TPTV - James Bishop

James Bishop, retired collegiate saxophone professor and large ensemble conductor, describes his studies with Arnold Jacobs. Bishop was a student at Northwestern University when one of his classmates, Bob Black, remarked that Mr. Jacobs’s teaching was very helpful and influential for his own playing. Bishop had three lessons with Jacobs in 1973. In the first lesson, Jacobs completely changed the way in which Bishop thought about music. The emphasis was always on the music with Jacobs. Jacobs encouraged Bishop to think of his conception of line differently. “You are blowing air on notes … you are not thinking in how a cellist would play it.” Jacobs proceeded to demonstrate. Bishop immediately noticed Jacobs’s incredible sound, and how he used the air over the line rather from note-to-note manner. Jacobs changed Bishop’s concept of air use/direction/shape in a phrase. Blow through the phrase not at the notes. Much to Bishop’s fascination, even though not a saxophonist, Jacobs could listen to Bishop’s sound and discern what was going that was detrimental to his production of sound. Discussion about respiration. Tight gut. Blow from the diaphragm misnomer. Replace bad habits with new better ones. Don’t try to break a bad habit. Suck air. “HO” Focus the inhaled air at the lips. The information Bishop was getting from Jacobs all made sense. But it took several years of developing that info into habits. Jacobs strove to have Bishop’s approach to playing being aligned with how the body naturally functions. Jacobs told Bishop to not push the air out (he was blowing from the chest), but instead to blow air from the lips. Much more air flow, much less air pressure. This was very different from what he was taught by other teachers. Discussion of sharing a one-on-one pedagogy in a large classroom context.