Customer Reviews

Rent: Vocal Selections (Essential Musicals)

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The selections in this collection match the selections featured on the RENT - selections album. Unfortunately, this means that many of the best songs in the full score are cut out (including: Light my Candle, La Vie Boheme... I Should Tell You, etc.), because they involve sung dialogue rather than "liftable" songs (songs that work out of context). Another drawback is that in general, songs written for a rock band (featuring extensive guitar) do not transcribe well to solo piano (guitar chords are included in this book, though). With this in mind, however, there is still a lot of good things about this collection. Larson's great ballad-esque songs, like "I'll cover you," "Your eyes," "Without You," and "Seasons of Love" work very well as piano/vocal. Other, more rock-sounding songs such as "Rent," "Out tonight," and "What you own" are still doable. As written they may sound a little awkward, but people who have had experience playing rock piano may find that with a little fiddling with the written notes a decent version can be produced. Even if you don't have experience playing rock piano, if you have more experience playing other Broadway music you can still learn a lot from working with these songs and trying out different things. Other songs included are: "Take me or Leave me," "Another Day," "Halloween," and "Santa Fe." "Take me" didn't transcribe well (esp. the vocal line) due to the bluesy pitches of the song, but the main riff and the chords are accurate. "Another day" contains both the rock elements and the balladesque elements, but the rock elements do not require many changes."Halloween" transcribes faithfully and works well; "Santa Fe" is transcribed well, but since much of it is spoken it is also a little odd. Overall this book is well done. The songs are all faithful in spirit to the album, although at times a pitch is written differently from the orig. broadway cast recording. The song where this is most apparent is in "Seasons of Love" where it appears that the two soloists' lines were mostly improvised. Although I usually prefer for a song's accompaniment to reflect the actual full score, in the case of these songs such accompaniment is repetitive and adding the vocal line (which is actually a very standard practice for vocal selections) was very welcome. RENT has become a part of the modern musical theater canon, and so this book has become necessary for any Broadway-lover's sheet music collection.

Rent- Interesting. Most authentic in the Collins part
(Allison, baby...) and the JoAnne part (your new production manager...). Play the chords, not the melody

One Song Glory- In the OBC CD, the guitar does that little pluck then echo thing, which isn't great when you try it on the piano. The only complaint I have about this song is that I don't really know when to switch from 'plucking' the notes to actually playing the chords, etc.

Out Tonight- Not what I expected, but can still work. The song itself is very repetitive. Possible to add the melody line here. Takes some improv.

Another Day- Probably my favorite song to play in the book. It's very long, but written SO WELL. The part that I think is the weakest is 'I can't control....is just to be.' When you get to 'the heart may freeze' and 'there's only us' I would suggest playing the broken chordswritten on top. Sounds really good. Make sure to familiarize yourself with that part before you play, it can be somewhat hard.

Santa Fe- This isn't even a song, let alone can you put a piano in it. It needs a bass and drums. VERY DIFFICULT because you're not playing to sung words, most of the song is sung. I'd rather see La Vie Boheme in there...

I'll Cover You- Works a lot. My suggestion would be, in the beginning, to play the intro with your left hand in the bass and just play the chords, until Collins comes in, then play what's written. It's fun to play the reprise- Just slow it down, play the chords, add a little swing to it, and play some Seasons of Love.

Seasons of Love- If you ever want to play a Rent song at a party, a local benefit, or WHATEVER, get a group of friends together and DO THIS SONG!!! If you play it the way it's supposed to be (not really the way it's written) it will be AMAZING. Since the actual song involves a piano MAJORLY, that will make this much more impressive than something that should be played by a guitar. Keep playing the intro- works best without the melody.

Take Me Or Leave Me- Another song that works well with piano. The melody is a bit wierd, perhaps because it's afunky blues type of song. When you get to the part 'so be wise.......that I'm your baby,' it gets hard and doesn't make too much sense. Just keep working on it.

Without You- Melodic song, but very, VERY repetitive. Not one of my favorites. The melody is the same 1-5 (Do-Sol), it just changes key a couple of times. Simple, but you're playing most of it in bass clef, which adds some difficulty (some people can't read bass clef that well).

Halloween- Kind of hard to get the bass and the treble coordinated. Takes time and practice to get the beats right. Complaint- 'why our entire years....3-D imax of my mind' is not great. I like it though, but it's pretty short.

What You Own- Ehh...One of my favorite songs in the OBC CD, but doesn't do well here. Melody line can work in this song. You need to add your own chords, so become familiar with the song.

Your Eyes- Good, does really well on the piano. I like it a lot.

The piano/vocal selections from "Rent" are the best. Okay, so they don't sound EXACTLY like the recording, but nothing's perfect. All of my favorite songs are in the book, and most of them work well on piano. Some of the rhythm patterns in the rock songs (like "Rent", "Out Tonight", and "What You Own") may be and should be altered so it would sound right on the piano. Songs like "Halloween" and "Another Day" are transcribed perfectly. All of the songs are great and there are cool pictures in the front of the book too.

Overall -- I am pretty pleased with this selection of numbers from RENT, the best show to ever hit Broadway. I was a little bummed that only 12 numbers managed to make it's way to this book, especially because some of them work -- and some of them don't.

Rent - The song Rent doesn't really work at all. There isn't enough on piano to do, so it just, simply, doesn't work. This one is probobly the most dissapointing in the book.

One Song Glory - It was relatively empty on the OBC (the backgroung music, I mean) so if it soudns bare on piano, I still think it works.

Out Tonight - I actually, for a rock song, think this one transcribe's excellently. It definately sounds different than the OBC, but it's a lot of fun to sing. And all I need to do is bring the key down 2 1/2 steps, change a few of the words, and it's fun for even this guy to sing. One of my favorites in the book.

Another Day - I haven't worked on this one too much, but it sounds decent enough.

Santa Fe - Can't for the LIFE of me think as to why they put this in there. It doesn't work on piano. To me, it barely even works as a song -- but I was dissapointed that this was included. Too much speaking anyway.

I'll Cover You - Pretty enough song, and it works on piano -- but more importantly .. you can use the chords, gospel it up, and there you have I'll Cover You: Reprise.

Seasons of Love - This works perfectly. I like it better when you don't include the melody line in the playing, because then, if you sing it, it is more authentic. I love singing this piece.

Take Me or Leave Me - I think it works better, again, if you don't play the melody line -- but this is another one that I think sounds absolutely great.

Without You - Very repetitive, but that's the nature of the song. It's a nice song, but I can RARELY get to the end of it.

Halloween - Pretty song, and it works on piano. But, as piano/vocal books go, the melody line played in the piano doesn't work, unless you aren't singing.

What You Own - I never play the treble line, I simply play the bass line and add more full chords through the song, and it works very well.

Your Eyes - Pretty song, and it works on piano.

Highlights:
Seasons of Love
Take Me or Leave Me
What You Own
Out Tonight

Speaking as one of the biggest fans of "Rent" in the world, I can sincerely say that this collection of songs by Jonathan Larson simply does not work on the piano. The only song that seems to even remotely work is "Seasons of Love". I have a feeling that "Your Eyes" and "One Song, Glory" might work if played on the guitar, but since I'm not a guitarist, I'm not sure. / One doesn't realize how repetitious songs such as "Without You" are until one attempts to play them on a solo instrument. And the heavier rock songs like "Rent", "Out Tonight", and "What You Own" just sound stupid played on the piano. They're meant to be sung at the top of one's lungs, while accompanied by eletric guitars, keyboards, and drums. "Santa Fe" and "Halloween" have so many speaking parts in them, I wonder how on earth they ever made it in to the collection in the first place. "Take Me Or Leave Me" is a fabulous song, but it also sounds awful when played on the piano. / Secondly, many songs were left out of this book which I feel might have worked on the piano. I can see leaving out songs like "Light My Candle" ,"La Vie Boheme", and "Tango: Maureen"...they clearly wouldn't work on the piano. But where were some of the slower songs, such as "I Should Tell You"? / As I said before, I am a die-hard fan of "Rent" and I love every single song from it. However, this collection is an extremely awkward and empty representation of the music from "Rent". I was disappointed.

I just got this book today. It is really fun to play piano and guitar and sing along with. While I agree that some songs like Out Tonight and Rent sound pretty strange, how did one expect them to sound? There is pretty much no way a book could turn those songs into how they sound on the CD and stage. Your Eyes and Halloween translate very well to the piano and so does Without You. In fact, most of the songs sound very good. Guitar chords are included with fingerings to make it easier, and there are 2 pages of pictures. I really like this and I think anyone who wants to audition with a song from Rent should get this. songs included: another day/ halloween/ i'll cover you/ one song glory/ out tonight/ rent/ santa fe/ seasons of love/ take me or leave me/ what you own/ without you/ your eyes/

This is a great vocal selection book, however, it only has 12 songs. RENT the movie vocal selections has 18. The music is pretty much the same in both, even though some of the words are changed in the movie book. I think the movie selection book is only $1 more and it's well worth it. If you are a hardcore RENThead like me though, you may prefer the OBC (original broadway cast) vocal book because it is more true to Jonathan Larson's original production.

Well sadly I didn't buy this book from here (I payed full price but it was well worth it). I play it almost every day and I love it. I like the pictures at the beginning (my pages are falling out! I look at them so much) I strongly suggest it, but a warning it doesn't contain all the music from the soundtrack.

The essence of Rent was absolutely captured in this vocal selections book, with great songs such as "One Song Glory", "Another Day/No Day But Today", and "Your Eyes", included, however I was disappointed to see that songs such as "Over the Moon", and my personal favorite "La Vie Boheme" were not included. Guitar chords above measures in the music make easy for a non-piano expert such as myself to play the songs and sing along. Now this is not an original broadway score, and some songs sound awkward on the piano, but once a person is set with just sitting down at the piano to have fun playing their favorite Rent songs, this book is perfect.

I was looking for musical scores when I saw this one from RENT, and as a major fan of RENT, I had to buy it. I can't play any of the songs, sadly, but I love them and I can sing some of them...::sings:: Take me for what I am...who I was meant to beeeeee...