Full Arrangements of Sheet Music with Chord Symbols

[ButterFingers]

Hello, got loads of books and sheet music for the Organ, but I am finding it hard to find Pop Arrangements in full of most pieces. The Complete Organ Player are all simple and short, I have found the odd one in a book, but still not very comprehensive.

For Example: Say I wanted a full Pop arrangement of the Moonlight sonata for organ to play in the style of Clayderman. Or A tango by Piazzolla or any of the Beatles I have a simple versions, but cannot find full versions. There are full arrangements out there but they either lack chord symbols or bass pedal lines. I could do them all myself, but what a laborious task, and often I do not have time. whilst I can myself improvise a bass line, it is harder for a pupil, again I could write the bass line in but again this is time consuming.

Some of my Pupils ask for full Pop arrangements of Classical Organ Pieces but again, I have never seen any. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for example. I wouldn't mind a few of those myself.

Are there full pop arrangements out there with complete original chords and bass lines without simplification. If so, can anyone recommend any.

I am sure others would love to know

Thank you

[Markr]

Hi, my first port of call is always www.sheetmusicdirect.com - I use it quite a lot, but not sure they will have pop versions of classics though, as more geared towards in print pop stuff.

[seamaster]

The Home Organist Library series is exactly what you're looking for, but I suspect most if not all of them are out of print now.

[KRG]

Have a look on the Music Traders website (https://www.musictraders.co.uk/). They sell a couple of USB sticks full of music. I have stick2 and it is a great resource.

[andyg]

sheetmusicdirect.com or musicnotes.com are two of the sites where I send my students for full versions of pieces. They might start with the easy version but for exams, they'll have to come up with something far better.

You can find many pop songs, like the Beatles you mentioned, are available in what's called Piano/Vocal/Guitar format. Usually around £3 a song. Three staves with the melody on the top one with chords above. You can then get your students to read the piano staves to find out where the real notes and the chord symbols and especially bass notes disagree with the chord symbols (often!). If they can't read bass clef, they'll just have to learn (it's part of theory teaching anyway, of course!). There are plenty of albums of music like that too. One on my music desk now is 'Carpenters Anthology', which has all their major hits, in the original keys, with intros, bridges, key changes and endings. The melody lines are written as close as possible to the way that Karen Carpenter sang them.

As for arrangements of the classic in organ format, there were the two books by Kenneth Baker years ago - 50 Favourite Classics.... - but they're truncated and not always correct, as Ken was having to dumb it down a bit! His Toccata in D Minor (not the Fugue!), for example, starts well but chickens out at the end, so I write that part out and as students learn the piece, I add in some of the missing parts. And of course, they have to have a copy of the original for reference.

Other classical pieces arranged for home organ? Nope, I haven't come across much - I think you'll have to write them out, as I do.

Non classical books to look for include the Complete Organ Player Professional Series, The Gentle Touch series, the Organ Gold series, any books by Bill Irwin, William McMains, and the Hal Leonard Professional series by organists like Rosemary Bailey and Ralph Wolff. All out of print, so ebay is the way to go and be prepared to buy in bulk. When someone passes away, the family often find that the music is worth more than the organ!

And I'll scour the charity shops for sheet music. Not many seem to do it, but I have a couple nearby that do and I've found a few gems, again where a family has just given a whole collection away.

[abacus]

Find a suitable Midi file that has what you want (There are boat loads on the web) then download the free version of Musescore, load in the Midi file and print off the notation. NOTE: some editing will be required. (Most DAWs also have this option so if you already have a DAW you can probably use that)

Bill

[andyg]

'some' editing...... ROFL

But it's well worth a try.

[seamaster]

And I'll scour the charity shops for sheet music. Not many seem to do it, but I have a couple nearby that do and I've found a few gems, again where a family has just given a whole collection away.

If you ever find yourself in south-west Scotland, be sure to check out this place, it has a MASSIVE selection of second hand sheet music.

http://oldbankbookshop.co.uk

They have loads of old organ owner's manuals too.