Pete's Quartet Arrangements

Nick Wyver

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That nice Mr Thomas has done a couple of arrangements for sax quartet that can be downloaded from the subscribers' section of this site (someone will be along shortly to explain how you get them if you're not a subscriber).
The tunes are Liberty Bell (aka Monty Python - by J P Sousa) and Love Them by Pete off his Midnight in the Naked City album.
In a fit of madness I have recorded both. Liberty Bell's not quite as polished as I might have hoped (well, you try reading 5 flats at that speed) but Love Them (being somewhat easier to play) is a tad more together. For those who hate the sight of keys with more than 2 flats in them Pete has dropped the arrangement of LB a semitone, but you'll need that low A on the baritone.
If you've got a quartet I reckon they're a useful couple of pieces to have in your repertoire.
So here they are:
https://soundcloud.com/nicksax/liberty-bell-r]View: https://soundcloud.com/nicksax/liberty-bell-r']https://soundcloud.com/nicksax/liberty-bell-r

View: https://soundcloud.com/nicksax/love-theme

(Should be Love Them)
 
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Most of my time is spent on trying to remember how to work the recorder and mixing stuff. If I don't do it regularly enough (and I don't) I forget what's what.
I use a Zoom R8 multitrack recorder and then plonk everything into Ardour (a sort of Cubase thing for Linux users) for final assembly.
There's a built in metronome in the Zoom which I prefer to use where possible, on Liberty Bell for instance. The shambolic bits on my recording of it are entirely down to my fingers not keeping up with the metronome.
If the piece has a load of ralls, accels and stuff then I'll put down a guide track of something that's playing all the way through, hopefully the bari part but it depends entirely on the arrangement.
I'll usually work from the bottom up so sop goes last. It makes it easier for tuning purposes if nothing else. Putting a solo sop track down with nothing else is always a salutary lesson in how much your pitch can drift with nothing to compare it to. Baritone is much more stable so it's easier to get a good start with that.
 
If you have digital recorder with MIDI sequencer (e.g. garageband, Logic, Cubase etc. it can also be a good idea to work to MDI instruments playing the other parts. e.g. for a quartet I would have MIDI saxophone samples playing S, A and T and then record my baritone. I'd probably then take out the MIDI soprano and record the actual soprano, then same with alto and tenor.
 
If you have digital recorder with MIDI sequencer (e.g. garageband, Logic, Cubase etc. it can also be a good idea to work to MDI instruments playing the other parts. e.g. for a quartet I would have MIDI saxophone samples playing S, A and T and then record my baritone. I'd probably then take out the MIDI soprano and record the actual soprano, then same with alto and tenor.
That's a good idea. If I had a midi file. 'Twould be more work to input the stuff from a score than I could be bothered with though.
 
Ooh!...but for the fact we've just lost our soprano player, I'd be suggesting Liberty Bell became one of our projects!
It's probably worth practising the bari parts anyway. In both keys. It's a good workout.
I may well post a rather better version (I hope) in the easier key. I've got the bari part down so far.
 
Ah, but what if I included MIDIfiles with the scores. There's a thought. I can do that no problem.
That would be wonderful for future projects. I've just about had up to here (that doesn't really work in print, does it?) with Liberty Bell.
I'd also have to learn how to do that with the set-up I use for recording. Oh well. Good for the brain probably.
 

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

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