Jazz Workshop director Paul Pieper talks about his experiences playing saxophone - not his first instrument but one that holds a special place in his life.
My public-facing life in music has been primarily as a jazz guitarist. 99.9% of the gigs and performances I've done in my life have been on guitar. That's my main instrument, and the one I've spent far and away the most time on. I love the guitar, though I think everyone who plays any instrument goes through periods of frustration with their chosen "axe". For me, those periods were sometimes spent looking enviously at saxophone players and wishing that I had access to the expressive palette and the rich tones of jazz saxophone players.
So many of the most inspiring jazz musicians have been sax players. I mean, tenor saxophonists John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Sonny Rollins - add those four guys together, and that's just about the sum total of my aspirations as a jazz musician. Again, I love the guitar but I LOVED playing with saxophone players and hearing their incredibly, impossibly fluid improvisations, and I wondered what it would be like to experience that.
That dream became a reality on a very surprising day when I was 27 years old. I had been a professional musician since I was 19 or so, and at that time I was living in a group house with four other jazz musicians (that is a whole other blog entry). One of them was my friend Tom, a saxophone player. He knew how much I loved the saxophone and one day, he came to me and said "here's your new tenor saxophone." My jaw hit the floor. It was an early 50's Buescher Aristocrat - a fine horn. Some gifts can't ever really be repaid, and this was one of them, because it changed my life. Suddenly, this thing that I never would have been brave enough to do on my own - acquiring a tenor saxophone - had been dropped in my lap.
I have read countless times on the internet, people saying "It is a mistake to think that the saxophone is easy to learn, despite the many stories of people getting a saxophone and a fingering chart and teaching themselves." I didn't exactly teach myself - Tom gave me lots of moral support, tips and advice - but you better believe I had that fingering chart and I used it extensively. For a little while, I practiced tenor saxophone more than I practiced guitar. I was so excited to be making these sounds - admittedly, at first not very pleasant sounds! But I knew I was on my way somewhere.
I was gigging constantly on guitar at the time and on set breaks, I would corral whatever saxophone player was on the gig and ask them questions about embouchure (how you shape your mouth and lips around the mouthpiece), technique, articulation, and developing your sound. People were always very generous with what they knew, and I'm very grateful to my peers who put up with my many questions.
Some instruments are more intuitive than others. Saxophone, I think, is fairly intuitive in its layout - it's like a more complex recorder. On some level, it really is that simple. Of course, to play it well is a life's work (that I'll never be close to finishing), but I really do think that it's an approachable instrument that rewards the beginner with good results, if they keep at it.
As the years went by, my time on saxophone waxed and waned. I was of course still trying to be a full-time guitarist, playing and teaching guitar, and I was also trying to maintain at least the sort of rudimentary piano chops that a "jazz educator" should have. And during that time, I also fell in love with drums and trying to be a somewhat competent jazz drummer (everyone wants to be a drummer, and I am no exception).
But the saxophone continued to beckon, and I kept at it. Around 10 years ago, I recorded a jazz "quintet" record where I'm playing every instrument in the quintet, including saxophone of course. This had been a goal of mine for a long time, and it's certainly one of the most fun musical projects I've done. And I continue to include saxophone in my various social media postings, including writing and recording an arrangement that features a full saxophone section (AATTB).
Now I'm 52 years old, which means that I've been playing the saxophone for 25 years. I still have the same horn, and since then I've acquired an alto as well (a late 50's King Zephyr). I still consider myself a guitarist first and foremost, but I love the feeling of playing saxophone. To play an instrument that uses your breath to produce the sound, and where your body really becomes part of the instrument as well - in addition to being completely acoustic, with no amplifier involved - it's always a welcome change of perspective.
The last thing I want to say here is - if you've ever thought about playing saxophone, go for it! I wasn't brave enough to make that first step on my own (I used to have visions of going to a music store, asking to try a saxophone and having them say "but you're a guitar player!" and then being laughed out of the store), but I think this is an instrument that rewards the efforts of the beginning student, and I believe there's an incredibly rewarding experience waiting for you. If you want any advice about getting started with saxophone, I welcome you to reach out to me to talk about it.