Dirko Juchem is a session and live musician who has worked with an impressive number of artists. With over 100 CD and LP recordings and tours to Los Angeles and Taiwan, he has been pretty busy. Successful German artists, like Rolf Zuckowski, Thomas Anders, Harald Juhnke and Circus Roncalli, and international acts, like Sara K., Allan Taylor and Thea Austin (SNAP), often call on Dirko Juchem for his excellent and creative saxophone playing.
As an author, he used to work for leading German trade magazines (Fachblatt Musikmagazin, SOUNDCHECK, Sonic), while he has also written and prepared several method and repertoire books for would-be saxophone players, some of which were published by Schott Musik International.
As a teacher, he boasts over 20 of experience at various music academies, with a brief visiting professorship at Akademie Remscheid. The experience gathered in this respect helped him during the preparation of his latest book.
The saxophone teacher of the nation
"Saxophon spielen, mein schönstes Hobby" is a clever introduction for would-be saxophone players. Both youngsters and adults are said to like this new-breed saxophone method. Step by step, Dirko Juchem accompanies his students on their journey, from absolute beginners to seasoned saxophone players. This journey, however, is not based on countless dry lessons, explanations and exercises"”meet a saxophone method that uses songs as the starting point!
Many aspects, which are often taught based on dry etudes, are embedded in rock, pop and jazz songs as well as classical and folk pieces. "Pink Panther", "Morning Has Broken", "Scarborough Fair", "Rock My Soul" and the "Slavonic Dance" (Dvorak) are only a few tunes used in this method. The backing tracks were recorded by live musicians, sound fantastic and are fun to play to!
