Advice on Practice, Playing etc. from SONNY ROLLINS

[mandocrucian]

(FWIW) The sax player second to only John Coltrane on my LP/CD shelves (in terms of sheer numbers of recordings) is Sonny Rollins. (and there are a lot of sax players on the jazz shelves). Sonny is still around (now in his 80s) and has his own The Oficial Sonny Rollins Page on FB, which I have on my feed.

And it's not just YouTube live clips from various time periods, but interview segments with Sonny answering questions about playing, practice, etc. Once you're on a YouTube video, you'll see that there is plenty more to take a listen to, if you are so inclined. A few examples:







Niles H

[mandocrucian]

FYI

"Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist, widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded at least sixty albums as leader and a number of his compositions, including "St. Thomas", "Oleo", "Doxy", "Pent-Up House", and "Airegin", have become jazz standards. Rollins has been called "the greatest living improviser". "


Wikipedia: Sonny Rollins

[Jill McAuley]

Big Sonny Rollins fan here - got a framed "Tenor Madness" poster last year for Christmas!

[JeffD]

"No such thing as mastery."

[catmandu2]

I find sonny to be one of the best in talking about *music.* He expresses it in its many aspects as would i. For me music is all the things SR says and perhaps more.

*My daughter is now beginning to study (and take more interest in the players I listen to) jazz, and I'm super thrilled she's on my old saxes (and I never "insisted' or anything) ... though I didn't pass her down my 10M. she's even becoming more tolerant and even appreciative of all the outre stuff. I'm a lucky man, my son loves trad Chinese music, daughter sax,.. nice to see it spreading.

[Nbayrfr]

....”There is something beautiful about life that is expressed through music”...
Wow and Thank You!

[dadsaster]

I'm not a fan of Steve Vai's playing but his mental game is on point. From time to time I watch this video and find it very inspiring:



Hope it helps.

[Ivan Kelsall]

From dadsaster - ".....his mental game is on point. ". I love Steve Vai's playing & other 'Rock' guitarists like him eg. Joe Satriani. I don't think that you'd be too amazed at just how much these guys put into their playing. Steve Vai is just one good example. If you want to be ''good'' at any level,you have to go for it 100% -

Quote - '' The only thing that's holding you back,is the way you're thinking !! '' Oh boy ! - did he ever get that right. Our ''mental attitude'' to whatever we try to do ''is all''.

My PE Teacher at school got 2 of my school friends into the England Youth football team (he also got me playing UK Baseball for 6 years). He used to tell us in a similar way to what Steve Vai says - '' Imagine doing it / practice doing it & then do it ".

Ultimately,it all comes down to what we do (obviously),but a ''positive mental attitude'' is an absolute ''must have''. When i took up Bluegrass banjo at age 18,i never doubted for one instant that i'd make it as a player - if i put the work into it. Having done that one on banjo,when i came to mandolin,i adopted the same approach, & some 20,000 hours into it,i'm doing ok.

I'm also 100% sure that the majority of players on here have done exactly the same - but in their own way. The old guy that began to teach me 'Classic Banjo' back when i was 18 (it was just to get my fingers going to the right place - i wanted to play Bluegrass all along),told me " You'll reach a point where you don't seem to be making any progress ",54 + years on,i've yet to reach that point. That doesn't mean that i'm progressing all the time,it simply means that i'm not failing, & the interest & excitement is still there,
Ivan

[BrianWilliam]

Well, since we are talking about Steve Vai ... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cpf2IoJZhqI