I got to the point where if I spent 5 minutes playing the sax, I’d be in so much pain in my hands, elbows and shoulders that I couldn’t pick up my horn for a few days. I knew that I had to stop to allow myself to heal, because I really suffering. I bought a Roland Aerophone Pro AE-30 in May of 2022. It allowed me to play with sax sounds, with sax fingering and sax-like breath control.
Over the course of a couple months, I felt bold enough to perform with it, and I started to leave the sax behind. I don’t know exactly when, but about a year and a half ago, I decided to play everything in F#. My Aerophone can be transposed to any key, so I would transpose the instrument so that no matter what we were playing in our 250-song repertoire, I was playing in F#.
Now I don’t think of note-names when I play. I think only of scale degree. I’ve been training in IFR since January of 2020. So by playing only in one key, my 1 never changes. The pitches I’m playing and playing to are changing, but my fingering for the scale never changes.
This allows me to think and process music solely in tonal numbers. It also means that the outside notes are also unchanging. If I want to do a #5 or a b3, it’s always in the same place. This has freed me from having to think about keys, scales, or most of music theory, and has allowed me to just open my ears and hear myself and partner play.
Yes, when a song modulates, I have to think about the new key, and be certain to finger it correctly. But I’ve spent several years ingraining all 12 keys into my muscle memory with something I call my 5-2-1 exercise, where I go through 36 scales (2-, 5D & 1) consecutively. So I can quickly orient myself to the fingering of another key. I don’t even think about major and minor, because I can hear where the tonal center is. I’m just moving around on my instrument, always knowing where on the tonal map that I am.
After a year and a half, I’ve decided to go through all the IFR backing tracks, one after another without transposing–so I’m playing in concert key for all tracks. I found that I am still thinking in tonal numbers regardless of the key, and can easily hear the tonal center and improvise freely regardless of the concert key I’m playing in.
I don’t think I’d have this ability to hear the number of note, or to hear the tonal center in progressions had I not limited myself to the fingering of only one major scale.
A 2 sounds like a 2 regardless of harmonic background. It doesn’t matter if the 2 is C# in B or is D in C. It has a feel to it, and I feel that as a sensation that pulls my fingers one way or another, to execute the phrase that is in my head. I really don’t have to think much about it. I might think, ‘I want to do a blue note’ or “#5” because I want a little color or variation. I might think ‘go to the top’ or the bottom. But I never think in terms of note names, only numbers.
So I think my experiment has been successful, and has expanded my skill as a musician. I’m so grateful for IFR and for all that @ImproviseForReal David Reed and @MireiaClua give and teach.
