Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
generally good, although not complete, August 17, 2003
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.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rent is the best!, December 28, 1999
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.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Song by song from a piano expert, April 22, 2006
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.
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