Hello my fellow saxamaphoners

2 questions:

I joined a school training band (with an alto sax) recently and they throw a piece at you and you play it. I can't read fast and I always confuse the f's with e's. And once I do, I get off track and sit there waiting till the piece to end. Any suggestion to how I can improve my reading speed?

Second question is as follows
I have been taking lessons for half a year now and I know it's too early to ask this but I want to know anyway. How long should a person take lessons before he can play by himself?

Thank you in advance for you consideration

I was in the same situatuion you were in last year and I'm an OK sight reader: I joined a community band to play at a 4th of July ceremony. The band members were music teachers who have been playing instuments almost all of their lives and have been playing in the band for years. Right when I got the music, the band instructor said we would start. I thought "OK, we'll probably start a little slow and then pick up the pace soon." We started off "Stars and Stripes Forever" at an incredible speed. I eventually gave up and pretended to play because A) it was way to fast for someone who just saw the music for the first time and B) all of the sharps and flats switching back and forth were driving me crazy. My point:you're going to have experiences like these when playing an instument; take these moments and learn from them. This encouraged me to not only take the music home and practice, but work on my sight reading with different pieces of music.


In my opinion, you should never stop taking lessons; there's always something new to learn.


By the way, sorry my story was so long!!

If you want to become a good sight reader, play everything you work on at first very slow. Also pick up an etude book and go through one each night playing slowly, working for accuracy, when your done start over again playing faster.

As far as when you should stop taking lessons, stop taking lessons when you are not learning anything from teacher, and then find a new one. Basically no one will every be good enough that they cannot learn something from someone else.

If you want to become a good sight reader, play everything you work on at first very slow. Also pick up an etude book and go through one each night playing slowly, working for accuracy, when your done start over again playing faster.

As far as when you should stop taking lessons, stop taking lessons when you are not learning anything from teacher, and then find a new one. Basically no one will every be good enough that they cannot learn something from someone else.