How do I improvise on blues scales on a saxophone?

The short answer is to find a couple of decent blues oriented backing tracks and figure out the key. The concert key will not be the same as your key. Alto saxophone reads a major 6th above the concert key (eg. C concert is the key of A on Alto) or if you play tenor sax, you’ll need to transpose the track up a step. (eg. C concert is D for tenor). The tracks you choose could be a standard blues form or you could just get a one chord groove track. Then you just need to begin to explore the scale against the track. A lot of what comes out of beginners is just wandering without much direction or phrasing.

It is also helpful to find a very simple blues player that you like and transcribe his lines. Learn and memorize them and then try to alter them rhythmically and melodically to see how you can turn them inside out and make them your own.

The fastest way to really be able to play with some solid ideas and good phrasing and control of being able to hit all of the chord changes is to find a reputable jazz or blues improvisation teacher. A good teacher means that he has a lot of students who are successfully learning quickly from his method. Beware of the teacher who is a well known as great player but really has no idea how to teach what he learned naturally. There’s lots of them and it’s difficult to learn much, because they are incapable of breaking down what they know and help you by providing a progressive method.

Also, if you’re really serious about learning to improvise, check out these students and see how quickly they are able to progress from complete beginners to improvisers in just a few months. This method actually has a real step by step system that teaches you how to train your ear and your fingers at the same time and accomplishes what used to take 4 years and condenses it into 4 months.

It really works and there are hundreds of students to prove it. Just check out Ultimate Saxophone Lessons on Youtube and you see lots of other students learning how to improvise in an incredibly short amount of time. 1/10th of the time it normally takes conventional jazz improv teaching. Here’s the url https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-dNjuy98RJyhIStBGRRSBQ

There’s lots more beginners as well as more advanced improvisers on the channel. If you want more information click here Saxophone Lessons, Saxophone Teacher, Jazz Saxophone, Learn to Play Saxophone | Los Angeles Music Teachers

Here’s one more example of a student who had played the saxophone in high school but hadn’t played it in 10 years. You can see his incredibly fast progress here. YouTube

Rick gives online lessons to many jazz improv students. Call for more info: 818–209–2620 or 818–902–2620 Lessons are at the time of this writing are 60.00 per 60 minute lesson.