S02E02 VLOG How To Make A Sax Tuition Video
Jun 19, 2020
Sometimes I like to let you all see what happens "behind the scenes" with Get Your Sax Together, so this informal and amusing vlog let's you see exactly what it takes to produce a YouTube sax tuition video. No Q&As for this one as the video says it all, but below is the full transcript.
Enjoy!
Jamie :-)
Video Transcript
hi I'm pro saxophonist Jamie Anderson, you're watching Get Your Sax Together
and on this special welcome to my world vlog I'm gonna run you through my exact
process for producing a Hall of Fame video. In this case it's gonna be Night
Train, which comes out on July 26th [2020]. It does go on a bit! lol I don't know, maybe
there'll be a few people who are interested. lol Let's have a look at what is
needed to make a saxophone tuition video - hope you enjoy it.
So, as I'm talking to
you it's June 2020 and this will probably all be a forgotten dream and by
the time you're watching this but we're in Covid-19, or just coming out of
Covid-19, times so I, like every other musician on the planet as far as I can
tell, hasn't had a gig for over three months. So it's been a very intense time
for Get Your Sax Together dot com - sorting out my website making great content for you
guys. So because I haven't had the gigs I'm not getting to bed late - I'm getting up
really early. So my workday starts about... I get up about five, half five, and I'm
cracking by quarter to six, six o'clock - which is ridiculous for an itinerant
jazz musician, but these are strange times! So maybe sometime this year
I'll actually have another gig and this'll all be different but at the
moment that's the pattern. So let's get cracking.
So, today's goal is to show you
exactly what it takes to make one of these videos and it all starts with
choosing the video. So how do you choose the video? Well, number one, you guys suggest
things. Number two - I hear things and I think oh yeah that'll be good to do.
However, before you know it the list is absolutely massive. I've got a bit of a
list here and already, well I can't even read 'em out because it'll take far too
long... but "Dancing In The Moonlight" Thin Lizzie, "Money" Pink Floyd, "Jungleland"
Springsteen, "After The Love Has Gone" "Candy", "Native New Yorker", "Pick Up The
Pieces", "Let's Go Round" ... "In The Dark", "Changes", "No Man No Cry" - Jimmy Sax -
"Sthln Sunset", "Neon" ... Spandau, Duran, Billy Ocean, you name it, got Leo Sayer "Arthur's
Theme", "Deacon Blues", miscellaneous ones like Katy Perry
"Last Friday Night" - that's a Lenny Pickett solo, that's wicked - "Will You" Hazel O'Connor,
that's a big request, ... got some gaming ones like ... and the list goes on. Then there's
profiles, then there's technique videos, then there's improvising ones and there's
jazz ones, so when you request the video just bear in mind there is a big list to
do. So I've got the production sheet ready for Night Train, as featured on
the enchantment under the sea dance in Back to the Future.
This is the production sheet that I use for all my videos, which is a multi-stage
process. So I'm gonna do some research, work out what I want to say, create the
PDF, do the graphics, do the backing track, work out the fingerings and all that stuff.
I've done a bit of research and now I'm gonna transcribe Night Train. I
use Anytune Pro to play back stuff and I use Sibelius to notate the stuff,
Sibelius Ultimate. So, first thing is to find out the key, which is Ab major.
I'm gonna speed it up...
Okey-dokes I've just rinsed out transcribing Night Train and I've done
the copying in Sibelius for the tenor parts and the alto parts. I'm gonna save
that as a PDF, and I am printing it off now... and there is the finished product
that you lovely people can download for the video.
The next step is to produce
the graphics for the screen, you know when the green line and the note names with...
that you follow along with? Zoom in my love. This is a special template that
I've got set up. This is actually an extremely short phrase. Don't think that I've ever
seen a phrase this short. [off cam child "quick question..."] What is it? "Have I got £5?" Does he have £5? [Mel off cam "I need
to check in a minute for you"] Three, two, one you're back in the room lol. So I use chord symbols
for the note names and then I'm going to export these as separate little PNG
files which we're gonna import into Final Cut later. [Music "Night Train]
That is finished. I can tick that off and the next job is going to be putting the
fingerings in the right folder. who doesn't love ticking something off a list eh?
The next job is to put the right fingerings in a folder so that
when I do the editing all the fingerings are there.
So... zoom in here my darling... what I've done is I've been through the chart and
just looked at what notes I need and move them over there.
[splutters] Cough up chicken! So let's just have a quick look at the list and the next thing to
do is the backing track.
Here's my camera woman, you might know her from such
videos as "Forget Me Nots" outro. lol [Jasmine] "Hi, i'm pro saxophonist Jamie Anderson". [Jamie] We're
going to do the backing track... we?... I'm gonna do the backing track now, so
let's go to the Get Your Sax Together studios. Follow me. This is Queenie. You
might recognize her from such videos as, what's the one that she's in?
[Jasmine] "Oh Queenie! Oh my god! I'm getting attacked! Leave me alone! Quick, get in the studio"
I'm using Logic Audio to make my backing tracks. I've set up a little template, I've
listened to the track, so the first thing I'm going to do is put in the b-line.
three four [plays b-line]
What's it called when you substitute an Ab7 chord for a D7 chord? [Jasmine] You
asking me? [Jamie] Yep! [Jasmine] Tritone substitution? [Jamie] Yes! It IS a tritone
substitution. I've put the bass part in, the double bass part, for the first chorus
and I'm looking at the piano part now, and it turns out that piano part is
actually really hard. Right, em.. [Jasmine] Can you turn the A/C down? [Jamie] You want the air conditioning
down? [Jasmine] Yes please, it's really cold. [Jamie] What a diva! Yeah we can do that. I just kind of vibed
it a bit.. [piano plays]
And now we're moving on to the drum part, which is going to be really hard to
replicate. Let's build it up...and three and four.. [drums play]
So I finished programming all the parts into LogicAaudio on the computer, now
what I'm going to do is just take some time, balance the levels, get the
compression and the reverb sorted out and then I'll have a backing track that
I can record my sax to, and that I can put at the end of the video for YOU to
play along to, so high five. [Jasmine] Me...Ow! That was hard! lol
[Jamie] This is of course by far the most fun bit of all -
it's the part where I record my sax. I've got my little setup which is an M-Audio
mic, recording into logic again but this time with my MacBook Air.
My audio interface is a Steinberg u.s. UR22 mark II and that's about all the
equipment side of things for the moment. [sax plays]
[Jasmine] That really hurt my brain. [Jamie] You need quite a long breath for the first section. [Jasmine] Oh
my god, my arms hurt so bad! [Jamie] So I've done the main recording, built the backing
track, now I've just got to record all the solo, really slow, sax parts. I'm
pretty happy with that. I'm gonna get the sax sounding good now in logic.
Okay, I've got a finished product which is the whole thing. Let's have a little listen...
So, another day another dollar in the Get Your Sax Together
production studio. This morning I've been working on the script for the night
train video. Just a quick note - I never used to use scripts on my videos. I used
to think it would sound too stilted but then what would happen is I'd forget to
say all the important stuff that wanted to say so now I just write down the
things I want to say, I put them in this homemade teleprompter which you'll see
when we start filming, lol that's pretty cool, and that way I don't forget the
things I need to say. So I've done the script which is behind me on Word,
actually Pages because I'm on Mac. I copy and paste the script and I
email it and then I've copied and pasted it into here. Now look, if I go to night
train there... oh look, you can see my camera - hi - the words are upside down and
backwards but when you see the teleprompter it all makes sense.
I've created a new library, so I'm going to create new folders.
So that's my final cut pro setup and then what I do is I create a new project...
So that's it. That is my Final Cut all set up and ready.
So I took it easy
yesterday, had a bit of the day off. I did the script actually for this video so
not completely off, but I've been really smashing it making content for
the channel 12 hours a day, six days a week so I needed a bit of a break -
because I want to free up some time to get some great courses together which is
really gonna help you guys and I'm working on that at the moment. I look
rough I've just got up. I need to get in character and then I'll take you in
front of the camera - you can see what I see. [sings] "Can you see what I see?" Okay, so this
is my studio Get Your Sax Together studio. I'll talk about the camera and the
teleprompter in a minute. Now this is pretty cool, this is my own custom
artwork that I designed for a Love Supreme
based on the original, obviously, but it's got this...you can't really.. you can see it in the
videos, it's like this orange sun and this sort of cosmic planet exploding out of
John Coltrane's head. That's a one off I made, I think that's pretty cool.
Speak No Evil - Wayne Shorter. LOVE that album. Classic album. Sonny Stitt, Sonny Rollins,
Michael Brecker, Oliver Nelson - one of the most underrated tenor players of all
time, Prez, Lester Young, Jr. Walker, Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt Boss Tenors, one
of my favorite albums - Miles Davis "Someday My Prince Will Come. Sonny Rollins - look
at him - what a dude! I've got a classic three light setup - key light, fill light
and hair light and that is Adolf Sax, the one and only. This is what I'm going
to be sitting on - my djembe - and this is kind of what I see. The camera is behind
the glass, the iPad is there and when it's reflected, as I record, that scrolls
up. Over there I've got my monitor. I'm not a photographer! And, yeah, and I've got
two lights down there which light up the back of the set. No assistants. No
glamorous assistants here, just little ole me. "In today's free online sax lesson
you'll be learning how to play a real dirty blues song and that's Night Train
by Jimmy Forrest. I've put up a green screen, so that's what I'm going to use
when you see me in a white background.
Okay, so the final thing to film is the fingerings - how I move my fingers. All I
do is I go up on my tippy toes and then you can see it.
So that is it - that is all
the filming concluded.
The next job is to bounce down the audio that I recorded
with a separate mic, not the camera mic, and that is here... [on computer] "saxophone, so you're gonna love..." So I've got
got some EQ on there, I've got a little bit of exciter on there just to add a bit of
zizz - whatever zizz is - I've got a compressor on
there and then finally at the end I've got a limiter. So I'm gonna bounce down
the audio and then sync it up with the footage that I shot.
So because the audio
from the camera is so trash I'm now going to sync up the picture with the
audio that I recorded from my nice mic. So you see if I go to this footage and
play it...[on computer] " sax up your Sunday every week with technique and improvise..." The audio's
really rubbish compared to...[on computer] " I'm Jamie Anderson, you're watching Get Your..."
Fingers crossed,
this should now be synced with the correct sound...[on computer] "...saxophonist Jamie Anderson..."
which it is. And that's the clip that I'm gonna put in the project.
We're now into editing proper. This is where the fun and games start. So first of all
I'm gonna do the bit where the note names come up. If I pull this back here
you can see so that's the fingerings and that's the front on, so I've got to make
them the right size and I've got to chop it into phrases and write in the right
notes and make sure everything's in the right place. So I'm gonna do that now.
I've now got to type in the note names for each section. Okay, I've got the
demonstration section sorted and I've got the backing track section sorted and
I've thrown in the little bit of artwork there to make it look nice and now I can
move on to the really gnarly bit which is sorting out the notes which are
played slowly with the moving line so let's have a look at that and it's going
to be in mega fast motion...lol
Et voila! The finished product. all the phrases done. I've finished
editing all the notes which is a great relief because it is a solid hour of
blow your mind concentration and really you kinda lose the will to live after a
while. However, I feel good about that it's done now. I've got to put all the right
chunks of the video in the right order, finalise it all and proof watch it. So
I'm going to get on with that now.
[Jasmine] All right... [Jamie] In faa-cous? (focus) lol
I think I'm losing my mind right now! lol [Jasmine] That's so tea. [Jamie] I finished editing...lol
I finished editing the timeline, now I've got to do a proof watch through - and you know in
YouTube when you go into the description you can see the chapters with all the
times and you can click on the time to get to a certain point of the video? I've
got to make a note of what all those times are. What the significant moments
are in the video
But in the meantime... I have just cut a little highlights reel
out from the main timeline. I've bounced that. I'm now going to put it into my
Instagram promo project, because Instagram is... square.
What's it called? Aspect ratio. So yeah, that's
the jobs. Exciting times. We've almost got our finished...well huh! Still gotta do all the YouTube
stuff. That's coming right up. [Jasmine] That's so hectic. I don't think I understood anything you
were saying!
The video is rendered. Big moment! There it is, right there.
So, the next step is of course to upload to YouTube. This video is 50 frames a
second, 1080 HD and it's like 4 or 5 gigabytes - it's big. So it's going to take a
while to upload. I've just started uploading it and now I can change the
title, which I've done. I'm going to go back and do the description later.
Monetization I'm going to turn off. Uou know you need to have millions, hundreds
of thousands of views, to really make a significant amount of money from
monetization, so I just keep that off because it's a pain for you guys if I
don't. I am going to make this scheduled. So 26th of July 7:00 a.m. GMT - the usual
time. I'm about done for the day I'm going to upload it to YouTube and then
maybe tomorrow I'll show you all the YouTube stuff. [Jasmine] Swag.
This is part of the
process that I really enjoy and it's making the thumbnail. I use an online
program called Canva and I got some pictures of Jimmy Forrest and then I
separated out the background - there's a feature on here where you can separate
out the background it's pretty cool - I went for this picture in the end, sort of
put him in the background a bit, a nice kind of blues textured background,
shadowed writing, and that's the finished thumbnail. I think it looks pretty cool. So, as you
can see, if you don't choose your own thumbnail you just get a selection of
stills from the video, so I'm gonna go to upload
thumbnail and that will now make that the thumbnail.
So I quite like this part of
the process - doing the YouTube stuff - because you got a lot of things ticked
off really fast. I've done the thumbnail, I've done the title, I'm working on the
description - which is gonna let you guys know where to get your PDF and the
resources mentioned in the video and, of course, a load of other hall-of-fame
videos that you can watch - a little bit about the channel and all that stuff. So
that, oh, and the time stamps are gonna go in the description as well. I've switched
to my standing setup today. Because I do a lot of computer work if I'm sitting
down all day it's not a good look.
A couple of extra things to do, YouTube
wise. One is to add the end screen, which is what you see while the end card music
is playing, and the easiest way to do that is just it to import it from a
previous video. And then I have to do the cards, which is when I say something like,
you know, "go to this card for this video", find the right times get the right URL
for that particular video, put a little message in about what you're gonna see,
and then when you click on that card you can get offered the video. And then of
course there's the tags for the video. Now in this case there's quite a lot of
tags because there's been several versions of the song by different people,
so I had to, as you can see in this fast motion video, I had to delete some of the
other ones. But that takes care of tags.
So the final stage of this process is to create the web stuff so that you guys
can get your PDFs so I've created what's called a landing page - I use Kajabi for
my website and all this kind of stuff - so I've changed the words there I've set up
a new form so that when you fill in that you get an email which then you can
download the PDF from.
So this is the blog post. I've given it a title there,
tags, this is called the slug at the end of the URL, I've just called it "night" to
keep it snappy, these are the title and page description which are used for SEO,
"search engine optimization", and that is the image for the blog. So I'm gonna get
together the blog post, I haven't written it yet. Okay so that's the blog post finished as
you can see the video is grayed out because it's currently private. When I
was editing the video I copied the notes into a separate document so that I could
paste them back in here because it takes ages writing out all those notes. There are
the timestamps and there is the transcript of the whole video. So that's
actually quite a cool resource, the blog.
One of the gnarliest jobs of all is
doing the subtitles. Now you might ask "why do you edit your subtitles, because
YouTube automatically generates subtitles for you?"... which is true, and I'm
about to show you why, lol, I need to correct the subtitles. For example
"Hi I'm Prozac softness Jamie Anderson, and you're watching get
your sax together. Ice axe up your sundae every week..." blah blah blah blah
...and there's a lot worse ones than that, some of them involving gay sex together,
and all sorts of things that you can't even imagine! So if I don't correct that
that's what the subtitles are going to come up as! lol Anyway, I have to go
through it manually and correct all the subtitles, which I'm not gonna bore you with.
So... fanfare of trumpets...[squeaky fanfare]... the whole thing is finally done! Oh my god,
what an effort! It's all done and dusted and it will all just come out
automatically at the right time, which is well cool, so I can chill on my Sundays
and just enjoy your comments. I hope you've enjoyed watching this video. I
know it's pretty boring at times but if it was me I would have quite enjoyed
watching seeing how people do stuff. That's probably just me though! Anyway, of
course on Sunday there'll be another proper Get Your Sax Together and you
can see THIS video [Night Train] on July the 26th. I hope you've enjoyed a bit of behind the
scenes stuff getting to see me in the raw, peeling back the kimono, and
I'll see you next time on Get Your Sax Together. See ya later! [end music]
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