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Why Some Professional Saxophonists Still Feel Something’s Missing From Their Playing
Here’s the short answer: if your solos sound “correct” but not emotional, the problem usually isn’t your technique or your theory — it’s that you’ve never actually decided which notes mean something to you. A simple exercise called “tagging” fixes that, and it works whether you’ve been playing for six months or twenty-five years.
Quick takeaways:
- Music theory tells you what notes are available over a chord, but it doesn’t tell you what those notes say — that’s a separate, personal decision every player has to make.
- “Tagging” means playing each note of a scale over a chord, scoring it out of 12, and describing how it makes you feel in plain, non-musical words like sad, bright, or spooky.
- Once you know your favourite note over a given chord type, you can use it as an “anchor” — starting and returning to it as the chord changes — to give an entire solo a consistent emotional colour.
- This process is chord-specific: a note you love on a minor 7 chord might be one of your least favourite on a major 7 chord, so you need to repeat the exercise for every chord type.
If you’ve ever wondered why the jazz greats can say so much with just a handful of notes, it usually isn’t down to a secret scale or a more advanced set of chord extensions. It’s down to something much simpler and, in some ways, much harder: they know exactly what each note means to them. For anyone working through adult beginner saxophone lessons, or further along and trying to build a more expressive improvising voice, this is one of the most useful shifts you can make in how you think about note choice.
The Problem With Thinking About Notes Only in Terms of Theory
When most players start improvising, the first thing they reach for is theory — chord tones, thirds, fifths, ninths, the flat seven, the whole vocabulary of harmonic analysis. That vocabulary is genuinely useful, but it describes relationships, not feelings. A third is a third. On its own, that fact carries no emotional weight at all.
This gap shows up even in advanced players. Professional musicians with decades of experience sometimes come back for lessons because, despite technically flawless playing, something still feels absent — both to them and to their audiences. One of the simplest diagnostic questions cuts straight to it: “What’s your favourite note on a minor 7 chord?” Most players, even very experienced ones, can’t answer with any confidence. They’ll reach for something they’ve read about in a theory book rather than something they’ve actually decided for themselves.
What “Tagging” Notes Actually Means
The method for closing that gap is a small, repeatable exercise. Take a chord type — say, a minor 7 — and list every note in the scale typically played over it (the Dorian mode, in this case). Play each note in turn, sustained over a backing track, and score it out of 12 based purely on how much you like the sound. Then, in a “tag” column, write down what it makes you feel or think of — using ordinary, non-musical language rather than terms like tension, dissonance, or resolution.
As Joel puts it:
“I want you to only think about words, terms, and ideas that don’t involve musical terminology. So start with basic ones. Happy, sad, melancholy, romantic, terrible, amazing, bright, dark.”
There’s no correct answer here, and that’s the point. Two players can score the same chord completely differently and both be “right,” because the exercise is really about building a personal, emotional map of sound rather than reproducing someone else’s preferences.
Turning Your Favourite Notes Into a Musical Anchor
Once you’ve ranked your notes for a chord type, the next step is to actually use that information. Rather than treating every chord tone as equally important, pick your highest-scoring note and make it the anchor of your improvisation: start phrases on it, and target it again each time the chord changes. Even though you’ll still play plenty of other notes along the way, keeping this one note as your consistent focal point gives the whole solo a unified emotional character — whether that’s bright and melancholy, dark and mysterious, or something else entirely.
This is a particularly effective way to add contrast across choruses on modal tunes, where the chord stays static for long stretches and note choice does most of the emotional work. As the transcript explains:
“Those two improvisations have completely different emotional vibes to them, and this is the power of tagging notes and then using that information to inform your decisions and your choices when you improvise, rather than using just theory and picking thirds every time or fifths every time.”
Why This Matters More As You Progress
It’s worth being clear that this isn’t an argument against theory. Knowing your chord tones, your guide tones, and your voice leading is still essential — those are measurable, learnable skills, and this method doesn’t replace them. What it adds is a second layer: a personal, emotional filter that sits on top of the theory and turns technically correct playing into something that actually communicates.
This is also chord-specific work, and that’s an important detail. A note you love on a minor 7 chord might be one you actively dislike on a major 7 chord, so the tagging process needs to be repeated separately for each chord type you commonly encounter — minor 7, major 7, dominant 7, altered dominant, and half-diminished chords all deserve their own chart.
For players working through the earlier stages of improvisation, starting with just one chord type — minor 7 is a good place to begin — keeps the exercise manageable. More advanced players working on jazz soloing, will find the anchor-note approach especially useful across longer, static-chord sections.
Getting Started With Your Own Chart
The easiest way to begin is with a single chord type and a backing track, leaving a bar of space before each note so you can pre-hear the pitch before playing it. This isn’t just useful for the emotional side of the exercise — it also doubles as a solid tuning and intonation warm-up. Work through each note of the mode, score it, tag it, and don’t be afraid to commit to strong scores rather than defaulting to the middle of the range. The goal is a clear, ranked order you can actually use, not a tidy but uninformative spread of fives and sixes.
Once you’ve identified your favourite note for a chord, get it embedded in your ear and your fingers in every key before building on the rest of the chart. This is the kind of practical, guided approach students get consistent support with inside adult beginner saxophone lessons at Sax School Online, where the goal throughout is to help you learn saxophone online and play saxophone with confidence — not just play the “correct” notes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it hard to learn saxophone as an adult? No — adult beginners often progress quickly because they can apply focused, structured practice, and exercises like note tagging give early feedback that keeps practice engaging rather than purely technical.
What is “tagging” notes in jazz improvisation? Tagging is the process of playing each note in a scale over a specific chord, scoring how much you like the sound, and describing the feeling it evokes using plain, non-musical language.
Do I need to know music theory before trying this exercise? Basic knowledge of the chord and scale you’re working with is helpful, but the tagging process itself deliberately avoids theoretical language in favour of emotional description.
Can this method work for any chord type? Yes, but scores and tags are chord-specific — a note you rank highly on a minor 7 chord may score very differently on a major 7 or dominant 7 chord, so each chord type needs its own chart.
How do I use my favourite notes once I’ve identified them? Use your highest-scoring note as an “anchor” — start your phrases on it and re-target it each time the chord changes — to give your improvisation a consistent emotional colour.
About the tutor: Joel Purnell is regarded as one of the top jazz educators and performers in the UK and has taught for over 20 years at the prestigious Leeds Conservatoire.
