I can play 90's pop, whoo hoo. (Take the Lead: Alto Saxophone - 90s Hits)

Member Name: paulhanton

Product:	Take the Lead: Alto Saxophone - 90s Hits
Date:	20/09/08 (375 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good pieces to build skills.

Disadvantages: Bit boring.

Take the Lead - 90's Hits

This book contains 8 songs of sheet music and also has, attached to the inside front cover a 'backing track' cd. It is for Alto Saxophone players. The book can be purchased for around £10 depending on where you shop.

One of the hardest things for any musical instrument player to master is learning to play with others, coming in and stopping at the right time, listening for pitch etc. These sort of books that contain both the sheet music and backing track cd's are becoming more popular as they allow the player to learn a piece, listen to a piece, then play along with the piece.

There are 8 songs in this book which are graded by musicroom.com as Intermediate (see their table below) which is generally a pretty accurate guide:

1 Beginner (Complete beginner, no previous musical knowledge)

2 Easy (Simplified arrangements; Grade 1-3)

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

4 Intermediate / Advanced (Accurate transcriptions of most rock/pop titles; Grade 6-8)

5 Advanced(Accurate transcriptions of more complex pieces; Grade 8+)

~~The songs~~
Angels:
Yep, the standard Robbie William version. This is arranged in C Major, not a difficult key, but there are quite a lot of high register notes, mainly D's that take a bit of getting, especially as they are often in a run of quavers and semi quavers. Degree of difficulty is around grade 5, the high notes are quite tricky, actually sounds quite good when mastered.

Frozen, Madonna:
Played in F Major (which means all B's are played flat), medium to difficult, but quite boring.

How do I live:
Dunno who sang this, Leanne rhymes? Anyway, I would rate this as closer to grade 6 than 4, mainly because it is slow so takes some real control, it is in the key of D Major (C and F's are played as sharps), again lots of runs of semi quavers.

I Don't want to Miss a Thing, Aerosmith:
Although this is in a simple key (C Major) it is really difficult to play as many of the bars contain runs of quavers and/or semi quavers of the same note which makes it difficult to play with feeling without it sounding very 'samey', grade 5-6.

I'll be there for you, Friends theme:
G Major (F's are sharp), can't stand it so have not played it, though it looks okay to play, Grade 4 I reckon.

My Heart will Go On:
Yep, Celine....one of the most boring tracks in the world but great to play as there is an awful lot of control required, the first half of the song is in C Major (easy), then the 2nd half changes to E Major (C, F, G and D sharps) this can be quite challenging and I reckon it is probably the hardest in the book to play, quite easily grade 5 - grade 6.

Something About The Way You Look Tonight:
Elton John. I've not played this yet, fairly difficult as again a E Major key signature with a fair few 'accidentals' (notes outside of the key signature) thrown in, grade 5-6.

The Air That I Breathe:
Slightly easier key than the last two songs, A Major, with a few accidentals, not that hard to play, but not easy either.

~~~The sheet music~~~
Each song has the sheet music, arranged for the sax player to take the lead, with chord structures which allow piano accompaniment should you wish. The layout is quite large and easy to read which is useful.

~~~The CD~~~
The cd has two versions of each track; a 'full' version, where someone is playing the sax lead that you will learn to play, and a backing track version which only has the music, minus the sax' so you can play along to the music.

I like to play along with the full version first as it has been helpful in getting my breathing and counting right.

~~~~How to use the book and CD together~~~~
Basically it is a four step process as far as I am concerned:

Step 1. Listen to the full version

Step 2. Play along with the full version, this may take several, if not, many attempts

Step 3. Listen to the backing track

Step 4. Play along with the backing track

~~~~Final Thoughts~~~~
Sometimes it is useful to play songs that you are not familiar with and do not particularly like as it focusses the mind. This is a pretty good value book, especially as it has a CD too. I will not give it top marks however as it is a bit boring.

Summary: Take the Lead 90's.