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Making a Connection with Your Saxophone: Saxophone Book

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Making a Connection with Your Saxophone Cover Image

Making a Connection with Your Saxophone: Saxophone Book

Teaching with a Focus on Learning to Play Jazz

By Joe Riposo

Level: Intermediate / Advanced

Item: 24-MCS

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Description
This is a book for jazz educators who know that much of our traditional techniques for teaching and learning jazz need to change. The concepts in this book add to the growing body of knowledge. It offers techniques that go beyond our simplistic, narrow approaches for teaching and learning jazz. Students need to learn to play what is heard and not what they think is seen on the printed page. Riposo outlines teaching techniques that convert textbook knowledge into useable knowledge. With this method, students will be able to use mental processes that allow them to applying the knowledge learned.

This book organizations the materials so that all parts of the brain become engaged while learning. In the first part of the book, Riposo has included a Learning Design Model and Whole-Brain Learning Design Model to help develop an understanding of the whole-brain approach. This book goes on to list appropriate lesson materials and identifies teaching styles and strategies that are used to create the environment from which students best learn appropriate jazz styles and jazz tunes. Riposo describes how jazz books are used in lessons to bring about learning on the highest level possible. Students are taught to use their knowledge and make a connection with pre-existing knowledge. Along with the list of jazz books included is a list of jazz tunes to be used to apply the knowledge obtained and to build a jazz repertoire. By the integration of learned knowledge, students will play music through their instrument while feeling a sense of relationship with it. The instrument can become a part of the player's body.

"Joe Riposo has written a terrific and comprehensive introduction to the ever-challenging concept and craft of jazz improvisation." ---Walt Weiskopf

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Additional Details
Publisher: Jamey Aebersold Jazz
Page Count: 56
ISBN10: 1-56224-296-2
ISBN13: 978-1-56224-296-1
UPC: 635621501386
SKU: 24-MCS

More about this title

About the Author: Joe Riposo

Joe Riposo brings decades of jazz education experience to his pedagogical writing, with a particular focus on bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical musicianship. His work challenges conventional approaches to jazz instruction, emphasizing brain-based learning strategies that help students internalize concepts rather than simply reproduce them from the page.

Why we love this

Riposo refuses to treat jazz pedagogy as a collection of isolated rules. Instead, he builds a framework where students develop genuine listening skills and learn to translate ear-based understanding into confident playing, which means your ensemble moves beyond mechanical execution toward authentic musicianship.

What to expect

Working through this book feels like gaining access to the reasoning behind jazz instruction rather than just the instructions themselves. Students experience a shift from passive rule-following to active musical problem-solving, using their whole mind to build a genuine connection with the instrument and the music.

Who it's for

Intermediate to advanced jazz saxophone students who are ready to move beyond surface-level technique instruction and develop deeper musical thinking. This book is essential for jazz educators who want to transform how their students approach learning the language of jazz.

How to get the most out of it

  • Engage your whole brain while practicing: use the Learning Design Model to connect new material to existing knowledge rather than treating each concept as separate.
  • Develop listening awareness before opening the book. Train your ear to hear what the music demands, then use the printed page as a reference tool, not a script.
  • Apply the jazz tunes listed in the book to reinforce classroom concepts in real repertoire contexts where the techniques actually live.

How to use it

Use this as the foundation for your jazz curriculum, particularly when teaching intermediate students who are ready to develop independent musicianship. The included jazz tunes and repertoire recommendations provide a structured pathway for building student libraries while the pedagogical framework ensures every lesson reinforces integrated learning.

Skills your students will build

  • Translating aural perception into instrumental execution
  • Connecting new jazz concepts to pre-existing musical knowledge
  • Applying theoretical knowledge to authentic jazz repertoire
  • Developing whole-brain learning strategies for jazz language acquisition
  • Building jazz performance vocabulary through strategic tune selection

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