I’ve been indecisive about taking saxophone lessons again in the last few months. I feel guilty because I haven’t spent any time on improvisation in the previous six months. Furthermore, I’m unsure if I have enough time for the lessons.

But I have signed up for the saxophone lessons. I figured I would never do it if I didn’t sign up. I would never be ready for it if I didn’t have someone to be accountable to because I wouldn’t practice for it.

I signed up, and later that day, Dean (the same teacher I had last year) messaged me, welcoming me back and asking what I wanted to work on. Phew, now it gets real. I’m looking forward to it, but I’m also a bit nervous that I won’t be able to handle it.

We got a new conductor in the big band. It is still unclear whether it is permanent or only lasts until the summer of 2025, but at the moment, I’m enjoying learning something on Mondays.

The new conductor is excellent and teaches us to play swing. Yes, it sounds silly, but most of the musicians don’t know how to do it. And that is kind of crazy since most of the music we are playing is swing, and several musicians have played in the big band for more than ten years!

We are getting better, and it is great to be challenged. The conductor also has a better overview than the old one. He hears when someone isn’t playing what is written in the sheet music, and then he corrects it. And suddenly, everything sounds a lot better. Not everyone is happy about it, but I think it’s great. How will we improve if we don’t get corrected when we play something wrong?

I’m looking forward to hearing the result with this conductor in 6 months or so.

I’ve begun playing the saxophone more frequently. Not long ago, I played with a new tenor sax player, and even though it didn’t go any further than that, I’ve said yes to playing with a baritone and a tuba. It was a great experience.

The guy who plays the baritone, plays the trombone in the same big band as me. After one of our rehearsals, we talked about how much we looked forward to a professional conductor. That led to him calling me the next day and asking if I wanted to play with him on baritone and a tuba player he knew. I found it thrilling and promptly said yes.

It was a great couple of hours because they are also nerds when it comes to playing like me. They were fascinated by the sheet music that I brought with me. I had a great time with them. It was so easy being in their company, and we talked like we had known each other for a long time. It was very energizing, and I look forward to playing with them again.

I’m going to play with a clarinet and a tenor sax. I usually play with the person who plays clarinet once a month. She also plays tenor sax; when we play together, we play a mix of clarinets and saxophones. I love it when we do that. She plays with a guy who plays the tenor sax, and we have decided to play together to see if it would work. I chose some big band arrangements with backing tracks that we could play.

The guy was not thrilled. He wants to play the melody all the time and doesn’t want to practice the skill of playing in a big band. I respect that, but I think it would be beneficial for him to play with backing tracks because he doesn’t respect the pauses. He always plays too early because he doesn’t want to wait, which is noticeable when he plays the melody.

It was a great couple of hours, and I would do it again, but the guy didn’t want to repeat it. He said he plays too much already, so he couldn’t find the time. Instead, the woman and I have agreed that we want to play more frequently - I’m looking forward to it.

Our conductor has told us that he wants a break, which has caused some chaos in the big band. I’m confused about why it happens now because the conductor told us this a year ago. Apparently, the committee has been sleeping because they haven’t prepared anything. Or, more correctly, they expected everyone in the big to play without a conductor for some time. But why haven’t they asked us?

I don’t understand how it is possible to be so narrow-minded that you don’t ask the members what they want when the conductor takes a break but instead assume that everyone wants the same thing as yourself. It turns out that many of the members, including me, don’t want to show up unless a conductor is present. Why haven’t we talked about this in the fall? And why hasn’t the committee asked for the prerequisites for people to keep showing up? And they should also have asked if people were willing to pay for a professional conductor.

There has been a professional conductor the last two times, and I think it’s fantastic. He is nice and has a great way of correcting us. It’s relaxed and friendly, and nobody feels singled out. There are rumors about people not wanting to pay for a conductor, and some think having a conductor for every rehearsal is unnecessary. Well, it is necessary because he has focused on teaching us how to play swing. It’s an indication that we need a lot of basic knowledge, and it’s about time we get professional help. But not all agree with that. I’m excited to see how it all ends.

I have used synthetic reeds on my saxophone for more than ten years. I was in a German music store called Thomann when I asked the salesperson which synthetic reeds they would recommend because there was a lot to choose from. The salesperson gave me only one choice - Legere Signature - and I haven’t regretted that decision. A couple of years ago, Legere launched a new reed - American Cut - which I have used ever since. Recently, they launched French Cut, and I had to try them.

I have tested the different reeds the last couple of days, and I have been a little stumped. The reed that I like the least is the American Cut, which surprises me a lot because I compared the American Cut to the Signature last year, and at that time, I preferred the American Cut. Well, I guess I’m allowed to change my mind. I like both the Signature and the French Cut. It is hard to describe, and I’m sure that others will explain the difference in other ways, but according to my ears, the Signature reed is more soft at the edge of the sound while the French Cut is more sharp. I’m not saying the French Cut doesn’t have a dark sound - it’s just more defined. I will play on the Signature reed again for now, but the French Cut may be more suitable for the big band. Time will tell.

I have bought a pair of AirPod Pro and have been very excited to see if they would be a good fit for me. I have always had problems with in-ear headphones because they don’t fit my ears, and every time I go for a walk, they fall out - especially if I have to look both ways before crossing a road. They are also supposed to function as earplugs when I play music. It is high time that I start protecting my ears. And lastly, I want to use them for listening to music and audiobooks.

First, I haven’t finished testing the different tips to find the ones that best fit me. I had big problems with changing tips because I couldn’t detach the default ones. Even though I watched several how-to videos, I still had problems getting them off. In my opinion, they were stuck. After a couple of weeks, I could finally change them to a smaller size. It needs more testing because the left one still does not fit me perfectly, but I’m confident I’ll find a solution. I have also looked for unoriginal ones made of foam that might be a better fit for me. As I said, I’m still testing the tips.

They are fantastic for music and audiobooks. I love the realistic sound they produce, so I approve of them for that purpose. I also approve them for my music performances. I love all the possibilities of adjustments, but at the moment, I’m using the default settings. I’m still fumbling around the menus when we start playing music. Sometimes, I turn on noise cancellation, making it very difficult to hear my fellow musicians.

I have also discovered that the AirPods are perfect for me when I need peace and quiet, whether at work or on the train. It is unnecessary to play semi-loud music to shut out the noise; it is possible to use them as earplugs. I was on my way home on the train one day while having a minor migraine, so I most of all needed some quiet. Four to five happy teenage girls entered the train and started chatting. Please don’t misunderstand me. Usually, that wouldn’t bother me, but I wanted to kick them out of the train at that time. Instead, I put on my AirPods and activated noise cancellation, and everything went almost silent. The noise from the train was also dampened, and suddenly, the train ride home was comfortable. The experience was so positive that the money I spent on the AirPods was well worth it.

I bought a thing to disinfect mouthpieces and reeds. I have long thought about how gross it is when I am sick and play the saxophone or clarinet. Normally, I clean the mouthpiece and reed with a Kleenex, but that doesn’t remove viruses or bacteria. That is the reason why I bought the Silverstein OmniClean. It is made for holding both mouthpiece and reed while UV light cleans the content. Afterward, it blows air through it to dry the mouthpiece and the reed. OmniClean changes color to show which step in the process it is in.

A universal mounter also comes with the OmniClean so that it can be used for other things, like a credit card or AirPods, making it useful for many different things. It is rechargeable, which is very smart.

I have used forScore for many years to manage all my sheet music. It’s the perfect program for me and all my play-along sheet music. I can attach backing tracks to each piece of music, adjust the tempo, or get the program to turn the page - that is great.

Until now, I’ve used the program’s web interface to import new sheet music. It made it easy to simultaneously change attributes on many pieces of music, which is how I put them into different folders in forScore. The company behind forScore has chosen to decommission the web interface, so I needed to find out how I should import my sheet music from now on.

The best replacement that I’ve found is to use ForScore on my Mac and then sync with iCloud. The small ‘problem’ is that I must import all my sheet music again. Yes, I could let my iPad sync all the sheet music to iCloud and get them on my Mac that way, but I never got that to work 100%. I might have forgotten something in the process, making it my fault. But, it got me to think in different directions, and I discovered that forScore is able to import certain attributes from PDF files. I also found out that I could label my sheet music files better. All in all, I decided it was time to go through all my sheet music to rename the files and set attributes in the PDF files the way I wanted them.

At present, I’m renaming files and adding attributes to the PDF files; it will be perfect once I’m done. Along the way, I noticed that the way I register my sheet music in Notion really isn’t useful. Initially, I needed one place to see if I already had the sheet music book I was looking at in a music store. Now, I primarily use it to find the physical book when playing with someone, and the process is not optimal. First, I have to find out the book’s name, and then I have to search in Notion before I can see the number of the ring binder where the book is located. Now, I’m creating a file that is placed together with the pieces from a specific book where I can see the book’s location and the play-along CD (if there is one). That makes it very easy to locate the physical book - it is already tried and tested.

All that is left is several hours of work to get everything renamed. For those of you who are curious - at this moment, I have 28 ring binders filled with sheet music 😃

Nogle gange er jeg en smule sur på min kollega (dette er ment ironisk). Han har nemlig fået mig til at bruge penge. Efter han har købt en ny Mac, så savner han touchbar’en, og han havde derfor fundet et alternativ. Han havde købt en Elgato Stream Deck. Han fortalte mig om den og understregede, at den kan bruges til meget andet en streaming. Han benytter sig ikke af det, men var blevet glad for den i forhold til fotoredigering.

Nu har jeg så også ‘været nødt til’ at købe sådan en dims. Mit formål var, at den skulle hjælpe mig med at rette og skrive noder i Sibelius. Jeg har været lidt træt af, at det så intensivt med musen, og ja, der findes genveje, men jeg kommer aldrig til at huske dem alle sammen, da jeg ikke bruger programmet så ofte. Først kunne jeg ikke finde noget, som var færdiglavet, så jeg begyndte at kigge på, hvordan jeg selv kunne programmere den til at passe til Sibelius. Jeg nævnte det for min kollega, og han var meget overbevist om, at jeg kunne købe en template til formålet.

Derfor gik jeg hjem og gav det en chance mere, og denne gang lykkedes det mig faktisk at finde det, jeg skulle bruge. Jeg forstår ikke helt, hvorfor jeg ikke fandt det første gang, men det er også lige meget nu. Det er helt fantastisk, og jeg er meget glad for Elgato Stream Deck til formålet.