Christmas music for Sax and Violin

[bradshawm]

My daughter and I are trying to work up some Christmas pieces so that we can play at some rest homes this season. The focus will be Christian centered pieces, but were are planning to do some fun secular ones also. I play soprano,alto and a little tenor sax, she is a very accomplished pianist and plays a pretty mean violin. We are struggling with finding duets for the sax and violin, so are looking for recommendations of songs or books where one of the instruments might transpose well. One piece we are doing is, "Baby its Cold Outside" as we have a decent background for it that someone created on BIAB.

Also, if you are familiar with any solo pieces that are good arrangements I would appreciate those recommendations also.

Thanks,

Marshall

[Pete Thomas]

One piece we are doing is, "Baby its Cold Outside" as we have a decent background for it that someone created on BIAB.

Great song, but extremely secular if you don't mind me pointing out the meaning of the song. Still, the old folks will probably love it.

I think restricting yourself to actual duets will be rather restricting, I'd look for things that can be done with some simple riff backgrounds for one or other of the instruments, The Virgin Mary had a Baby Boy, Good King Wenceslas.

[bradshawm]

Pete,

I agree on your comment regarding "Baby its Cold Outside". We obviously won't be singing it, but like the melody and thought it would be fun.

We actually have quite a bit of material with a lot of variety, but were hoping to add a couple well developed duets to the mix.

Thanks for the input.

Marshall

[FilmDir]

"Sounds of Christmas" arranged by Stan Pethel is a book series with flexible instrumentation, and it might be what you're looking for.

[bradshawm]

FilmDir - thanks for the recommendation. I actually picked that one up for us but it is set up so one needs either a piano part or the CD, so we are waiting for the CD. Otherwise, it looks pretty good.

There are tons of solo books with CD accompanyment, most of them are pretty lame (I know because I wasted money on a few). There are a couple though that have good backing CDs and are very adaptable to duets. The best of the bunch are the Big Band Christmas books. Each part (i.e. Alto, Tenor, Trumpet, etc) is unique and the Alto Sax and Trumpet parts play lead most of the time and are very complimentary but never play over the top of each other. The only issue is that there is not a version of the CD which leaves out the Alto or trumpet parts. I have Adobe Audition and it has a unique feature which allows one to reduce the volume greatly on the solo lines without reducing the volume of the background as a whole. I transposed the trumpet part for a couple songs to C for my daughter, we hooked her violin up to an amp to give it volume and edge, and this looks like it will work well.

[FilmDir]

"FilmDir - thanks for the recommendation. I actually picked that one up for us but it is set up so one needs either a piano part or the CD, so we are waiting for the CD. Otherwise, it looks pretty good."

I used the piano accompaniment; I haven't heard the CD. Hope it works turns out to be good.

Yes I agree a lot of the available books are lacking. Thanks for mentioning the Big Band Christmas Books - I hadn't heard of those before.

[cmtxl]

Hi Does anybody has the music sheet for the solo part alto sax for Brenda Lee- Rocking around the xmas tree??I am trying to find it for my daughter too.
If you do, will you kindly to share with me? email: christineT1401@gmail.com

thnks so much