Concerto soloist, soprano chair in the Prism Quartet, and saxophone professor at University of Michigan visits with Nathan Nabb in a wide-ranging interview.
I enjoyed your discussion very much. I was a saxophonist who took an odd path, kind of learning in spite of myself and in spite of the great teachers around me who I didn’t really relate to for some reason. But I heard classical music in my ear, and I began transcribing all kinds of pieces. Composers like Villa Lobos, Ginastera, Poulenc (oboe sonata), Franck (flute sonata), Prokofiev flute sonata, Rachmaninov, Debussy songs, Faure, Wolff, Bach (violin Partitas & sonatas), and many other composers. I just lived in their world, somehow, and that’s what I did on the soprano sax. But I did it at a time when nobody else was doing that. (1970s, 1980s) I never got a feeling of acceptance from sax players over that. A couple sax players told me I was playing so far above their level that they couldn’t relate. I never felt good enough, though. The flute professor at University of Texas heard my tape of the Prokofiev and told the student he was with (a friend of mine) that he had never heard a better recording of it. I think he was being kind. It’s hard to pull off on the sax, and I never got it to where it belonged, though it probably sounds impressive if you haven’t played it. Anyway, I went other directions after that. All involved music performance and production, but more from a director point of view. Now I’m just playing the piano, and I love it very much. But Listening to you guys talking brings back so many memories. You mention a lot of people who were my peers and/or friends. But I was especially interested in the stuff you ended with: the transcriptions. I think saxophone needs that so much, if not as core repertoire, at least as a means for learning from the great masters. Play the Prokofiev and pick your virtuoso. Pick 3. Pick 10. That will change how you hear and play music. When someone like Itzhak Perlman dazzles you with the Prokofiev, you hear what’s possible. That kicks your awareness level up a bunch of levels at once. Suddenly you hear how badly you’ve been approaching music, but now that you have “permission,” you hear your own voice and you can interpret composers. [I should speak in 1st person: I heard how badly I’d been approaching music. Maybe you guys are already there.] The experience made a real musician of me. I wish I could have stayed with it and performed widely, but after a few years of performing a lot, I had to quit and make a living. Thus, the performing arts management jobs, directorial jobs, audio engineering jobs, MIDI jobs, and digital performance... the list goes on. I wore a lot of hats, but I put my kids through college, including Yale!] Now I’ve retired from all that stuff. I play piano from 4 to 6 hours a day, and immersing myself in literally the world’s greatest composers is like heaven on earth. I spend a lot of time with Sebastian Bach. So amazing. French Suites, English Suites, the Preludes... (my remaining life is too short to tackle all the fugues!) But it takes me back to what I was doing on the sax - I wanted to know what those composers knew. I wanted to interpret their works, feel their music, know their musicality. And saxophone will do that, but it’s the hardest thing I ever did in my life. Physically demanding... (try Villa-Lobos’s BB#5 Aria on soprano modeling your breath after Victoria de Los Angeles, slowly... it’s like running a mile. The Prokofiev Sonata is more like a marathon!) but this instrument that you can play wrong but it works anyway, becomes very stubborn and cumbersome when trying to perform violin and flute acrobatics. Even Bach’s V.Partitas & Sonatas are incredibly demanding. The thing that made it possible for me was the mouthpiece exercise. I trace nearly all my technical breakthroughs to that one exercise, combined of course with all the exercises I would do anyway. But that one was the key that opened up all the others. I’ve written too much. Sorry... but not a lot of traffic here. Maybe you’ll see it. Maybe not. But my best to both of you, and I’m so glad to see the incredible improvement in sax playing and pedagogy over the last 40 years. I wish I could have been a part of it, but really I think I had a great musical career doing “other things.” Sax served its purpose for me, and I still have a quartet of old Mark VIs that I play now and then. And I did play a small roll somewhere by writing the original core of the SaxFAQ, including the mouthpiece exercise. I wrote a lot of it, but not some of the other stuff attributed to me. I got letters from all over the world for years - over a thousand - thanking me for “changing their lives,” and it felt good to be able to share that. But I probably wouldn’t go back. I’m too old for that kind of workout again. Like doing ballet while holding your breath for 30 minutes. And Piano has me right where I want to be. But power to you both! You’re doing a great job! Truly.
I enjoyed your discussion very much. I was a saxophonist who took an odd path, kind of learning in spite of myself and in spite of the great teachers around me who I didn’t really relate to for some reason. But I heard classical music in my ear, and I began transcribing all kinds of pieces. Composers like Villa Lobos, Ginastera, Poulenc (oboe sonata), Franck (flute sonata), Prokofiev flute sonata, Rachmaninov, Debussy songs, Faure, Wolff, Bach (violin Partitas & sonatas), and many other composers. I just lived in their world, somehow, and that’s what I did on the soprano sax. But I did it at a time when nobody else was doing that. (1970s, 1980s) I never got a feeling of acceptance from sax players over that. A couple sax players told me I was playing so far above their level that they couldn’t relate. I never felt good enough, though. The flute professor at University of Texas heard my tape of the Prokofiev and told the student he was with (a friend of mine) that he had never heard a better recording of it. I think he was being kind. It’s hard to pull off on the sax, and I never got it to where it belonged, though it probably sounds impressive if you haven’t played it. Anyway, I went other directions after that. All involved music performance and production, but more from a director point of view. Now I’m just playing the piano, and I love it very much. But Listening to you guys talking brings back so many memories. You mention a lot of people who were my peers and/or friends. But I was especially interested in the stuff you ended with: the transcriptions. I think saxophone needs that so much, if not as core repertoire, at least as a means for learning from the great masters. Play the Prokofiev and pick your virtuoso. Pick 3. Pick 10. That will change how you hear and play music. When someone like Itzhak Perlman dazzles you with the Prokofiev, you hear what’s possible. That kicks your awareness level up a bunch of levels at once. Suddenly you hear how badly you’ve been approaching music, but now that you have “permission,” you hear your own voice and you can interpret composers. [I should speak in 1st person: I heard how badly I’d been approaching music. Maybe you guys are already there.] The experience made a real musician of me. I wish I could have stayed with it and performed widely, but after a few years of performing a lot, I had to quit and make a living. Thus, the performing arts management jobs, directorial jobs, audio engineering jobs, MIDI jobs, and digital performance... the list goes on. I wore a lot of hats, but I put my kids through college, including Yale!]
Now I’ve retired from all that stuff. I play piano from 4 to 6 hours a day, and immersing myself in literally the world’s greatest composers is like heaven on earth. I spend a lot of time with Sebastian Bach. So amazing. French Suites, English Suites, the Preludes... (my remaining life is too short to tackle all the fugues!) But it takes me back to what I was doing on the sax - I wanted to know what those composers knew. I wanted to interpret their works, feel their music, know their musicality. And saxophone will do that, but it’s the hardest thing I ever did in my life. Physically demanding... (try Villa-Lobos’s BB#5 Aria on soprano modeling your breath after Victoria de Los Angeles, slowly... it’s like running a mile. The Prokofiev Sonata is more like a marathon!) but this instrument that you can play wrong but it works anyway, becomes very stubborn and cumbersome when trying to perform violin and flute acrobatics. Even Bach’s V.Partitas & Sonatas are incredibly demanding. The thing that made it possible for me was the mouthpiece exercise. I trace nearly all my technical breakthroughs to that one exercise, combined of course with all the exercises I would do anyway. But that one was the key that opened up all the others.
I’ve written too much. Sorry... but not a lot of traffic here. Maybe you’ll see it. Maybe not. But my best to both of you, and I’m so glad to see the incredible improvement in sax playing and pedagogy over the last 40 years. I wish I could have been a part of it, but really I think I had a great musical career doing “other things.” Sax served its purpose for me, and I still have a quartet of old Mark VIs that I play now and then. And I did play a small roll somewhere by writing the original core of the SaxFAQ, including the mouthpiece exercise. I wrote a lot of it, but not some of the other stuff attributed to me. I got letters from all over the world for years - over a thousand - thanking me for “changing their lives,” and it felt good to be able to share that. But I probably wouldn’t go back. I’m too old for that kind of workout again. Like doing ballet while holding your breath for 30 minutes. And Piano has me right where I want to be. But power to you both! You’re doing a great job! Truly.
Fantastic!
This is such a great interview, thank you!
Glad you liked it!