Jingle Bells
I’m going to show you how to take a melody you already know and make it sound a lot more interesting and fun. The tune we’re going to use is Jingle Bells. When you learned it for the first time, you probably learned a very basic version, aka the Noob version.
Let’s take that basic version and make it more fun by changing up the rhythm very slightly but keeping the same exact notes. It’s amazing how much better it sounds just by making a change to the rhythm alone.
By the way, The backing track I’m playing over in the video is from our new collection of holiday backing tracks available over on bettertrax.com.
Adding syncopation
Instead of playing all quarter notes that land on the beat, I am using some eighth notes that fall between the beats. We call this syncopation.
Now I wrote all of this out for you and if you click the link in the description you can download this as well as tons of other entirely free pdf lessons in the BetterSax Shed. They all have videos that go along with them just like this one.
We could stop there, but the next level is where it really gets fun. We are going to add in some more embellishments to the melody. These come straight out of what we refer to as the bebop language. It’s nothing too complicated, but it can really enhance a basic melody.
Embellishing the Melody
In that example I added notes as well as syncopated rhythms to further embellish the melody. There are things like enclosures, upper and lower neighbors and chromatic passing tones being used. You don’t need to know all that stuff to play this though, you can just read the sheet music and play this little Jingle Bells etude if you like it.
If you want to learn how to play stuff like that yourself, I invite you to check out the courses we have for sale on BetterSax.com. There’s stuff for every level there.
BetterSax Gear
I also want to tell you about the gear I’m playing on in this video. This is the BetterSax alto saxophone which is currently on sale for an amazing deal at Sweetwater.com, check the description for a link and the current price depending on when you’re watching this video.
The mouthpiece I’m playing, believe it or not, is a student mouthpiece made out of plastic. It is the BetterSax Classic and we designed this to be the best mouthpiece for anyone to get started playing saxophone and it costs less than $50. These will be available to purchase very soon. The reed I’m using is the BetterSax Jazz Cut 3.0 which works well for me on a more closed mouthpiece tip opening like this one.
Now go download the pdf for this lesson and enjoy!
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