Customer Reviews

Essential Elements 2000, Book 1 Plus DVD: Bb Tenor Saxophone

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The "Essential Elements 2000: A Comprehensive Band Method" is a great book for a young person who is learning an instrument for the first time. There is a fingering chart in the back of the book to make looking up fingerings quick and easy. The book starts off very basic with the parts of the instrument. The easiest notes to play and finger are presented first with exercises to practice them. This book comes with a play-along CD. This CD includes all solo exercises.

Hal Leonard also offers (though not through Amazon) band sets for band directors. They are simple arrangements of music that correlate with the book. They are great for the first concert.

There is an older version of this book called "Essential Elements: A Comprehensive Band Method". The book is purple and has many of the same features as this one, but the CDs have to purchased separately.

The training DVD uses a girl to demonstrate handling and playing the Tenor Sax.
I almost had kittens watching the way this girl handled her sax.
I would NOT recommend you let your young person follow this method.
As with all these Essential Elements books, there is a catch
The first set of background music is free BUT you have to register and pay quite a high fee to get access to the rest of them.
The blurb claims real band used for backing music BUT again only a few of the tracks are with a real band, the rest is the electronic nonsense often used.
OK for an absolute beginner perhaps but too simplistic otherwise.

I've not played a sax for decades and even forgot how to read music, but this book was terrific in getting me going again. I have book 2 also. I'm actually using it for a soprano sax, as they are the same key.

The book was new as promise, and I was very satisfied with the delivery time the next day