How to download original notes which were performed by Johny?

[Dmitrij Dabrowski]

Hi,
I noticed that almost all songs have some parts with the notes different than in the original videos.
For instance, song ‘Little sister’ -the song is written in the lower octave – original is in the upper octave. The same is with the song – ‘You Never can tell’ – part of the song should be written in the upper octave, other songs have this issue.
‘Every Breath you take’ – the solo in the end of the song is missed.

I understand that some people have difficulty to play upper octave, but is there a way to download original one?

It just doesn’t sound good enough when you I to play lower octave and it’s not an altissimo, So should be fine for the average player.
I ended up rewriting the notes or trying to guess the notes by listening the original song and improvising. Very disappointed. Can someone help or give the advice how to deal with it?

[Anonymous]

I can’t help you.

i only buy alto sax music sheets that have backing tracks included.

I’ve noticed that lots of sax music sheets are arranged differently and don’t sound exactly like the original. It’s not that they are played in different keys, but the whole tune gets slightly changed in various parts.

Ex the same tune sounds different played in another music book. No two music books have the same sound and are arranged differently with their own backing track style.

[john]

sx, I think he’s referring to my song downloads…

when you see a melody written in the lower octave, just play it it the higher octave if you wish. Thats what I do. The notes are the same…are you saying that you need the notes transcribed in the upper octave in order to be able to play those notes?
Sometimes I transcribe a tune in the lower octave and then when I go to record it I’ll jump up the octave to bring more energy to it….simple as that. If you want to emulate what I do then do the same…that’s the best advise I can give.

If you are have difficulty transcribing certain notes that I played in the video just ask me and I’ll let you know what they are.
Most of the tunes I have transcribed pretty close to what I recorded in the video….some of the older ones may be a little different but not much.

[Leo Salu]

Hello, just to add to Johnny’s comment, i constantly shift up and down an octave using Johnny’s sheet music with out a problem as he said the notes are the same it is good practice to play the lower octave notes in the upper octave. a good example is one of the last songs I posted “Can’t help falling in love with you” I shift to the higher o
octave in the middle of the song. Give it a try and Have fun!

[Dmitrij Dabrowski]

Hi,
Thank you for the reply. I would rather prefer to play the song as per the video version. Because, it does says in each video that song and notes are available for download. And in fact, the song should be transposed for some parts. To my mind, the song should be written exactly the same as per video and if needed, I could play one octave lower – only a part or entire song. Because for now, I need to download the song, check with the video all notes, make my own notes which mach the video version. Not a big deal, but annoying and time consuming.

[Anonymous]

Dmitrij – i understand what you are saying. Most of the commercial music/cd books that i have bought, when you listen to the backing track sax player, he plays plays exactly the same notes as on the music sheet. So you can learn to play the same as the sax player.

But I have come across a few music pages in commercial music/cd books where the music sheet has the wrong note printed or the sax player in the backing track has played a note in a different way ex playing vibrato on a note that doesn’t have vibrato in the sheet. In those cases the music sheet has a printing error.

One very important fact that you have to learn which my professional sax teacher (that has played with some well known pop groups) repeats over and over – TREAT All music sheets as blank canvasses.

In other words in general when you start a new music sheet, the 1st thing you must do is learn to play exactly what you see on the music sheet and this may not be exactly what you hear on the backing track – what you are doing is learning the bare bones of a song without any fancy embellishments ie a blank canvass.

When you have mastered the music sheet and professionally learnt to play it from memory (which is best thing to do), you have learnt the blank canvass. After that you are allowed to stamp your own style of how you would play the sheet, this gives you the freedom to add in embellishments, insert extra notes, vibrato etc…

I’ll give you an example one of my commercial music sheets of a well known song, when i took it to my sax lesson, my teacher actually wrote down extra notes on my music sheet so i could play the tune sound more like the original tune. This is what you do with a blank canvass.

If you listen to recordings of the same tune played by different sax players they all play in their own different styles, yet playing from the same sheet. Some well known tunes are so complicated when put down on a music sheet that they are too difficult to play for the average sax player, it’s easier to provide the basic notes as a blank canvass, then you listen to how the sax player is playing these bare notes and copy the sax player by ear – which may include embellishing and probably inserting extra notes.

At the end of the day firstly – Johnny’s backing tracks are far better than most of the backing tracks i’ve found in commercial music/cd books. Secondly – take into to consideration that Johnny is an experienced top rate sax player that plays stuff that is beyond the playing ability of your average sax player if the tune were written exactly as he played on a music sheet.

So it all comes back to what my sax teacher emphasises – TREAT each music sheet as a blank canvass, then put play it in your own style or play it in the style of a well know sax player – that’s a sax players life.

[saxomonica]

Hi Dmitrij the pursuit of perfection is endless, for your artistic licence try the Altissimo course available onsite on Premium Membership ya 🙂

► Can someone help or give the advice how to deal with it?

► … says JF when you see a melody written in the lower octave, just play it it the higher octave if you wish. Thats what I do. The notes are the same…are you saying that you need the notes transcribed in the upper octave in order to be able to play those notes?

[saxomonica]

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[saxomonica]

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[Dmitrij Dabrowski]

Thank you very much for the answers and guidance. It does make sense. Will practice more with transcribing.
Currently, I’m struggling to transcribe the notes from the lower octave to the upper in real time. Also, trying to copy the sound performed by Johnny in his video. So, found the best way to do it by rewriting the composition and haven’t thought about the way that it’s actually a good exercise to express yourself by lowering/upping the octave. Thank you for your advice.
Kind Regards,

[Author]

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