Here are the Q&A topics covered in this lesson, with video time stamps (min:sec). Clicking on the time stamp will take you straight to that portion of the video on youtube (in a separate tab). Full Time stamps for the video and a complete transcript are at the bottom of the blog.
Can I play Little Donkey on any sax?
What are the sax notes for Little Donkey?
There are only 4 phrases to learn (an * means second octave, so use the octave key)
Video Time Stamps
0:00 - teaser performance
0:12 - brief intro
0:31 - phrase 1 (slow with fingerings)
0:54 - phrase 1 (faster with note names)
1:10 - phrase 2 (slow with fingerings)
1:32 - phrase 2 (faster with note names)
1:50 - phrase 3 (slow with fingerings)
2:18 - phrase 3 (faster with note names)
2:48 - phrase 4 (slow with fingerings)
3:12 - phrase 4 (faster with note names)
3:31 - song structure
4:25 - backing track with me playing
6:33 - now it's your turn
6:43 - **FREE PLAY ALONG BACKING TRACK**
8:57 - sign off
9:16 - outro music and cards
Video Transcript
Welcome back everybody, season's greetings to you all. I'm going to teach you how to play Little Donkey but we are gonna do it in a funky bossa nova style.
There’s only actually four separate phrases to learn for this song because of the way the phrases repeat, so that's good news. So let's start off and we’re gonna learn phrase one, and we're gonna play it nice and slowly…
Now here's that first phrase played a bit faster…
Now here's the second phrase played slowly…
And now that second phrase played faster…
Now the third phrase we're gonna learn is the phrase that happens in the B section, in the bridge, and here it is played slowly…
Now here's that third phrase, played faster…
Now all we do to play the complete bridge is, we repeat that third phrase and that gives us all the A sections and the B section, so the last thing to learn is the final phrase at the end of the coda section, and here it is played slowly…
Now here's that final phrase, that final coda, played faster…
Great job! So now all we have to do is puzzle piece together all those different phrases and sections to make the whole song. So we're going to play phrase one, phrase two - that makes up the first A section, then we repeat that - phrase one, phrase two - that's the second A section.
For the B section, for the bridge, we play phrase three then we repeat it, then for the final A section its phrase 1 and phrase 2 again. And then to finish it off we're going to play the fourth phrase, the coda section.
So that is the map of the whole song. Now when you put it together with a backing track it should sound like this. Due to logistical problems I recorded this on tenor, however, I've only got my alto with me at this moment, so here it is all put together with me playing it, then after this you're gonna get a chance to play it yourself with the backing track.
Now remember you've also got that introduction section where you don't play, okay? So listen out for that. Fantastic! Now it's over to you. So have some fun, play along with the backing track and remember you've gotta wait for the introduction before you come in. Here it is, enjoy yourself!
That's it for this festive Christmasy week learning how to play Little Donkey, beginner's version, with the awesome bossa nova backing track. As always if you enjoy the channel please do subscribe, click the bell to be notified when I upload new videos, go and checkout my Instagram feed and I'll see you next week for another festive classic. See you there!
