Why the Long Absence?

I'm sure that many of my dedicated subscribers have been wondering why there has been a period without any blog posts. Have I lost internet connection? Did I quit saxophone? Did I abandon my website? Fortunately, the answer to all of those questions are, "No." I have been spending countless hours of the past few weeks on a big Physics project. The goal of this project is to build a Rube Goldberg machine that waters a plant in twenty steps. My group has been steadily working, we are almost finish with the project. When we finish, I will post a video of the final product. I apologize for the delay in posts and hope to resume posting once this huge project is turned in.

Sara

Post Christmas Present Review

I hope everyone is having a great holiday! This may be a day late, but I wanted to share with you some of the awesome gifts my dad got my for Christmas.

Aquilasax Alto Saxophone Review

These days, there are tons of saxophone brands, there are the eBay saxophones for $199.99 and free shipping that fall apart in one week and the better known brands like Selmer Paris and Yamaha. I was recently sent an Asian made horn from the company Aquilasax.com. Do Aquilasax saxophones stand up to the well established brands, or do they fall at par with the bad eBay saxes?

Who Wants a Free Gift Certificate? Winner!

Watch the video below to see if you won! Thanks for everyone who entered (I had 40 entries!!!).

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!

Forestone 2nd Generation Synthetic Reed Review

Forestone Reeds is a great synthetic reed company that combines the traditional cane with a more modern synthetic. If you have read my previous review on the original Forestone Reeds, you would have seen that these are great pro-quality synthetic reeds. Well Forestone has come out with the 2nd generation of their amazing synthetics. Check out this updated review to see what has been improved.