I welcome back. This is Week Four of also saxophone lessons in the music coach program. This week, we're going to be working on a few different things in our practice video. The first thing is playing the E major scale, an ascending which is going up and descending, which is coming down using half notes, and quarter notes. Now if you're unfamiliar with what half notes and quarter notes and whole notes means there's some animated videos that happened before the course begins that you can go check out at any time that really explains with visuals and metaphors, what we're talking about. So if you need to go check that out, check it out, and then come back.

But for those of you who understand what it is half notes, get two beats and quarter notes, get one beat. And sometimes in the exercise, we're going to play ascending and then stop and start descending and then later In the practice video, you're going to be doing ascending and descending without a break, repeating the top note at the top of the ascending and at the beginning of the descending. The next thing we're going to learn are the bass notes that make up the harmony structure for the A section of our song. So the notes for us on the alto saxophone are C sharp, which is everything open E, which you can play either as the E with the octave key or without. In the practice video, sometimes it's one, sometimes it's the other but you can choose which one you want to use. Then you're going to play a and then B.

So I'll play them. This is what they sound like all together. And it's really great to get comfortable with the form of those notes in the same way that you're comfortable with the melody so that was You're going to be accompanying someone else, you can hold the harmony underneath for the right amount of beats. The last thing you're going to work on this week is going to be the very beginning steps of improvising. This is one of my favorite parts about music, you're going to take a little baby step out into making your own sounds within the structure of the E major scale. So when you get to that part of the practice video, all I want you to do is just move from one note to another out of order.

So instead of always playing E, F sharp G, you could start on a different note, you could start on B, and then you could move to a and then you could move to F sharp, it's really up to you. There's no right or wrong way to do it. And I want you to try and remember that you're learning how to speak this is really you creating for the first time and think about when little kids are learning how to speak. They sometimes don't exactly know what they're saying next. Is what it's going to feel like a little bit when you're getting going improvising, but just trust me and keep going with it and you're going to get stronger and stronger and be able to express more and more. Alright, keep up the great work and I'll see you in the practice video.