BA Sling Review

First Impressions: Many saxophonists play for prolonged hours because of concerts, gigs or just practicing. I know that even after an hour of playing or marching, I get a stiff neck. Most people would say that you should use a harness, but they are constricting and can look silly with an alto. Well this long time problem has now been solved by the BA Sling, the harness-neckstrap-all-in-one!

Practice your Sight Reading!

These days, you can find everything on the Internet. While searching, I stumbled across the site PracticeSightReading.com. This great site does what is in it's name, it helps you practice your sight reading. Well, to a certain extent. This site helps you with the rhythm aspect of sight reading. Using the green bar at the top of the page, you can choose a different meter (time signature), then number of measures you want the exercise to be, and the level of difficulty (1 to 5). When you click the button, the site generates a random assortment of rhythms for you to count or clap. Stumped? Don't worry, just click the play button and they will play the rhythm for you. On the go? Click the print button to print the exercise out, and practice on the go. Think you are a master? Try the beta program that lets you change time signatures in the middle of the exercise. This site is a great tool that should be bookmarked by every student musician, and the best part is it's FREE! Check this site out today.

PracticeSightReading.com

Pre-UIL Success!

As you may or may not know, I am in my high school's marching band. Yesterday, I was at Pre-UIL, a marching competition to prepare us for UIL Region marching contest. At Pre-UIL, we competed against 15 other bands. From all the 16 bands, they chose 6 to advance to finals. Our band was lucky enough to advance to finals. At finals, we played our guts out and ended up winning Grand Champion! Below is a video of our preliminary performance. Enjoy!
http://wildskies.phanfare.com/4857161

Which type of metronome should I buy?

Below is an article courtesy of howtopractice.com on purchasing a metronome, the musician's best friend.

Texas All-State Etudes 2010 Help

For all of the Texas high school students who are working on the All-State Etudes for this year, here is a great FREE practice kit from James Barger for Alto, Tenor, and Bari. It features midi recordings at different tempos, tuning notes, and other practice tools. Download the kit here.

Good luck practicing!