I started playing saxophone 2 years ago and have been making good progress (by my own definition). Here's my take: 1. If you don't have tremendous passion don'

I started playing saxophone 2 years ago and have been making good progress (by my own definition). Here's my take: 1. If you don't have tremendous passion don't bothering thinking about mastering it. Be ready for practicing to be your new life style. 2. Have a picture of what you want to become (so you can make practice plans accordingly) 3. Have clear definition about what's productive practice and what's useless practice (with productive practice you can get great progression even if you only practice 1-2 hours a day) 4. If possible find a master in person and learn (I was lucky enough to have studied with a jazz legend, the first time I directly heard the "true" sound from a tenor saxophone in front of me is life changing) 5. The start is always the hardest, you're severely limited by your lack of skills, you won't feel free (especially for skills about expression, like music). Have to grind past that "mastering" is a tricky word, it kinda imply you need third party acknowledgement in order to become a "master". In my case my goal is highly personal and might not be called a "master" by some people when I reached my goal. It all comes down to personal goal I think.