WorshipCentral

Hi.
Welcome to the joys of the transposing instrument. There a re one or two things which may help out here. Firstly, if you want to go down the licks route, then learnig them in all 12 keys is probably the best solution. If the band you are working with are using only a few keys then learn the licks in the keys they use. (Once you have transposed from concert!)
There are other spproaches which may be more helpful though. Firstly, you can learn to read in concert. It will be weird to start with but it is possible to learn to read directly in concert without the need to transpose in your head. In other words, practice with concert music until your fingers associate written F with the fingering you know know as D and so on. I read in concert for alto and for tenor/soprano. It means that I have two sets of fingerings but it is so much easier for wosrhip.
The other thing is to develop your ear and to practice finding lines which you can play without need ing to think about keys. Almost all worship songs are diatonic. That is, they only use the notes from the scale of the key signature. (Sorry if you know all this). IF a song is diatonic then you have 8 notes to work in which all sound fine. Practice playing along to songs so that your fingers can find lines without needing to think about where will work. The pentatonic scale is really good fro this too.
I am not aware of specific books for worship on the sax but there are plenty of basic jazz theory books and exercise whichmay help you out. Let me know if you want some titles.
Above all, develop your ears and vocabulary by listening to as much varied music as you can. The more variety you listen to, the more stuff you can draw on when playing.
Good luck.

i have a transposition chart that i use... you can email me and i'll attach it to you in reply if you'd like- i just make lyric sheets and write the chords for sax on them... just go up 6 semitones or down 3. :-)

i know your frustration - i'm also an alto player. :-)

Seemed to miss this topic when it first came out!

I don't play sax (or any instrument other than those in C) so though I can't relate directly I totally see where you're coming from - I'm often asked to transpose something on keys because it's too high / low for whoever's singing.

You could of course look for a specific worship book for sax, you could spend ages writing things out for yourself - but I'd suggest that the best route would be to train your ear so you can transpose at sight. I know that's far easier said than done and it'll take a while, but long term it'll be an absolutely invaluable skill and save you a lot of time in the long run writing things out / transposing them beforehand.

Hey guys

I am a tenor player and this may seem like the most simple advise but I would try as much as possible to stay clear of using books and instead learn the notes in each key. So you know what notes would be in the key of A for example, and the worship leader turns round and shouts A at you, you can just rock out.

I find it can be really freeing to just improvise and use instruments such as the sax to just worship God.

Hope this helps

Just to mention regarding about transposition. There is a programme call Sibelius which is a fantastic way of being able to "literally" copy the notation of a piece and transpose it to the key which one will need so for example, if I wanted to transpose Tim's 'Beautiful One' I would (note that this only referring to the keys I have from Survivor Songbook 3) I would transpose it up from G to Bb as that would be the actual pitch for say a Eb Sax.

Its worth looking for something similar to this programme otherwise you'll need to write it out in manuscript which can take an age.

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Hey, I have the same problem sorta. I play clarinet and alto sax, i just in time for each sunday morning get the music and manage to do it on the computer but then have no time to play them before sunday so i dont know if they are right or not. then if they arent i have to transpose of the top of my head. i have been playing for 8 years now and can do that fine with transposing but only played sax for a year so i am kinda getting there.

But also my other problem is i play in the anglican and the methodist church so the sound levels are completely wrong in methodist and i then stand away from the mic they turn it up more and have then had people moaning at me because it is to loud.... that shot my confidence through the window

Get all the guitars to de-tune down one fret lol...

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John 3.16 --> 1 Jn 3.16 This is love.

We don't have any guitars anymore I can play it a bit but then i have to juggle, sax,clarinet, and guitar and then a flute....