Had a little glitch but it all worked out just fine
Review by Ben R. on 23 Oct 2024 review stating Die With A Smile - Piano/Vocal/Guitar
At first, I simply chose the brass quartet version of these songs, but then was surprised to see that the parts were for two trumpets, one french horn and one trombone. Oooooh Nooooo!!!! My first thought was that I would need to transpose the horn part into trombone, which meant changing the key for the 3rd part as well as changing the signature to base clef. (I do a lot of transposing but the dual nature of this drives me crazy and I can't seem to get it.
But then I realized that the publisher used modern software to create these, which could make this change via computer. So I wrote to them and explained the problem, asking that they re-do part 3 just for the purpose of making it a trb part. Within two days, the new part was sent to me. we played it yesterday and it was just fine. whew.
My suggestion for the publisher is to make it more clear as to which instrumentation the buyer is purchasing, either trpt/fh/trb or trpt/trb/tuba and allow them that choice.
We played the tunes and laughed out loud when we realized the joke embedded in "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas" The rest were just fine.
My bandmates did not like the mp3 file because it sounds too much like a synth ( which it is). But then found that the same arranger had made a YouTube file of a brass quintet playing the exact same tunes in a 5tet version, using the software that scrolls through the score while the music is being played, in the same key as the arrangements we bought. So, if you buy this, your group will have an uptodate tool to enhance the ensemble play as if it was karaoke for each of the individual parts.
Years ago I had a set of the old green Rubank caroling books, and the inner parts of those were simpler than these - so you may want to listen to the YouTube video and decided whether your quartet is up to the challenge. Also, I only roll with bras splayers these days, but with the Rubank books, each book and each of the four parts of the 4-part harmony were labelled so that if you had a school group composed of "non-standard" instruments ( for example, I trumpet, One flute, one clarinet and one trombone) you could still mix-and-match to send up with the set you needed given the players on hand.
So, I recommend these and we are happy with the set!