Classic Pop Ballads (The 14 Most Beautiful Popsongs)

I know right?  Sounds promising doesn't it?

At least that's what I was thinking as I idly flicked through the Alto Sax music books and spotted this one.  I'd only come in for some new reeds: having bought a pack of ten from the internet at a price that had turned out to be a little too good to be true; but as we know - you can't just go into a specialist shop, buy the thing you came in for and go out, oh no: you have to see what else they might have.

And it's not that I was looking particularly with any hope: I've already got enough music books to start my own lending library and it's getting harder and harder to find one with tunes that I don't already have: but here I was, all the same, in the music book isle, you know...just in case...

14 Most Beautiful Popsongs eh, I thought: musing to myself.  It wasn't a publisher that I was previously familiar with and I'd been burned once before by a New Publisher I Didn't Know (the "tutorial track" turning out to be a bad keyboard zylophone sound that set your teeth on edge the way ice cream can sometimes do if eaten too quickly) and am more careful these days. 

My preferred type of book is the one that comes with a CD, or sometimes two CDs.  Usually CD one contains the "tutorial" track for you to play along to and a sax-free CD that allows you to go out into an unsuspecting world and make loud blarts and squeaky noises at passers by in random attempts to approach a tune.  This one was slightly different, in as much as, along with the aforementioned CD, it came with a pull out section of piano music (for those of you out there with a friend/relation/partner who is willing to play along with you)

14 Most Beautiful Popsongs: right then, I thought: let's have a look.  OK first track - "Fields Of Gold", ah yes: the Sting track oft covered by Eva Cassidy and the like.  Fair enough, that's a really nice tune.

Father And Son.  Yep, that's a nice tune - good ole Cat Stevens, I thought: mentally adding "or whatever he's calling himself these days"

You've Got A Friend.  Ah yes, lovely stuff.  Carole King/James Taylor.  Lovely stuff.

I Shot The Sherriff....

Wait a minute, back up there - I Shot The Sherriff????

In what universe is that a) a ballad or b) beautiful?  Arguably you could say that if you took the word ballad to mean "minstrels wondering around Merrie England randomly jumping out and singing tales of bravery at innocent passers by" then I guess it could pass that test - but beautiful??  It's a great song, don't get me wrong - but I doubt any one ever put it on their stereo as they watched their boyfriend/girlfriend/pet frog walk away for the final time and sang along with a glistening tear in their eye

And therein lies the problem with music books of this ilk: or at least one of the problems.

Problem The Firste: The Song That No Sane Person Will Ever, Ever Play On (Insert instrument of choice here)

For every book you buy there are always around three, four or even as many as five of the songs that you actually bought the book for; two or three that you can kinda live with and may attempt one day and at least three songs that make you wonder about the sanity of the person who put them on there.

Just at a random flick through my Saxophone books I found: Yellow (Coldplay), Theme From "Friends", A Spaceman Came Travelling (Chris De Burgh) and Reach (S Club 7) - and I'm sure if I tried I could find much worse (there is a whole Sax book dedicated to the songs of Adele)

Problem The Seconde: The Repetition

And this is the big problem with these books - there's a hell of a lot of the same tunes, with the same backing, spread across different ones.  As you start to build up a collection it gets harder and harder to avoid buying the same song two, three or even four times in order to get the One New Song you were after.

Problem The Thirde: The Wrong Key

OK so you're a publisher of Popular Music Playalongs, right?  And there's a big audience for this in a variety of different instruments, ok?  But you want to save some money? And paying backing bands to play the tunes can be costly, true?

And so of course the obvious decision is to issue the same songs with the same backing you recorded but with the words "for Flute", "for Flugelhorn" or even "for Yodellers" (bound to be a market for it somewhere) - only to alter the notation of the music for said instrument...

Which inevitably means that the music you've just bought may not actually be in the best key for you to play on your particular instrument - the result of which is saxophonists all over the globe blowing their lower intestines out of their noses as they try to hit that high F sharp

Problem The Fourthe: The Akwardly Timed Page Turn

Anyone who's ever played or sang with a band using music will be aware of this one: because sooner or later you will have to turn the page when both your hands are engaged in producing a note.  For some songs a good response to this is to learn the first few bars of the next page, or to photocopy the additional page and have it laid out next to the rest of the song on your stand (I recommend a small piece of bluetack or a clothes peg on the stand to stop it falling off at an inopportune moment)

The answer, of course, is simple: create a website where players can pick and chose the songs they actually want and will play and print bespoke music books especially for them - even if it came at an additional cost I would cheerfully buy such a book - but with this there is another problem

Problem The Fifthe: Copyright

Which usually means that a lot of the songs you want to play, and seem obviously to suit your instrument, simply don't seem to exist.  For instance: a while ago I bought a Rat Pack Sax book and it had some pretty good songs: but what it didn't have was Strangers In The Night or New York, New York - both of which you'd expect to be there right?

Problem The Sixthe: There Always Has To Be An Extra Problem In My List-O-Fives

And how long is it since I did one of those, right?

Still: on the whole they're pretty good books and looking through my "14 Most Beautiful Popsongs" I was, on the whole, pretty pleased.

But don't even get me started on why Hotel California was in there too...