Chris Curtis Web Site

I have not disappeared just very busy at work. We have been making a fantastic new performance space, appointing staff, preparing for inspection and all the usual things, plus I am coaching a cheerleading team towards the National Championships. Too little time to blog, or to do anything much outside work worth blogging about. Apart from regular walking, and very occasional runs, I have not done anything related to orienteering for many months. I miss it, but can’t fix things to get there at the moment. I am playing the sax often, but only for fun.

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.

A few weeks ago I ordered a whole lot of reeds and experimented like mad.

Very quickly, I fell in love with Rico plasticovers – about half a grade “softer” than I was using. What a difference something so subtle makes. The plasticovers are “ready to go” straight away and you cannot really get the “moisture content” wrong. I suspect that they give a less pure and rich tone than you could achieve with “traditional” reeds but for a beginner like me this is overcome by being able to stop worrying about whether it is me or the reed that is “not quite right” and concentrate on my own technique. Very quickly, the low notes on the tenor came good, I find I can develop very different tones and projections and can play loud and soft. It felt like a big “jump up”.

Of course, you then realise that some of my long tones are rather wobbly, that there can be an unwanted and unpleasant vibrato but I can work on that.

The other thing I have been doing is leaving the tenor on its stand. I find myself playing it every day without fail and often playing for a few minutes several times a day. The less structured approach is probably very bad for me, but I feel my confidence growing and more as if I am playing the instrument rather than it dominating me.

I need a stand for the soprano (or a stand for both at the same time) so I can work on both!

I was offered a bargain so took the plunge and now have a fantastic new Bauhaus-Walstein Soprano Saxophone. I have not played it much yet but I love the tone: somewhere between oboe and clarinet and it really sings in the high register.

Time for an update.

I have had a couple of lessons and learnt far more than I thought possible in the hour (total) with a proper saxophone teacher. He is very happy to work to my agenda for him, which was to tell me what I am getting wrong and tell me how to fix it, while still leaving me to do the bulk of the learning.

There’s plenty that I am getting wrong. The first was (as I perceive it) not being firm enough with the sax. He has helped me feel that my embouchure needs to be very much firmer than I thought, and so does my diaphragm – he pointed me to slightly harder reeds and we did some exercises on long notes and blowing through. All of which was a revelation and has made an audible difference very quickly. He has also helped me to work on articulation and breathing, with good effect.

The best, and scariest, experience is trying to play things with him accompanying on the piano. We’ve had a few goes at “Watermelon man” by Herbie Hancock. I can sight-read this pretty well when I am on my own, it is fairly rough when I play it with him listening and I always fall apart at some point when we play together, but boy what a rush! It is a blast – loud, joyful and glorious.

He’s even managed to get me to the beginning of improvising: we did some question and answer work around 3 notes and I began to realise what it is all about – lots and lots more to do, but it feels like it might be for me, rather than an alien universe.

The alto sax was (a kind of) 50th birthday present to myself but I have bought a tenor sax as sheer self-indulgence! Actually, it could have been worse.

The beast in question is a Walstein tenor sax from woodwind and brass. It is gorgeous with a deep, rosy phosphor-bronze body and brass keywork and sound divine too. It has had rave reviews all over the place while being made in China and being far cheaper than you would believe possible. I love it already though it will take me a while to adjust – it feels like pushing an awful lot of air, though that mellow, smoochy sound is to die for!