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.
