Just notes and articulation. Really slowly. That’s it.
Forget about rhythm, tone, phrasing, dynamics, tempo, and everything else.
All we want to do is train our muscles to move in the right way.
Remember, playing the piano just moving your fingers in a particular way, and saxophone is the same + the tongue.
So, if you learn the 100% proper way of moving your finger and tongue with no mistakes, I mean from top to bottom there is not one kink in the chain of the entire dance that your muscles perform, you will have learnt the entire piece perfectly.
Then all you need to do is add rhythm. And then spice it up with some tone, phrasing, faster tempo and so on.
But before that, you will have learnt the piece 100% perfectly according to how you need to move your fingers and tongue.
If you don’t understand the gravity of this, let’s take a look at what people usually do.
They start playing the new piece trying to play the right notes, rhythm, tone, tempo. All of the non-foundational elements are included (rhythm,tone,tempo,phrasing, etc.) because they make the piece sound like the music they want to hear so they have fun and enjoyment.
What you sacrifice for the fun and enjoyment is that when you add all of these non-essential elements at once, students often ignore articulation, play the wrong notes, learn the wrong rhythms, and everything becomes a sort of half baked version of the piece, full of mistakes.
Now they have to take the time to fix all of the mistakes. According to neuropsychology, we first learn something then have to unlearn that same thing and then relearn the new way, which is a much longer process than just learning it the right way the first time.
Which is exactly why we want to train our muscles properly THE FIRST TIME. Why would you learn the improper way to sprint and then learn the right way, or learn the incorrect way to box and then learn the right way? You are just creating friction for your learning process that is completely uneccessary.
So, take it slow. Really slow. Make sure every single finger muscle and your tongue (for sax) is moving at exactly the right time pressing the exact right key or button. No mistakes. That’s why you have to go reallyyyyyyyy slow.
It’s boring. But if you do this even only ONE TIME, it will make a world of difference, because learning a piece is like building a house and you’ve just laid the perfect first layer of foundation. The more you do this in the beginning the more the foundation will be solid for you to add rhythm and all of the other fun stuff to make your piece sound good.
Recognise that this is the first step before you make a musical composition sound like art, you need to break it down to its mechanical components of your own muscle training.
Don’t speed up!
