#69 Learn To Play The "Old Time Rock And Roll" Sax Solo

Got a real classic sax solo for this week! Reed Alto's great bluesy tenor solo on "Old Time Rock And Roll" by Bob Seger And The Silver Bullet Band. This solo is always featured on the lists of most famous sax solos so, of course, it is my duty and honour to bring it to you, dissected and spelled out in the easiest possible way for alto and tenor sax. Don't forget to get your free PDF sheet music for Old Time Rock And Roll and check out the other sax breakdowns in my Sax Hall Of Fame series on YouTube.

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.

Who plays the sax solo on "Old Time Rock And Roll" by Bob Seger And The Silver Bullet Band? (0:33)

• the tenor sax solo on Old Time Rock And Roll is played by Alto Reed 
• Alto Reed's real name is Thomas Neal Cartmell and amongst many notable sessions performances he is a long standing member of Bob Seger's Silver Bullet Band

What sax is used for the Old Time Rock And Roll solo?

• the solo on Old Time Rock And Roll is played on tenor sax by Alto Reed

What film is Bob Seger's song Old Time Rock And Roll in (1:00)

• Old Time Rock And Roll was made famous in the 1983 movie Risky Business, featuring Tom Cruise

What are the notes for the sax solo on Old Time Rock And Roll? (3:46)

• I've broken the solo into four phrases. For more details get the free PDF sheet music download for the Old Time Rock And Roll sax solo, which is transcribed for alto and tenor sax. (*=second octave, **=third octave, __=longer note)
• phrase 1 TENOR (1:44) - C* C* C*__C* Db* Eb** B* Bb* Ab* Ab*__Ab*__F* Eb* Db
• phrase 1 ALTO (1:44) - G* G* G*__G* Ab* Bb** Gb* F* Eb* Eb*__Eb*__C Bb Ab
• phrase 2 TENOR (2:15) - F**__Db* B* Bb* Ab*__F*
• phrase 2 ALTO (2:15) - C*__Ab* Gb* F* Eb*__C
• phrase 3 TENOR (2:26) - Ab** F** Eb**__F** B* Bb* Ab*__F* Ab* Ab*
• phrase 3 ALTO (2:26) - Eb** C* Bb*__C* Gb* F* Eb*__C Eb* Eb*
• phrase 4 TENOR (3:02) - C* Db* D**__Eb** B* Bb* Ab* F* Eb*__Eb* Eb*
• phrase 4 ALTO (3:02) - G* Ab* A*__Bb* Gb* F* Eb* C* Bb__Bb Bb

What key is Old Time Rock And Roll in?

• Old Time Rock And Roll is in concert F# major, which makes it Ab major for tenor sax and Eb major for alto sax
• this is quite an unusual key for rock n roll!

Is it easy to play Old Time Rock And Roll?

• although most of it is ok, it's not a very easy solo to play on tenor sax because of the high Ab
• the solo is easier to play on alto sax
• as with all solos, the devil is in the detail. The notes aren't very hard, but attention must be paid to the phrasing, groove, sound (growls etc) and articulation if you want to sound good

So that's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed learning how to play another classic sax solo. Don't forget to get your free PDF sheet music for Old Time Rock And Roll and I'll see you next week for a real corker - John Helliwell's epic alto sax solo on The Logical Song by Supertramp. Jamie :-)

Video Time Stamps

0:00 - intro performance of Old Time Rock And Roll - Bob Seger

0:15 - brief intro and titles

0:33 - about the track and Risky Business

1:16 - how to get your free pdf sheet music for Old Time Rock And Roll

1:44 - phrase 1

2:15 - phrase 2

2:26 - phrase 3

3:02 - phrase 4

3:17 - the hall of fame sax series

3:35 - putting it all together

3:46 - WHOLE PERFORMANCE

4:06 - how to bend notes etc on sax

4:25 - outro and end cards

Video Transcript

Welcome back to Get Your Sax Together, I'm pro saxophonist Jamie Anderson. This week I'm gonna teach you how to play the saxophone solo from "Old Time Rock And Roll" by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.

The saxophonist on Old Time Rock And Roll has got the rather unlikely name, although very appropriate name for saxophone, of Alto Reed. That's possibly not his birth name? Sorry Alto if that is your birth name, but his name is Alto Reed. Very appropriate for being a sax player of course!

This track is taken from the Bob Seger's 1978 album Stranger In Town and it's got one of the most famous sax solos of all time. The track was made particularly famous after the 1983 movie Risky Business featuring Tom Cruise.

I'm gonna breakdown the solo down into four separate phrases, two bars each, in the way we always do. They'll be notes for alto and tenor so you can really get a grip of this great tune.

If you don't want to remember it all at this time godown straight into the description and get your PDF which looks like this... dah dah......that is transcribed for alto and tenor and very neatly and painstakingly copied by me, but I'll give it to you for free! Just go down into the description and click the link and you are game on for that lovely piece of work.

Okay, without further ado let's get straight into it and learn the first phrase of this iconic solo. I'm gonna play it nice and slowly so you can learn it, here we go.

You've probably noticed that Alto Reed plays this solo with quite a growly, gravelly tone. If you want to learn how to growl on saxophone go to the card linked right up there now and I'll teach you how to do it! There you go, special bonus.

Okay let's move on to the second phrase here it is played nice and slow for you…

The third phrase is a little bit gnarly for tenor because it goes up to a top Ab which is never the best note anyway and it’s pretty impressive the way Alto Reed gets this high Ab, he just cranks it out it's great. You might struggle with that. If you do struggle, take it down the octave. If you get your PDF from the description you will see that in the tenor part is marked as octave you can just play it down the octave - no big deal. Okay, here is the third phrase…

And finally, here is the fourth phrase broken down for you...If you're enjoying these videos learning how to play these really great famous solos please go up and look at the playlist I've made called Sax Hall of Fame, with a bunch of famous sax tunes all broken down - I've made it super simple for you to learn on sax, so go check that out.

Okay let's put this all together, let's put the four phrases together. As I sometimes do I've knocked up a backing track to go with this so it sounds a bit better and this is what it sounds like put together. Here we go!

In case you hadn't already noticed, this sax solo is full of scoops and bends and falls. Now if you want to master them I've made a whole video just covering how to do those things, how to get up to notes how to get down from notes and the video is linked now on the cards, so go and check that one out.

If you’re enjoying the channel you can give me a bit of feedback and help me keep these videos coming to you - go and click the subscribe button if you haven't already you can also click the bell icon - you'll be notified when I upload new videos. Which, by the way, is every Sunday 7 a.m. in UK time. Saxing up your Sunday man!

You can also leave a comment and go and get your PDF from the description. There’ll be much more sax content coming up, including a great show next week so please tune in, keep practicing and I'll look forward seeing you there. See you later guys. Bye!