Tips For Selecting A Saxophone Teacher

Saxophone is a magnificent instrument. It became so popular that it eventually became one of the main symbols of the jazz era. Yet practically this instrument often remains a bit of a mystery. Most people don’t even think about playing it and from all popular non-musicians that played the sax as their hobby, you could remember only Bill Clinton.

I remember once, I approached a saxophone player in the street and asked him if it is difficult to master the saxophone. He asked if I ever saw a both young and professional sax player and added that, yes it is difficult to master, but easy to play.

Before you even begin searching for a teacher, you should consider some facts about the saxophone. First to completely master this instrument you will need more time than with mastering a piano or a banjo. Also practicing this complex instrument is very important, so plan your time and see if you have time for both lessons and practice.

Another problem that you will face is the purchase of the saxophone, most probably you will need a teachers recommendation even at this stage. There are a lot of different saxophones and just getting the first one you like won’t be the best decision. Be sure to keep in mind the field that you want to play in. For saxophone it will be jazz and jazz is probably the most challenging music. To play jazz you require at least some basic musical education, so make sure that you have enough general knowledge if you aim to be in a jazz band.

Some websites will tell you that you can master the sax without a teacher, with help of some online lessons or guides. That’s not completely true. Sax is a complicated brass instrument, so approaching it without some basic musical education will be useless. Also even if you master it alone, from time to time you’ll have to visit a saxophone teacher to see if you are doing everything right. Basically it is nearly impossible to completely master a saxophone without a teacher.

As you see mastering a saxophone is a serious task, so if you have time you should even consider visiting some music school. As for selecting a school or a teacher, you can search the web for the nearest schools and the read the reviews or visit the schools/teachers and see what they can offer.

Like with many other instruments you don’t need a teacher who is a world famous virtuoso of sax. Such teacher will be useful at very advanced stages and only if you decide to be a musician. He might help you when you’ll be looking for your style and sound and your education will probably be more of jamming and improvisation sets and not lessons. A good teacher is a man who first of all can teach. It is not a big problem if your teacher is a multi-instrumentalist as long as he is mainly focused on brass instruments. So when you look for a teacher, look at the list of his students to see if he is capable to teach.