If you are thinking about learning to play the saxophone, of-course it is good to consider for a minute: What is it going to take? How long will it take me to get good enough to play for/with others?
In the video above I discuss the topic in depth but let me also add some writing to it.
Asking yourself :"how hard is it to learn to play the saxophone?" the first thing to realise is that this is always relative and will be vastly different from person to person. So the best place to start, is taking a good hard look at yourself :)
Are you a do-er? are you the type of person that can commit to something for a longer time and stay focussed?
If yes, than you can learn to play the sax pretty fast, (And at least 3 times faster with Hello Saxophone, than with any other guide).
Compared to other instruments like the: piano, violin, trumpet, guitar etc the saxophone is generally considered to be one of the harder instruments to master. It is good however to make a disticntion here. You see mastering the fingering on the saxophone is actually quite easy compared to most instruments. Even a very easy instrument like the guitar is actually harder to master all the notes on than on the saxophone. This is because the sax is, what you might call, a one note instrument. It only plays one note at a time unlike a piano or guitar that can also play lot's of notes samultaniously. So the fingering part of learning to play the saxophone is actually quite easy compared to most other instruments.
However the saxophone is a woodwind instrument meaning all the sound is generated by you blowing into the horn, making a wooden reed vibrate to generate the sound. Developing a nice big, full sounding, in-tune sound on any woodwind instrument takes A LOT of effort and skill. To control your sound well asks a lot of you fine motor skills in your cheeks and lips and these muscles need to become strong in places where they are naturally not. In other words: A piano or guitar always sounds in tune (if it is tuned right) no matter who plays it, but a saxophone sounds only as good as the player can control his/her sound. Building that control is where 60% of the effort of learning to play te saxophone is spent. With good coaching and the right key exercisses you can speed up this process a lot, but you can't cheat on this.
So how fast can you learn to play a song on the sax? In about 20 minutes for most people. But how long untill you can play a song in a way (with a sound) where people listen to you and go...Wow..that sounds sweet!...etc? With good practise and the right key exercises I would say it's possible to get there in about 1 year.
The best resources to really speed up you proces on the saxophone? Get started using the Hello saxphone guide and follow up guide (unleashing the dragon). After start with Tone Centre Builder and follow with Full song workshop program. If you follow those steps and practice about an hour a day for a year with those exercises, you are pretty much asured to be playing WAY better (than you would have expected yourself to get) after one year of playing :)
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