Mark Turner - Ask Me Anything (vol. 2 | part 2 of 2)

[Music] okay so self-criticism while trying to approve their quite a few thinks that I think about doing that but I'll give you a shorter version so one thing is that self criticism self criticism in my view at least for myself must be useful in other words you don't want it to be a skillful it should be to the extent that it produces a desired result you don't want to do it just to be doing and saying I'm terrible I suck and all that stuff okay I say the same thing to myself yes I've got a lot to work on I'm sad and stuff but only to make it useful so that I produce something in the end if it doesn't produce something then why do it okay so the other thing is make it useful meaning what are you gonna do about the self-criticism so I say make it I try to make it specific for myself so I I try to criticize specific things so you know picking up categories usually alright melodic harmonic language repertoire meaning tunes and things like that and rhythm alright at least those five things and then subcategories for those you have to make them for yourself I don't have time to say them but under those and I'll start criticizing myself and criticism doesn't necessarily mean negative it can mean positive it just means a clearer look at where you are now and where you want to be in the future that's the main thing where you want to be now and where you want to be in the future and you take an objective look at it in other words it is if you are outside of yourself and looking at so-and-so what would you like to happen melodically and then you go down the list say melodically I've on that on basically I forgot to mention I like I usually have strengths and weaknesses so I usually make a category for myself and I usually kind of assess myself every three to six months sometimes more but so I write down strengths and all these categories are bava bava weaknesses are buh-buh-buh-buh block then I have after that there these things are not useful in you unless you decide what you're going to do about them and when you're going to do it so I usually have I'm going to do such and such' about this thing and the progress I would like to make I'd like to see some progress incidentally and three three months six months a year usually I might set a long goal for myself maybe a year but I still take a look at every few months to see what's happening and you have to read it you have to reassess it you know and say okay this is pretty good this is what happens I need to reassess the way that I'm dealing with it so that's usually what I do I do all the criticism in the reflective type reflective type meanings when you're not playing you know so when you're practicing walking down the street by yourself thinking about what you need to do that's all then when I play when you play no criticism you don't want any of that open non critical mind just do right no reflection do get it done you do that all on the you know off the bandstand so that's a quick answer to your question [Music] okay so if I have a limited amount of time to practice I'm on the road or actually any other time meeting like when you have family or anything else going on in your life so I'll say for myself the first thing I usually do is I practice a warm-up routine which I do anyway but if I have limited time that's the first thing I do let's say for example you got a half hour or 45 minutes I instantly go to that so I start with the metronome at 30 if you have mention that goes slower that's great I usually start at 30 with playing eighth notes at 30 sometimes slower I might do quarter notes if I'm really really rough but I'll start there and I usually do at least four for scale exercises and I I do all four at that speed and then I slowly I speed up from there so then I'll do basically about eighth notes and eighth note triplets and then 16 notes 16 note triplets and then thirty-second notes and then at that point I stayed 32nd notes at 30 and then gradually move on up faster usually to be specific I usually move up faster about three metronome markings so 30 33 36 so on and so forth and my goal is to get up to fifty about thirty second notes with those four things now usually I don't make it with all of them but usually at least my goals at least make it with two of them right I can play at fifty which is very fast thirty-second notes of fifty so and the metronome I forgot to mention I put it on a variety of beats usually I'll put it on two and four or I'll put it on I'll put it on the and of two and four or maybe the end of one three but I never put it on so for example you can try those things so that's one thing that I do then I'll usually go through maybe I'll play pretty much always I'll play chromatic scales three octaves then I'll play a modified version of when I say modified it's not always the bebop scale but basically the bebop scale may be more passing tone than it's sometimes at least two to two and a half maybe three octaves basically I want to get in the altissimo then maybe I'll usually work on some vocabulary so meaning something that I know that I want to add and I want to add something I don't know something I've been working on but not something that's totally unknown I want something that somewhere between something and I'm getting a handle on but that I don't completely know yeah basically I want to work my brain somewhat you know so I spend time on that usually means I have something that I I'm just think I'm working on I usually add things to it and I'll usually try to do it in a few keys not necessarily all keys in other words I will take one thing and take it through all 12 keys I usually take this thing within a few keys and add something to it but it basically what I want is this line and I add variations to it you know but I want the variations would be very close but I want to be able to get it to detailed variations might do that for 15 minutes or something basically I just want to get to something but that's what I usually do and I forgot there's something else that I was thinking about those are that's basically that's basically it when I don't have what I don't have much time oh yeah the other thing is I forgot I might take a tune and either blow a little bit on it or just take the melody lit safe to bebop melody or something like that and at least take up to a few keys just to get myself more nimble you might years going I also might play through some large intervals maybe a scale intense or a scale in ninth meaning like if you have if you're playing B major and I play the low register 10 C sharp an act up then down to D sharp up to e down there sharp up to G sharp so on and so forth and I'll do the same thing going down yeah so for examples and things like that reasonably slowly basically the point of that is you is to try and stay in tune with yourself you know that's kind of was one of the issues with the saxophone is it's very expressive and it doesn't want to be into myself so when you do that play large intervals your practice hearing the size of your intervals and while I do that what I'm trying to do is maintain the same tone quality and the same intensity of the notes as I play throughout why because when you play larger intervals clearly you get a different amount of pressure on the lower notes and you get on that higher notes and it's very clear when you're not doing it so and you that's why you do it on a scale to something that you can easily manage and you can concentrate great on your sound your airflow that's the main thing you want to do with that is make sure that you have the right speed of air so that the notes come out at the same size and same with density and and right intonation so that's it okay I'd like to be obi-wan Kenobi mainly because because then I would I would be I'd be able to I'd be able to learn the basically the martial arts spiritual practice of that time period and that's the thing I'd kind of be into [Music]

Channel: Christopher Beaudry

Views: 8,802

Rating: 4.978261 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Turner, Mark Turner Saxophone, Mark Turner Jazz, Jazz Saxophone, Jazz, Tenor Saxophone, Tenor, Jazz Q&A, Jazz Saxophone Q&A, Jazz Masterclass, Jazz Questions, Jazz Tenor Saxophone, Saxophonist, Sax, Music Practice, Self-criticism, Star Wars

Id: fzcRoDZ076I

Length: 9min 34sec (574 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 21 2017