Original subtitles

Hang on a minute. Didn't we just do D in lesson seven?

Yeah, you're right. But this is lesson eight and this is looking at something

different. This is introducing us to the first note with the octave key on.

Now, as you can see from the diagram, this is a D not written down below the

stave like it was in lesson seven.

but it's written higher up the stave on the fourth line up.

Now, this D has one crucial difference. If you look on the diagram, it tells us

that this note is played with the first octave key depressed with the left

thumb.

It also says try to tilt the thumb onto the octave key without losing contact

with the thumb rest.

Now, Octave keys on any electronic wind instrument can be a little bit awkward

at first, and they can take some practice.

On a regular saxophone, you're actually only going to have to worry about one

octave key.

Later on in the course, I'll show you about using the other octave keys on the

Aerophone as well. But to begin with, we're just looking at the first octave

up.

As you can see here, what I'm doing is I'm holding my thumb in this

position, and what I'm going to do is have my thumb so that actually I can

roll my thumb up and press the octave key. That's pressing it,

and that's letting it go.

Pressing, letting go.

Pressing, letting go.

What we don't want to see is sliding up and down like this.

And we certainly don't want to see lifting off the thumb and putting it

down. Try to find a place where you can position your thumb on the round disc,

that's the thumb rest.

And then when you want to use the octave, you can just roll onto it. It's

very small movement. You can hardly see it there.

And it's really worth practising that to begin with.

Why don't we just try playing for now the D with the thumb on.

And now with that very small movement, off.

So here I've got my two Ds. Again, small movement to just lean to press that on.

Taking the thumb off.

Let me show you on the diagram here.

So here you can see this is the thumb being pressed on and off at the back.

So this one is the upper octave and this one is that lower octave. Let's try and

play those two again. So with the thumb on.

Taking it off.

Let's try a little exercise. Let's do off, on, off.

and as you can imagine we've got some warm -ups to do here so this first warm

-up is playing four of the upper D's and four of the lower D's then we're

going to do on off on off on off and on again. Remember,

really small movement, just tilting that thumb.

Let's see how this looks and sounds if we go quite slowly.

One, two, three, four.

Remember,

just in a previous lesson, we talked about one of the difficulties changing

the note B to C.

And that's one of the early difficulties that a lot of wind instrument players

face.

When we're playing the aerophone, up to now we learnt up to the note C.

But of course, we're going one note up from C.

But this means we're adding a lot of extra fingers. We're putting all six

fingers down and we're adding the thumb on the back for the octave key.

So this again represents quite a challenge here. And one of the things

should practice to begin with.

is moving between D and C and D and

C and of course as I'm doing that we've got D and C

and D and C it's worth practicing

just playing between those two notes to begin with

Now I'll be honest with you, you need to do this many many times over and listen

out carefully because this is a place where it's very easy to get glitches.

me try and show you what that might sound like.

What's happening there? Well that is usually when your fingers aren't moving

the same time together.

especially remembering your thumb moving together.

A little tip that you might try, as you put your thumb down moving between

C and D, try to imagine that you're coordinating that moment with the ring

finger going down at the same time.

And that can be a way of making sure that you time your thumb to go at the

same time.

as your fingers. So try again, from C to Ds, really slowly, trying to make sure

it's really super clean.

So as you can imagine, this next exercise is really not that easy to do.

So let's take a very slow version of it first.

and then we'll go a little bit quicker.

One, two, three, four.

Did you hear the one glitch there?

OK, I think I need to do that again. Let's see if we can get it super clean

time.

That was better. But believe me, it's not easy to make that really clean

every single time. So it's well worth practicing. Now, something I've noticed,

you know, I've been teaching for more than 40 years now.

And I've noticed just how clever students can be at disguising these

changes. One of the very common things that some students try to do, rather

playing smooth legato, as it should be here, what they'll do is they'll make a

little gap in the sound between notes.

And OK, yeah, that sounds good. I don't get any glitches anymore. But no, that's

not what we should be doing here.

You need to be able to play smoothly across from the lower octave notes into

upper octave notes. So be really careful with that exercise and do take your

time. You will definitely need to return to this exercise several times in order

to really start to get a smooth.

version of that sound. So shall we try with the metronome? See what we can do.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

If you manage that cleanly a couple of times in a row, Seriously, well done.

That is not easy to do.

Let's look at some tunes.

Okay, buddy.

Okay, so this is quite a quick tune, and as you can imagine, we're going to use

a lot of octave keys in this. We're starting on the low D, and then we're

up for two of the Ds with the thumb on.

D, D, then C, C, A, A, D, D.

Octave key back on for the D, D, C, C, A.

We need to try and make sure that all of those moves are nice and smooth.

Again, we're using a synth sound on this, and each line is played twice.

Good luck, this is a bit trickier.

Again, a couple of things to mention in that tune.

Firstly, we've got some of that articulation again to notice and to make

difference with the character of the music.

And also, I just want to point out to you my point about how this music has

specially written to really exercise what we are trying to achieve with each

lesson. So here...

we've got the two octave Ds switching between them and of course on the second

line you've got that move D C D C D C A C D

perfect practice for what we were just talking about in Daybreak I've gone for

slightly more kind of Celtic feel so we're back in that 6 -8 rhythm and I've

suggested we use the sound of the Ilan pipes I think most of the Aerophones

got the Ilan pipe sound.

The AE -20s and 30s in fact actually have two sounds.

What you might notice is that on some of the sounds, if I play you a little bit

on this first Ilan pipe sound, the sound is clean between each note.

The way the illen pipes are played, very often we have some extra little

ornaments in there.

And sometimes on the other versions of the sound like this illen pipe too,

as you go from note to note, it automatically puts in one of those

ornaments for you.

As always, it's up to you which one you decide to use, but it's

a lovely sound and I think it really suits this kind of Celtic film music

And as a little extra bonus, I've written out here for you the tune to

Saints Go Marching In.

You know all of these notes, and you know the tune, of course. I've chosen to

use, say, a trumpet sound on this one.

Now, again, of course, a lot of things we talk about for the different sounds

instruments, I know there's going to be rather clichéd sort of versions of these

instruments.

I feel we have to start off with a cliche first and then hopefully we'll

that as we go and listen to those instruments. If you want to sound like a

trumpet, you need to listen to the way that trumpet players will play.

Try and think about the volume they're playing.

Try and think about particularly the attack of the notes that they play. That

makes a big difference on the aerophone sounds.

You know, do they add any little other inflections? Are they adding any little

extra notes between tune notes?

Are they dipping in and out with the volume like we saw in one of those

lesson tunes that we did?

So on a trumpet sound here, I do think we probably should use the tongue.

If I do the start of When the Saints with not very much articulation.

That just sounds like a synthesizer to me, because what I feel we need here is

that little bit of a tap to the sound.

So I'm going to tong the note.

Now again, I'm sure if you're a trumpet player, you'll hate that sound. But in

terms of us getting a little bit closer to imitate the sound of a trumpet, I

think... articulating each note is the way to go shall we try it together

here comes when the saints one two three four

OK, now your next challenge is to play that marching around the room in time

with your marching as well.

Just joking, but you could try.

Here ends lesson eight. So keep up the great work and let's see you in lesson

nine.