altosax4ever
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Money Money Money....Question...How much does a professional sax playuer make? I know there will be a lot of people who say, "depends on how good you are", and stuff like that. I'm saying, if you're REALLY good, how much?
Thanks,
R
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Jacob
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Well, that depends how many instruments you play. Do you double? If you do, you will earn more money via more gigs. That's why guys who double on other winds are the successful ones, because they are versitle and and play different parts in different styles of music.
Even if you're REALLY good at playing the saxophone, it's extremely hard to make a living at it if you just play the saxophone, and even more so, one style of music in particular. In this day and age, you have to diversify. To be successful, you should be able to play funk to jazz to classical gigs.
That said, America is difficult spot to try and make a living. If you want the full credit you deserve, move to Paris or somewhere else in Europe where a lot more people appreciate what you're doing. They are much more supportive of the arts than here in the States, and you will most likely earn enough to make a living.
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altosax4ever
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Never thought...I've never thought about playing more than one woodwind. I can play all the saxes, but what else should I be able to play? Flute, Trumpet?
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Altosaxophonerules
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Well it depends on wat company helps promote you and how they do it and if your music is APRECIATED by the people. It's like pakaging a cereal box, if you have a plain and boring one, no 1 will buy it, even though u might taste better. But it you have a kool and flashy one, lots of people will buy it.  Let's make Kenny G an example: Kenny G has many fans and makes lots of money, is he the best, NO.
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Tully
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As for which instruments to play, my sax teacher plays all saxes, all clarinets, flute and piccolo, and he uses them all regularly at various gigs. He used to play oboe, but I get the impression he hasn't touched one for a while. You certainly wouldn't be expected to play any non-woodwinds, so you might as well not spend time on, say, trumpet that could be spent on perhaps bass clarinet.
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Jacob
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Re: Never thought... | altosax4ever wrote: | | I've never thought about playing more than one woodwind. I can play all the saxes, but what else should I be able to play? Flute, Trumpet? |
Unless you get lucky and make it big like Joshua Redman -- who, as far as I know, plays just soprano, alto, and tenor saxophone -- doubling is your best friend.
The ideal woodwind doubler would play (aside from the 4 saxophones) clarinet (Eb and Bb), bass clarinet, flute (and maybe pic), and basoon (for orchestral work). However, it never hurts to learn piano and drums, and bass. I was once in a band where the director played anything from saxophone to drums to bass.
At my town's jazz festival 2 years ago, there was a clinic put on by this saxophonist Tim Ries. At one point in the clinic, he was going on about improving your time. According to him, a great way to improve your time (which he tells his saxophone students) is to learn basic jazz drum kit. It's a lot harder than you think to keep steady time using just the ride cymbal.
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