Baker Street

[Rainer Backes]

Hi Johnny,

downloaded Baker Street and tried it. It seems that you did get the keys wrong. IMHO the piece is in C-Minor = Es Major (3 * b) and changes to D- Minor = F Major (1 * b) for the first repeat of the main melody theme. I send the re-done sheet music to you with PM (don’t want to post that here 😉 )
EDIT: just noticed I can’t add an attachment to a PM. Need your email to send the PDF….

[john]

my email is saxjohnny”at”johnnyferreira.com (replace the “at” with @)
My key is right. I don’t know what Es means but if you are referring to the original version of the song, yes I know that it’s in D major (not minor). I don’t always choose the original key because sometimes that’s not the best choice for saxophones. For Baker Street I decided on Eb major, which is a semi-tone up fro the original. Why did I do this? Because for tenors it will be F and for altos it will be C. These are two great keys, even for novice players. If I went with the original key, the tenor chart would be in E major and the alto in B major. I know most people would be happier to play it in C instead of B.
These are my reasons, it doesn’t always work out to choose an easier key as it involves other factors like the range etc but I always try and have a key that will work best for both Eb and Bb saxes.

[john]

In our church band everything is written for the piano, and when we transpose for the clarinets & saxs they can go out of range, so we have to transpose everyone, easier than writing separate accompaniment parts for clarinet & sax.
This is one of the advantages of playing in a band. You learn a hell of a lot more than playing alone. You learn to work in a team, and you have to play it the way the band wants you to play it and not how you want to play it. When playing the guitar, strumming chords in a band, if i suddenly change tempo, or arrangement, i can really distract the wind players, they suddenly start listening to what i’m playing and concentrating less on what their playing! All good fun.

[paul kelly]

I don’t think it matters what key you are in as a wind player you have got to play in all keys. I have Johnny’s baker street music and for my money it is great. I can and do play baker street in the original key.But Johnny’s arrangement is very good for Tenor sax, this is the life of a saxophone player.

[john]

very true that, the only time it matters what key you play in is when you have to accompany other instruments that don’t want to play in your key.

[Rainer Backes]

I don’t complain about the key – I did complain about he had wrote that down. When you look at the score, you first think it is in C. Then you try the first phrase, which has 2 sharps and one release within 5 tones. That is not good to read.
I went over and re-though the whole piece, got the chord sequence from the net and tried to align melody and chords. Then I found out, that Johnny’s real key is E-flat (for Tenor), I changed the key of my notation to E-flat and all transposition and release signs disappeared! So the melody Johnny gave us is not in C, but in E-flat.
From his answer I know he wanted the piece in E-flat (concerto), which means F for Tenor and C for Alto. But someone (I don’t know whether he prepares the scores by himself) messed up with changing keys instead for transposing.

So playing together with other (non-transposing) instruments is a challenge. Either the woodwinders have to adjust and live with 2 (or even 3) sharps more, or the others – especially Guitars have to adjust and live with 2 flats more. (I know what I tell, before I started with the Saxophone, I played Guitar – and sometimes with a larger Sax-dominated band – boy there you learn to hate E-flat – as a Guitarist).

Today my sax teacher plays on the keyboard. That is easy, because modern keyboards have a transpose function, whitch allows to allign keyboard and Sax.

[john]

I hate playing any flat major scales on the guitar really mess with you wrist unless you jump about with bar chords

[Rainer Backes]

Sometimes I used a Capo on the 3rd fret, which brings you in the key of the altos… -> E-flat… Downtuning one full tone to Bb was not a good idea – the strings get too floppy….

[john]

lol

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