I had a conversation with a piano player who went to high school with me
that truly inspired me to improve. He also played sax, and didn't really have a
great sound/tone, but nevertheless, his solos sounded great.
One day, I walked up to him while we were setting up for a musical and asked
for his advice. He said I needed to be an artist not just a sax player. That
every note I play, I need to MEAN those notes, and not just play them. He
told me to foget all the theory and to just play. Great composers didn't use
theory, they just wrote what was in their head, and the theory came after to
analyse what they did, and told me just to play what was in my head.
He told me that I was so caught up in the theory and confined by the
changes, but I had the greatest knowledge of it of all the other sax players,
but I let it inhibit my playing. If I just played what was in my head, that would
be a big improvement. He said I had more technique and chops than any of
the other sax players, but the point isn't to play all crazy and fast to impress
someone. You play to touch someone. In touching someone, you also impress
them - killing two birds with one stone.
