […]

Letter A is Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘Anthropology’, a burn-out head over the changes to George Gershwin’s ‘I got rhythm’.
Anthropology is also known as ‘Thriving on a Riff’ and was composed in 1945 […]

In our beginners course lesson eight I will show you how to play Arpeggios and Minor Scales.
One thing I want you to do is to not get ’emotionally involved’ with your scales.  By that I mean don’t hate or […]

In this Beginners saxophone lesson seven I am going to show you the notes in the upper octave of the saxophone.
These notes are relatively easy to obtain as they are the same fingering positions as the lower […]

We move onto Lesson Six and it has taken five lessons before we’ve even got to any written music – see Lesson 1 if you’re not sure why!
In this lesson I will introduce you to the treble clef and the concepts […]

Welcome to Lesson five on our Beginners Saxophone Course.  In this lesson I will show you the notes of F, E, D and low C.
At the end of this lesson I will show you how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in […]

As we move onto Beginners Course Lesson 4 we use the knowledge and skills we have gained in our first three lessons to now learn our first notes.
Notice how I haven’t jumped straight in and taught you the […]

In our Beginners Saxophone Course lesson 3, now that you have your breathing and embouchure under control, you can now move on and assemble the saxophone.
Getting the correct posture when holding the […]

In our Beginners Saxophone Course Lesson 2 we are going to look at the two most important aspects of playing the saxophone, breathing and forming a embouchure.
In his book Developing a Personal Saxophone […]

Welcome to Cambridge Saxophone’s Beginners Course Lesson 1.
This might just be one of the most important lessons you’ve ever watched.  I hope it will certainly be one of the most inspirational. Why? […]