ABRSM Tenor Sax Grade 2

majordennis

Senior Member
534
Gone West
Not really my cup of tea but I came across the above book and thought, might be fun. Some of the tunes are nice, easy to play, pleasant on the ear, and then we have the solo's. I am probably missing something obvious but when I look at the chord structures the guide notes don't seem to fit, I've tried a few combinations but nothing seems to fit. It's not a road I intend to go down but I'm annoyed that I can't work it out. Any observations would be greatly appreciated.

Mods feel free to move this if in the wrong forum.
 
Given the lack of response, I'm guessing that maybe others are like me and don't fully understand.
When you say "solo" I think of a written tune with no piano accompaniment. When you say "chord structures" I am thinking improvisation, but then you say guide notes do not fit chord structures, and I don't understand what is meant.

I only took Trinity Jazz saxophone exams, so I don't even know what the ABRSM grades include, but are you talking ABRSM "classical" tenor sax, or "Jazz" tenor Sax?

Just trying to get the thread moving to help you.
 
Thank you very much for answering, I came across the book at my teacher's, she had found it at a music sale but said she had not looked at it since as she does not teach jazz.

Most of the examples are fairly short pieces which have a "head" followed by an 8 bar improvised solo over the backing track and then back to the head and variations to the end. There are on some of the solo bars 4 notes without tails which are suggested "starting points" (their words) for the solo but they don't seem to match anything I can find, but I would have thought the chord structure would have been a better illustration, but what do I know.

I am not going to lose any sleep over this, it was just curiosity, it may be you have a better understanding if you start with Book 1. I am very good friends with an excellent jazz saxophonist who I see occasionally, I'll take it with me the next time I see him.

Again many thanks for taking the time to answer.
 
I am very good friends with an excellent jazz saxophonist who I see occasionally, I'll take it with me the next time I see him.
.

That's the best plan. One picture is worth a thousand words and so on... if your pal can actually see the book he'll see what you mean in a moment.

If you don't get to see him maybe you could scan a page or two and post it on this thread... you will have stack of comments then, I'm sure.
 
That is a good point. Kev...

I would have thought that a small extract for the purposes of illustration or discussion would not be a breach of copyright, provided that the author/publisher/copyright holder were properly identified.

In book reviews, for instance, quite long passages are sometimes quoted. The author/publisher. copyright holder benefits by the publicity which should sell more books.

Looking at an article by a copyright lawyer http://janefriedman.com/2013/07/15/the-fair-use-doctrine/ I would think that a short quotation (or image of part of a score) would be fine. I quote a short extract from the article (my quotation being, on the written advice of the said lawyer, covered by the fair use doctrine!)

But please refer to the full article - the lawyer invites questions, too, by email.

Here it is:

The fair use doctrine is defined here. To bring your otherwise unauthorized use within the protection of the doctrine, there are two separate and important considerations. First, your use must be for “purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.”

This is the first prong. If your use falls into one of these categories, then you move to the second prong of the test. A court will consider the following four factors to determine if your use is a fair use:

  1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
  2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
  3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (emphasis added)
  4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
If your use falls into one of the enumerated categories AND you are able to prevail factually on at least two of the four second-prong factors, you might succeed in proving that your use is fair and thus not copyright infringement.

End of quotation.
 
Paul, I'm not sure if your quote is fair use or not.

Perhaps we're going further than necessary. But forum policy is no copyright material, or links to illegal copies. None of us want to get caught up in a legal dispute of any kind. None other of us are lawyers, let alone copyright lawyers. None of us want to go against the spirit of ownership of creative material.

This is one Internet view, in one jurisdiction. Fair use, for instance, varies from country to country. It's been legal for a long time in the USA to put a CD onto your ipod, as long as you own and keep the original. That's only just been legalised in the UK. And being an international forum we run the risk of copyright laws worldwide.

We're not prepared to take risks. Even if you think it falls under fair use. Pete's just published a guide for the forum. It says things better than I can
 
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Thanks, Kev - very fair comment.

Copyright is more of a minefield the more you look at it - and the forum being international - and anything on the web is internationally accessible, too - means caution is very wise.

I'll look up Pete's guide.
 
I have been using this book along with book 1 with my tutor, purely as a guide to get an understanding on improvisation.
My take on it is that those notes without tails are there to use initially for improvising over that section.
In some places in book 1 as well there are only 3 notes and you play around ( improvise ) using them to start with until you get familiar with what you are doing.
My tutor actually got me improvising in the early days using just 1 note from those suggested.
I think that's the correct answer, if not I am sure others better versed than me will explain.
 

Similar threads... or are they? Maybe not but they could be worth reading anyway 😀

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