I often teach this to beginners in their first lesson as it is such a useful way of working on your embouchure formation. And this is not just for those of us starting out, EVERYONE needs to keep working on their embouchure so that the tone you want is within your reach!
I’ll let you in on a little secret, I’m not the best and practicing long tones on my saxophone. In fact for many years I didn’t really work that hard on them, because, to be honest I found the exercises my teacher gave me boring.
Once you’ve got a lick down, you really need to be able to translate it into all keys. It’s like learning a phrase and then being able to use subtle varieties of it in conversations.
So here are your responses to our transcription project on Lester Young and Billie Holliday’s recording of ‘All of Me’.
If I haven’t yet got your response then please email a link over NOW!!
In this lesson I take you through the solo outlining four important scale / chord combinations that Lester Young uses in his solo on All of Me.
This lesson is the second lesson on our ‘All of Me’ transcription project and focuses on Lester’s break into his solo. Like many of the great improvisers Lester Young is a master of ‘announcing’ himself to the audience. Others such as Stan Getz or perhaps the greatest improviser in jazz Louis Armstrong can be known by just two notes of a ‘break’.