Welcome to the Scott Paddock Sax School! If you are coming to this Pathway after completing the Intermediate: part 2 Pathway of the Sax School, you are good to go. If not, I would strongly suggest working your way through the Intermediate: part 2 Pathway before continuing.
In the Early Advanced Pathway, I will be teaching more advanced concepts. It is very important that you already have a strong foundation, as I will not be explaining the basics that we have already covered in the previous Pathway Courses. These lessons will move more quickly, and be focused on learning specific skills/concepts in each lesson. There will be very little review of the basics of improv, reading chord symbols, or ad libbing – as those were the main focus of the Intermediate: parts 1 & 2 Pathways.
Prerequisites for the Early Advanced Pathway:
- Have your major, mixolydian, dorian, 2-5-1, and natural minor scales memorized.
- Be able to perform 8th note Chop Shop technique exercises at 140 bpm
- Be able to ad lib on any melody
- Understand the unwritten rules of jazz articulation
- Be able to Interpret & shape musical phrases
- Be able to recognize and improvise over chord symbols
- Be comfortable improvising over chord progressions.
- Be able to figure out tonal centers
- Be able to recognize major 2, 5, 1s
- Be able to recognize minor 2, 5, 1s
- Have a basic understanding of voice leading
What you’ll learn:
The main focus of the Early Advanced Pathway is to make your style and solos sound more professional. We are going to accomplish this by learning how to “break the rules.” In breaking the rules, I will be showing you how to add notes that are not in the scale or chord that you are playing. How to further develop your solos. As well as teaching you several tips and techniques that will make you sound like a pro sax player. We will learn new scales that are based more on improvisation and speed up the Chop Shop series to get your fingers moving really fast. By the end of this course, you will be playing songs, interpreting music, and soloing at a high level.
When you finish this course, you will be able to:
- Play your bebop scales
- Play your harmonic minor scales
- Play full range scales
- Know how to use overtones functionally in a solo
- Use more advanced articulations
- Use alternate sax fingerings
- Play Chop Shop exercises at 170 bpm
- Play altissimo notes
- Use several more advanced improv techniques
- Add chromaticism to your improv
- Improvise over more advanced chord progressions
- Play some famous jazz transcriptions
- Interpret & shape musical phrases
MY SUGGESTION
This is not a good starting point for the Sax School. You will have a lot more success with this Pathway if you are already very comfortable with the material that is covered in the Intermediate: part 2 Pathway. As you know, the Sax School uses a step by step teaching progression and there is a lot of ground that you need to cover before starting this Pathway.