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http://www.ossmann.com/mike/hornparts.html
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http://www.ossmann.com/mike/hornparts.html
E (2 below middle C) - Bb (2 below middle C) B (2 below middle C) - F (below middle C) E (below middle C) - Bb (below middle C) G# (below middle C) - D (above middle C) B (below middle C) - F (above middle C) D (above middle C) - Ab (above middle C) E (above middle C) - Bb (above middle C) F# (above middle C) - C (above middle C) G# (above middle C) - D (2 above middle C) The alto saxophone is in the key of Eb, sounding a major 6th lower than written. The basic written range begins at the Bb below middle C and extends to three Fs above middle C, though many players also have an F# key (ask your player). There is an additional "altissimo" range of notes extending another octave higher. This is that wonderful high, screaming sax sound that we all know and love. Ask your player what altissimo notes he is comfortable with; don't be surprised if stuff above written C (three above middle C) is a problem. The tenor saxophone has the exact same written range and fingerings but is in Bb, sounding a major 9th lower than written. The bottom minor third or so of the playable range has a wonderful loud honking sound, especially on the tenor. Don't expect most players to be able to play those notes softly. The instrument is incredibly agile at playing runs, but isn't very good at rapidly repeating the same note. (You have to touch your tongue to the reed to start a new note, so double and triple tonguing don't work.) Don't write repeated notes faster than you can say "Ta ta ta ta". The saxophone has a very distinct break in the middle of its range, right between the C# and D just over an octave above middle C. (Thanks to Haydn Lowe for letting me know the exact spot.) This is very similar to the break between falsetto and full voice, but is even more problematic for most sax players than it is for the average male singer. Making a big jump over the break with staccato notes is easy, but playing a loud, legato run over it is very difficult. Saxophones have one feature which should make any singer or brass player jealous: the octave key. With this amazing device, the player can switch octaves as effortlessly as Bobby McFerrin. That can be a pretty cool effect which would be a lot more difficult to play on a brass instrument. By the way, if you haven't heard the Ani DiFranco track swing, check it out. It's a lesson and a half on how to write effective sax parts. Both the saxophone and the brass instruments are capable of being played extremely loudly. They are the absolute best instruments at crescendo. Use this to your advantage. Forte-Piano-Crescendo is a very effective technique. Part writing: There are a bunch of guidelines for basic part writing: 1. Don't use parallel fourths or fifths. There is always another way. 2. Try to keep most of the intervals small. A part made up entirely of seconds and thirds is a lot easier to sight read than a part that jumps all over the place. 3. If you have to leave a chord tone out of a triad or seven chord, leave out the fifth. Doubling the fifth can sound odd if no other chord tones are doubled. There are a lot of other rules that don't apply to your situation. Of course rules are made to be broken and these are broken very often. The thing to keep in mind is that you
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should save rule breaking for times when you want a special effect. Parallel fifths make a really cool sound that pops out at you (much like unisons do) and can be very effective, especially in a funk tune, but you don't want to use them all the time or they become hard to listen to and the effect is spoiled. Doubling the fifth of a chord is fine when you want that note to really jump out, but avoid doing it in the middle of a line where it would sound out of place. Part writing is a skill that takes time to develop. I highly recommend doing some transcriptions of parts you like on recordings. Even if you have the parts memorized already, going through the activity of writing them down probably does more for your writing than any other exercise. Also try transcribing some melody lines and then writing your own harmonies to them. Style: Obviously you want to write parts that suit the style of music. You already have a good idea of what funk horn parts should sound like. You can further enhance your knowledge of the style by transcribing some of your favorite horn lines. Don't forget that unison lines are great. In addition to knowing how things should sound, you need to know how your players are going to interpret what you write on the page. For example, if you write an isolated quarter note on a page and put it in front of an orchestral trumpet player, he will play a full note starting on one beat and ending on the next. If you put the same page in front of a funk player, he will give it a much harder attack and will cut the note short. In order to get the orchestral player to produce the same sound you would have to put an accent and a staccato mark over the note (and he still might not play it quite as short as the funk player). 1. Quarter notes are always played short unless explicitly marked otherwise (legato markings, tenuto markings, etc.). 2. Isolated quarter notes are also accented (BOP!). 3. An eighth note which is followed by a rest is played extremely short. 4. Eighth note runs are played legato until the last note which is extremely short. The first note in an eighth note run is accented. 5. Notes (usually quarters) with a "hat" accent (^) over them are played very loud for the full duration with the note ended abruptly by the tongue (VAHT!!!). (There isn't really any way to get the orchestral player to produce this sound without verbally describing what to do because a classically trained player is taught never to stop a note with the tongue.) 6. Eighth notes are swung if there is a swing, shuffle, or hip-hop feel. If you find yourself trying to write swung sixteenths, switch to cut time. 7. If you want to signal a hard cut-off on a specific beat, add a tied eighth note on the beat. A half note starting on three in a bar of four which is tied to an eighth note on one will be played full value with a distinct cut-off on one. The other way to write this is to write "-1" (off on one) above the note and close to the cut-off beat. 8. Quarters tied to eighths are interpreted according to the above rule. Always use dotted quarters if you really want the note to last for a beat and a half. I think these conventions date back to the swing era and have carried over into a lot of pop styles. They make it really easy to write the kind of parts you are trying to write without having to labor over the articulations, providing you know the rules to begin with. It's okay to break the rules now and then by explicitly marking different articulations, but the standard interpretation should be perfect 90% of the time. Mike Ossmann <mike@ossmann.com>
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