Which music should a soprano saxophone use?

Question

Hi...
I'm currently playing the E flat Alto Saxophone at school, and I really want to play the B flat Soprano Saxophone and the conducter is fine with that - but she has no music for it. Can the B flat Soprano Saxophone use the B flat Clarinets music or the B flat Tenor Saxophones music, or any other B flat instruments music? Thanks.

Answer 1

I played the b flat trumpet in a band and those parts were also played by soprano sax and clarinet when we had those players in the band. So yes you can play the same parts as the trumpet and clarinet.

Answer 2

The clarinet music will be the right key, but why play what's already being played by all the clarinets? If the music you're playing doesn't have a specific saxophone part, see if there is an oboe part. The soprano sax has a quality that is very close to the oboe, and it's more likely your band doesn't have that part covered yet.

The problem is that the oboe is a C instrument; you'll have to transcribe the music UP one whole step to play on the soprano sax. For most keys, this is a piece of cake. It gets harder the more sharps or flats you have to keep track of, though. For those pieces, you'll want to do the transcription by hand and use your own transcribed music rather than the direct oboe music.

Good luck.

Answer 3

Let it be on your conductor's head! Miing the parts can lead to funny results.

The best suggestion so far is the trumpet music. Tenor sax will be written in the right register for saxophone, obviously, but it will sound strange having a high instrument playing low harmonies. The clarinet range is too low for the sop sax. Even the trumpet will be limited,, because the range will sometimes go to the lowest notes on the sop sax, and will rarely reach the higher ones where the soprano sounds best.

Answer 4

The tenor saxophone's music wouldn't really work as it would be sounding an octave too high. However, the Bb clarinet is at the same pitch and has a similar range and so that wuold work a lot better. A nicely played soprano sax doesn't sound SO far away from a clarinet sound, either.

Answer 5

The Bb Tenor Sax part would be an octave too low and might play a middle voice line. Use Bb Clarinet and trumpets parts but listen to what is going on so you know when to drop out ["be tacet"]. Don't play the trumpet part if only brass instruments are playing in a section.

Answer 6

yeah clarinet and trumpet work but so does tenor saxophone and that will be in a better range for saxophone unlike clarinet which plays alot lower and a trumpet which cant play near as high (easily) try searching in general for music...Internet,music stores,and some book stores may have some stuff. their are alot of choir arrangements of carol of the bells that your can find just transpose (up up two half steps for sop. and down three for alto. hope this helps.