Chris Curtis Web Site

I have been experimenting with a Zoom H2 digital recorder. We have a major need to record students playing and singing at school and at the moment are using all sorts of things from full-blown cubase through various digital recorders and CD recorders. None of these are ideal. We need simplicity but also high quality. The Zoom looked worth a try. The microphones are built in, once the record volume is set you just press the obvious red record button once to check levels and again to record. It all goes onto an SD card and can go onto the computer directly or via a USB connection to the zoom.

I have done some recordings using the Zoom and I am very impressed. The set-up could not have been easier.

1. The zoom sits on the music stand (though this might not be an ideal location it works well enough)
2. I play the backing track on my ipod through open back headphones, so I can hear the backing track and the Sax but the zoom only records the Sax
3. I pull the zoom recording into audacity, normalise it and then align it with the backing track. Counting in with the backing track helps!
4. I add a little reverb and equalisation in audacity – especially to the sax. I tend to leave the backing track alone.
5. I create an mp3.

The result is like this:

The Wedding

Given this was recorded in my bedroom without any attempt to exclude external sound, and it has had only a little work in audacity, the sound quality is really quite pleasing (not quite so sure about the playing, though!)

The “music stand” placement for the zoom (it literally sits on the music stand in front of the music I am reading) can tend to emphasise the breath and key sounds from the instrument, though I have found taking a step or two backwards is helpful. There is also a risk that I will send it flying! I ought to put the Zoom on a mic stand. It is very convenient though. You hit the red button on the zoom, then hit “play” on the ipod (which is on the bed – my headphones have long leads) and by the time the backing track is counting in, you are ready to play.

The music is “The Wedding” by Abdullah Ibrahim. I love the smoochy, laid back tune. This arrangement is in the AB Real book which contains pieces for ABRSM Jazz grades 4 and 5 for Clarinet, Alto and Tenor Sax, Trumpet and Trombone and the backing track is from the Grade 4 Tenor Sax CD that goes with it. It is used here for educational purposes. The middle 8 is improvised.

The Sax is a Bauhaus-Walstein Phoshor-Bronze Tenor (probably the best value Sax in the world) with a Vandoren V16 ebonite mouthpiece and fibracell 2 reed. I have been playing sax for about a year.

As you can see, the blog now records the “tweets” I have made on twitter during the previous week. Almost all the tweets I make are automated – itunes “tweets” every time I play something.

I wondered if there was a pattern and there is. Quite a lot of what I listen to is for work: at the moment I am mixing music for my school’s cheerleading squad. I can honestly say that I am not listening to that for pleasure! I am also editing and organising a wide variety of music at the moment for a dance show we are doing in June so that shows up as a lot of listening. I use itunes to provide backing tracks when I practice my Saxophones too, so these show up and occasionally, I just listen to music!

I am still not sure what I think about Twitter. Is it a social revolution? Of course not! No technology is revolutionary in itself: it becomes a revolution when people start to live different lives in response to it. I have not noticed any aspect of my life changing as a result of Twitter – at least, not yet. Twitter is interesting though: it is good to see people exploring what they can do with what is a simple (but maybe brilliant) concept. I already like the breaking news services and stay in touch with a few web sites that I enjoy. I do not have a thriving network of real people to “follow” – anyone I might be interested in is too busy to send many tweets.

I will stick with Twitter for a while and see what happens.

This week, I will have been playing the saxophone for a month. What progress? Quite good really (if I say so myself!) but I am at that depressing stage where I am good enough to know that I am not very good but not good enough to know how to improve. It might be time to organise some lessons with an expert.

Anyway, in a month (practice every day except one), I have learnt the fingerings for all the notes from low C to high C (two octaves) plus one or two notes above and below these. I can sound all these notes and quite sweetly, but not necessarily when I want to or in the sequences I want. In particular, there is a tendency for the low notes to sound an octave high, especially if I try to play one “straight-off” (as opposed to dropping down a scale to it). I can play scales and arpeggios fairly confidently in C, D, E, F, G and A major and I can sight read and play quite a number of tunes and they are recognisable. I can play for 30 – 45 minutes without my lips or mouth “dying” (which happened after ten minutes or so a month ago) I am about 11 chapters (half way) into the John O’Neill Jazz tutor and the first few chapters (which were so hard a month ago) are easy now.

So, a good start, but there is so much further to go. I have to say that I love the sax though. I simply love playing it and cannot wait until I am good enough to play with others or to solo. I am even having thoughts about a tenor to go with the alto!

I have wanted to play the sax since I was small. It is such a cool and expressive instrument. I keep seeing and hearing excellent sax solos (most recently from the guy in Elkie Brooks’ band) and the idea would not go away, so it is time to take the plunge.

I drove over to Crowborough, to the nice people at saxophones.co.uk and talked about an ex-hire sax in perfect condition. An hour or two later I was very excitedly on my way home with a horn in the boot of the car. It is a Trevor James Revolution II Alto. It looks gorgeous and came with a good case, stand, a tutorial DVD, a couple of reeds and some cork grease. I had to buy a box of reeds and a tuner/metronome. I also bought John O’Neill’s “Jazz Tutor”.

The first attempts were both easier and harder than I expected. I was delighted to be able to get notes from the sax straight away, but my lips and face are very quickly tired, I am not always in tune and it does not sound that much like a sax yet. Still, early days.