Christmas Sax Solo

[wendylanders]

Hello Everyone,

"They" want a sax solo of a public domain Christmas song that sounds like Kenny G (without ripping him off). It's Taxi listing number #Y191031KG.

A copy of my submission is at:

https://wendylanders.com/background-mus ... ilm-and-tv

How close am I?

Thanks,

Wendy Landers

[cassmcentee]

Hi Wendy!
When I think of Kenny G, I think "Scale Runner"
That's a huge part of his style, up and down the octaves
This one feels pretty long noted
I also don't really hear it swinging with the drums
(I did hear a swing in the drums?!?)
My ears wanted to believe it was played live but some of the attacks sounded Midi-ish???
From my ears to yours

[wendylanders]

Thank you both! I appreciate it.

[johnlewitt]

Yeah, if you want to the Kenny G sound, you need to make your playing more upbeat - don't hold any note longer than one beat. This is very somber.

[wendylanders]

Thanks, John.

I appreciate the emotional detail.

[wendylanders]

And thanks for saving me $20 on the custom critique.

The last time I got a custom critique, the screener said I needed to use peer-to-peer instead.

[VanderBoegh]

Hey Wendy, one more thing to think about when using virtual instruments is to try to emulate a real player as much as possible so that the performance sounds real and doesn't sound like it was played through a keyboard.

There are a few glaring giveaways that you're using MIDI instead of playing a real sax here. The foremost of them being the lack of breaths. Right at the beginning, you've got a 20 second piece of continuous playing, which would pretty much be impossible for any player to pull off. Go ahead and try it yourself..... play your track, then breathe out through a brass-players embouchure and see if you can last that long, knowing it would take some good power to even make the sax sing.

Didn't make it, didja?!?!

It's often helpful to pretend to play the parts that you're composing, just so you can spot the flaws in the MIDI programming.

Then, if you really want to go the extra mile and add some realism, many virtual instruments will even contain breath samples which you could stick in those gaps. Or you could record your own breaths and insert them in those breaks. Plus, if your virtual instrument also contains the keyclicks of a saxophone, that would take it even further into the realm of "real".

~~Matt

[wendylanders]

Hi Matt,

I know, but Kenny G doesn't breathe normally! He is in the Guinness Book of World Records for holding a note for 45 minutes using circular breathing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_breathing

And I know, I'm not Kenny G, but all three listings had him as a reference. (But I didn't use enough notes to sound like Kenny G.)

Thanks for telling me to look out for breaths though. I'm still uncertain when people want to hear that level of detail. For example, you could hear the damper pedal on the keyboard on my first try, so I switched from KeyScape to EZKeys so you couldn't hear it. My thinking was that the keyboard wasn't the solo line, which made the damper pedal sound like I had messed up the side-chaining. Whoosh-whoosh!

Thanks for taking the time to help me out. The latest version is at the same place, https://wendylanders.com/background-mus ... ilm-and-tv.

It sounds better after everyone's advice, thank you! I will also take the advice to sell it around Christmastime, even if it doesn't get forwarded. However, if I see a listing for retro-sounding jazz, I'm resubmitting it!

Best!

Wendy Landers

[wendylanders]

P.S.

I saw Kenny G live in the early 90s & had been forewarned by a friend to watch his breathing. He walked around the audience so we could see him. He breathed through his nose the entire time. The only time he cut off the tone was between songs. I'm really glad I got to hear him.

Best!

[wendylanders]

Just got my return. I don't know if we're allowed to quote the screener, but to paraphrase, it needed more layers. The background was too wimpy.

Thank you all again!

Wendy