Newbie question: How often is jazz sheet music transcribed for horn?

Date: Sat, 07 Jun 2003 06:28:28 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.jazz
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Newbie tenor sax question for experienced jazz horn players:
When you go to your typical jazz gigs or recording dates or whatever, where
there is any written music, how often is it transcribed to your instrument?
(i.e. in B-flat for tenor sax) How often is it in Concert Pitch, and you
have to transcribe "on the fly"?
Reason I'm asking, is I'm just now attempting to learn to play tenor for
purpose of playing jazz, and wonder if I would be wasting my time to learn
the notes as they are written in the lesson books. I'm wondering if I
should "transcribe the fingering chart" and re-label all the fingerings
according to what Concert Pitch they create on a tenor, and just learn it
that way from the ground up, so I will learn from the beginning to just play
music written in concert pitch and not transcribed. (Then as time permits,
later, go back and learn it the other way too.)
Can anyone comment on if there would be more "pros" or more "cons" to
learning jazz tenor sax "Concert-pitch style" to start with?
Are there certain styles of jazz where sheet music for tenors tends to be
already transcribed to that instrument (like Big Band jazz), and other types
where you tend to see any music in Concert Pitch and must transcribe on the
fly ("mainstream" or Be-Bop / Hard Bop)?
I completely realize that the obvious answer is "it depends on who prepares
the sheet music", but that's not the answer I'm looking for, I'm hoping You
good folks might share what YOU've run into the most on the jazz scene.
Thanks,
- Good Music