Tim Price Bloggin' For D'Addario Woodwinds- Practical involvement and keeping the channel open.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION 1. of, involving, or concerned with experience or actual use; not theoretical 2. of or concerned with ordinary affairs, work, etc. 3. adapted or adaptable for use 4. of, involving, or trained by practice 5. being such for all useful or general purposes; virtual TRAINED BY PRACTICE. Get out there, and make the music stronger. I've been saying this. Sure. Thing is the guys that are my age when we went to Berklee in 1969, could already play a wedding, or bar gig. We were not Coltrane or Stanley Turrentine nor Stan Getz but we realized this music was- HANDS ON.


Keep the channel open, and try your best.You'll learn something special. Been talking to my students about the many aspects of the creative mind set. Trying to just expand more ideas and thoughts. Here's some things that I'm coming up with ; Creativity is the bringing into being something which did not exist before, either as a product, a process or a thought. Right? So let’s apply this to ALL levels of saxophone playing, thought and improvisation. You would be demonstrating creativity if you: · Played something which has never existed before. · Reapply an existing lick or concept into a new area musically. · Develop a new way of looking at something (bringing a new idea into existence). · Change the way someone else looks at something. We are all creative every day because we are constantly changing the ideas which we hold about the world about us and our relationship with it. Creativity does not have to be about developing something new to the world, it is more to do with developing something new to ourselves !!

As we remember as Sonny Rollins said- " MUSIC IS AN OPEN SKY".

Michael Brecker, god bless him, was a great friend of mine. He knew tunes without a Real Book in front of him. Like my blog said last week- I hope people are taking heed and looking at that reality. Everything ain't Wayne Shorter tunes and " Inner Urge". Nor is it one chord funk jams- though we all love to play them. It's about a new reality and NOT trying to be like some guy you hear or read about. ~Beyond-the-classroom opportunities.ok? Search inside you for the the inner sources of spontaneous creation,where art in the widest sense comes from. The whole enterprise of improvisation in life and art,is about yourself.All the things in life you love to do, regardless of how well you or others think you do them. Whoever you are, and whatever you do, discover what creativity is, where it comes from,and how we can make it sizzle and on your own terms.Ypu do that with otheres on the bandstand, in the loft, practice room, garage, backroom bar and rehearsal room. But do it!Jamming becomes a shared manifestation of a single impulse at least an attempt at it – and when you all lock in together, there’s nothing like that feeling. If I had to choose between jamming and gigging, I’d choose jamming – just for the excitement of finding that groove with a different bunch of people. At its core jamming is all about collaboration, instinct and innovation. One musician may start things off but it is the obligation of every other musician to build on that, take it further, push the envelope and ultimately take it to a new place. To get jamming to work each player must pick up on other players thoughts, translate them, add to them and then pass it back to them for the process to perpetuate itself. Done well it creates a powerful chain reaction of energized collaboration and creativity that produces something new and wonderful.It also allows you to tap into a deeper, more diverse brains trust that can lead to ground-breaking new ideas for your organization.

Charlie Mariano used to tell me- " YOU GOTTA PLAY".' With that, I'll close this blog- go play. Get off pro-crasta-net and play, shed, work in a new reed and DO IT. Practical application...real world. Get it? hope so.....it's life!!!!

My contribution is to spread love and inspiration through music. Check- and read the book above about R & B...You'll love it. In LA. In some small way I would like to think that this could make a difference. In the process I hope to inspire people to seek the truth in themselves and music, and get deep inside of the art form we love. It's all about that. As Lester Bowie said- " It all depends on what ya know". ~TILL NEXT WEEK....Keep on. Tim Price....

PS- - If your looking for some stuff to practice-look no further. Below is a few study's of mine to practice- - hope you like them.

" All a musician can do is to get closer to the source"....John Coltrane