A Daily Practice Plan

Many students aren’t sure how to allocate their time, especially if they don’t have a large block of time to work with. The schedule below presents some ideas for what to do if  you only have 30 minutes, but want to make some real progress with minimal materials. Play a different set each day.

Tone - Tone Matching Exercises                                                                     5-7 min

Play through the entire exercise once without stopping, doing the best you can, paying close attention to breathing and vibrato. Hold all notes full value, even if they don’t speak properly or fall to a lower partial. They key is to work through the process of finding the best tongue position while air is moving through the instrument. Go back and work through any problems during your remaining time.

 Set 1    Tone Matching 1                                

Set 2    Tone Matching with Articulation

            Set 3    Advanced Tone Matching, pages 1 & 2

            Set 4    Advanced Tone Matching, pages 3 & 4

            Set 5    Falling Exercise, choose different vibrato speeds

Scales                                                                                                              5-7 min

Practice scales and arpeggios as they appear in the back of this book, one set per day. Practice only at a tempo that assures perfection and relaxed technique. Play all scales slurred to better assess technique. Note the fingerings shown. Play a full range chromatic scale every day

Set 1    All scales with rehearsal mark “A”                            

Set 2    Simile “B”

Set 3    Taffanel for Sax, Major Scales after Taffanel

Set 4    Choose one of the three DS Wood Exercises for Sax       

Chromatic Exercises                                          5 min

Set 1    Chromatic Scale

Set 2    Chromatic Exercises 1 & 2     

Arpeggios and Patterns                                     5 min                                                  

Set 1    Sax Daily Exercises, Set 1 Arpeggios            

Set 2    Broken Arpeggios

Set 3    Eric Alexander Pattern

Set 4    Other Patterns

Practice only at a tempo that assures perfection and relaxed technique. Play all arpeggios without articulation first, then apply various articulations to each set.

30 minutes equals 1,800 seconds. Use them all.

Set 1

         Tone Matching 1                                                5 min

         Chromatic Scale                                                 5 min

         Taffanel for Sax                                                 6 min

         Major Scales                                                      6 min

         Arppeggios from Sax Daily Exercises – Set 1   8 min

Set 2

         Tone Matching with Articulation

         Chromatic Exercises

         DS Wood for Sax

         Major Scales to the 9th

         Major Scales in 3rds

         Broken Arpeggios

Set 3

         Advanced Tone Matching, pages 1 & 2

         Chromatic 3rds from Excerpt Exercises

         DS Wood #2

         Major Scales After Maquarre

         Melodic Minor Scales from Sax Daily Exercises

Set 4

         Advanced Tone Matching, pages 3 & 4

         Chromatic 4ths

         DS Wood # 3

         Melodic Minor Scales in 3rds