Seventies Sax (Guest Spot Seventies Hits Playalong - Alto Saxophone)

Member Name: paulhanton

Product:	Guest Spot Seventies Hits Playalong - Alto Saxophone
Date:	18/11/08 (337 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some fun choons

Disadvantages: Some awful tunes

Seventies Hits

Playalong for Alto Saxophone

This sheet music book and two CD's is part of the 'Guest Spot' 'Playalong' series published by Wise Publications.

The first few pages contain a useful fingering chart with a cutaway picture of a sax' with the fingering positions shown. The two CD's are both full tracks (with sax piece played) and backing tracks only, which for the price of £10.95 from musicroom.com, is already a bargain, and that's without the sheet music.

The book is classified by musicroom.com (not the publishers) as 'intermediate', see the explanation below, I disagree on some tracks, you will see why later.

"Intermediate (Slightly simplified arrangements; Grade 4-6)"


~~The Songs~~

When I Need You [Sayer, Leo]
Who can forget fluffy little Leo? In B flat (Bb) Major this is not a hard key to play in. The time signature is 3:4, again not hard and apart from a few 'dotted quaver' rests it is not that difficult a piece to play at all, couple of low C's and a high G. This surprised me at how okay it sounded when I actually hated the original song. In my opinion Musicroom have got it about right in terms of difficulty level, grade 4-5.

Baker Street [Rafferty, Gerry]
Mmmm, Music room are pushing a bit to suggest this is 'intermediate'. The time signature, 4:4 is okay, the key signature, C Major is okay but the 'fiddliness' of the start is not easy at all. We have a mid Eb quaver, followed by a high Eb quaver and a high D semi quaver, semi quaver rest and then high C and high Bb in triplet time.....sorry if I am boring no sax players, but sax players will know how tricky that sequence is, I hate it, and have to confess, find it really, really hard to do, and cannot get it every time. Grade 7 in my opinion!

Chiquitita [ABBA]
Now this is a different kettle of fish....not easy, though the key signature (G Major) and time signature (4:4) are okay. The difficulty really, is in the interpretation, but okay as a Grade 5 I reckon. Gotta love ABBA.

Don't Go Breaking My Heart [John, Elton] [Dee, Kiki]
Hate it, wont play it, but as a 4:4 in D Major it is not that hard, just damn boring!

If You Leave Me Now [Chicago]
This I do play, it's school disco time all over again. G Major, 4:4, not hard, and quite an easy tune to make sound good with a few embellishments. Grade 4 in my opinion.

Jet [McCartney, Paul And Wings]
Awful on sax, dunno why it is in here, easy Grade 4.

Life On Mars? [Bowie, David]
Easy Grade 4 again, D Major, 4:4 time....few 'accidentals', mainly B and E flats.

Never Let Her Slip Away [Gold, Andrew]
Don't really know this song and when I have played it I have to confess it is a bit boring, or maybe it is my playing!! Few difficult timing issues, but 'intermediate' is about right.

Sweet Caroline [Diamond, Neil]
Very easy, very boring, 'nuff said!

You're So Vain [Simon, Carly]
Bb Major, not a hard piece to play in 4:4 time, but tricky to get sounding good as the range of notes is quite repetitive. I need to practice this a bit more, lol.

~~~Final Thoughts~~~
Not their best sheet music book, but good value nonetheless. I have given their books 4 and 5 star ratings before, this only warrants a 3 star, why? Well of all the 70's songs there are definitely some better ones to have chosen, though Chiquitita is really quite fun.

Summary: Seventies playalong for alto sax