Can you imagine playing in a group of 200 saxophones?
Of course during the pandemic lockdown playing saxophone in any group large or small is a distant memory, however our Sax School students all joined together for a group project that turned out to be massive!
Monthly Challenge
Each month inside Sax School we run challenges to encourage our members to progress with learning and performing. This month our challenge was to work together on a group video for our Sax School Virtual Ensemble.
With an arrangement that I put together for 6 voices, Sax School members could choose which part they would like to play. Parts ranged from beginner through to advanced so everybody could find a part that suited them.
And, there were parts for soprano right through to baritone sax too!
I really enjoy this kind of saxophone arrangement and have made videos like this in the past like my arrangement of the George Michael tune “Faith”, the Christmas favourite “Sleigh Ride” or the cool “Got To Get You Into My Life”.
This turned into a HUGE project but was so much fun!
Some of our members have already made their own collaborations with other members from around the world. One of our long term members David Skinner shared this collaboration recently of “Pick up the Pieces”. In fact the team and I ended up naming them our Sax School LEGENDS after seeing it!
Making Videos
The idea was simple. Once you had chosen your part and learned it, members just needed to make a video of themselves playing all the way through, then send it in to me for editing.
We do have thousands of members around the world but I wasn’t prepared for just how many submissions we had!
By the end over 200 of our members had sent in videos on all different instruments from soprano to bari sax. One member had also recorded an electric bass part.
We had over 200 videos sent in from members around the world!
Editing Marathon
The final step in the process was putting everything together. This was a monumental task with over 50gb of video footage to arrange and format.
Eventually though everything came together and the final result is brilliant.
Check out our Sax School members in action here:
Would you like to get involved in a project like this too?
Get started with Sax School membership today to join the fun, and develop rock solid skills on your sax.