Can't find what you are looking for?
Email Kate Linton the Music Librarian for Instruction and Outreach for research assistance and searching strategies.
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Library Search This link opens in a new window
Check out the Library Search which finds print and electronic items, including journal and newspaper articles, book chapters, books, reviews, legal documents, and much more. Note: Due to licensing restrictions, some content is only available to current students, faculty, and staff.
Finding Repertoire for the Saxophone:
If you're looking for new repertoire to perform, it is often helpful to browse the Music Library's scores. The following call number ranges are for saxophone music; individual works within these numbers are arranged alphabetically by composer or arranger:
- M105-M109, Saxophone alone
- M268-M269, Saxophone and piano
- M1034 .S4, Saxophone with orchestra (full score)
- M1035.S4, Saxophone with orchestra (piano reduction)
- M1134.S4, Saxophone with string orchestra (full score)
- M1134.S4, Saxophone with string orchestra (piano reduction)
- M1205-M1206, Solo instrument with band
Excerpts, etudes, and instructional materials are classified in the MT range and housed in the same location as books about music (MLs):
- MT500, General works
- MT502, Systems and methods
- MT505, Studies and exercises
- MT506, Orchestral studies (excerpts)
Books and bibliographies MLs:
- ML128 .S247, Saxophone bibliographies
- ML975, General works
- ML976, Construction
- ML978, Music and playing
Advanced Search Using Subject Headings
Scores, books, and other materials are assigned subject headings (LCSH) by cataloging librarians. It describes what the item's content is about and helps you find related repertoire or search for different works based on instrumentation. Subject Headings are a controlled vocabulary system.
Use the Advanced Search function in the VU Library Catalog and change the drop down menu to search "subject."
- Solo saxophone music, sonatas (saxophone); saxophone music; suites (saxophone)
- Saxophone and piano, rondos (saxophone and piano), sonatas (saxophone and piano), rondos (saxophone and piano)
- Duets, saxophone music (saxophone (2)); basson and saxophone music; oboe and saxophone music, etc.
- Trios, woodwind trios (saxophone, oboe, flute) mix combinations, wind trios
- Quartets, woodwind quartets, wind quartets, mix combinations
- Quintets, woodwind quintets, mix combinations
- Saxophone and Orchestra, concertos (saxophone); saxophone with orchestra
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A Comprehensive Guide to the Saxophone Repertoire 1844-2003
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Call Number: REFERENCE: ML128 .S247 L63 2003The only comprehensive bibliographical index of music for saxophone. More than 18,000 works for saxophone from 1844-2003, the entire lifespan of the saxophone, are cross-indexed by composer and instrumentation. Each entry includes title, duration, year of composition, publisher, arranger, dedicatee, movement titles, and composer information.
The following websites and resources consist of external databases and pages dedicated to clarinet repertoire and resources. Remember to search the library catalog to see if the library currently owns the item you are looking for. If the library does not own it, submit a purchase request.
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Saxophone.orgCompiles content relevant to the history of the saxophone, development, and use and makes content freely available to researchers, scholars, historians, and ethusiasts.
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No Broken Linkshighlights solo and chamber music that includes flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone, and/or horn (in any instrumental combination) by composers from communities who continue to face marginalization in the field of classical music and new music due to the institutionalization and codification of music education and canonization through Western ideals such as white supremacy, ableism, colonization, and male dominance, to name a few.
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American Composers Alliance (ACA)publishing administrator for American concert music, representing composers and estates through several generations of creative work
-- Browsing publishing companies is a great way to find repertoire
-- Browse by woodwinds or clarinet works
-- Always search the VU Library Catalog to see if we own the score. If we don't own the score, email us to make a purchase request. -
Institute for Composer DiversityBy exploring how repertoire is being programmed within professional and educational settings, ICD is helping to shed light on how that repertoire can be diversified.
-- Browse by composer, works, instrumentation -
Contemporary Music Score CollectionThe Contemporary Music Score Collection is published by the Walter H. Rubsamen Music Library. The collection includes digital, open access scores. The Contemporary Music Score Collection is made possible because of the Hugo and Christine Davise Fund for Contemporary Music.
North American Saxophone Alliance:
- provides resources for saxophonists at all levels of skill, of all ages and backgrounds
- fosters and facilitates the creation of new repertoire
- Biennial conferences with regional conferences on alternating years
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BetterSax PodcastHosted by Jay Metcalf. Includes interviews with some of the best saxophone players around the world.
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Everything Saxophone PodcastHosted by Donna Schwartz. Interviews, news, and reviews with saxophonists in the world today.
While the Wilson Music Library stores some music collections onsite, Vanderbilt University Special Collections and University Archives houses the bulk of collections that include music materials. Certain materials of direct interest to music scholars (including music manuscripts) are better housed in the controlled environment at Special Collections. Materials acquired with the Academic Archives Purchasing Fund to support the partnership between Vanderbilt and the National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM) are also stored at SCUA. The collections listed below contain materials related to music, dance, and theater. A link is included to the appropriate Collection Finding Aid. Additional information on the Blair School of Music and materials related to the George Peabody College for Teachers are held in the University Archives.
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The Yusef A. Lateef Collection, MSS.1034Yusef Lateef (b. Chattanooga, TN, Oct. 9, 1920; d. Shutesbury, MA, July 25, 2013) was an American tenor saxophonist, flutist, and composer. The Yusef A. Lateef Collection (1950–2019) consists of scores, pedagogical materials, recordings, and other materials related to the musical career of Yusef A. Lateef (1920–2013). The collection is organized into fifteen series. The first contains a large group of scores and parts, organized alphabetically by title.
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Down in AtlantaScore completed for soprano saxophone solo, percussion, and string orchestra
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RamificationsManuscript. Ensemble ("Yusef" C flute, "Ralph" soprano saxophone, violin, voice, doublebass, harp and xlyophone
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CompassionManuscript. Believed to be completed. for ensemble of clarinet, soprano saxophone, Kurtzweil and more.
Other special collections items or rare materials including manuscripts or facsimiles are available for viewing in the Music Library Special Collections Room. Please email a library staff member or speak with staff at the desk to book an appointment to view materials in the Special Collections Room. To learn more about special collections, visit the Special Collections at the Wilson Music Library LibGuide.
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Saxophone Soloists and Their Music, 1844-1985
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Call Number: ML128 .S247 G4 1986
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The Cambridge Companion to the Saxophone
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The Cambridge Companion to the Saxophone, first published in 1999, tells the story of the saxophone, its history and technical development from Adolphe Sax (who invented it c. 1840) to the end of the twentieth century. It includes extensive accounts of the instrument's history in jazz, rock and classical music as well as providing practical performance guides. Discussion of the repertoire and soloists from 1850 to the present day includes accessible descriptions of contemporary techniques and trends, and moves into the electronic age with midi wind instruments. There is a discussion of the function of the saxophone in the orchestra, in 'light music' and in rock and pop studios, as well as of the saxophone quartet as an important chamber music medium. The contributors to this volume are some of the finest performers and experts on the saxophone.
Call Number: E-book, Online Access -
Playing and Teaching the Saxophone
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Playing and Teaching the Saxophone: A Modern Approach provides a method for teaching the saxophone that is specific enough to use as a textbook in a collegiate saxophone methods class, simple enough for a band director to use in guiding their saxophone sections, clear enough for adult beginners to teach themselves the instrument, and deep enough for professionals to use as a resource in teaching private lessons at any level.The first sections of this book, Getting Started and Learning the Notes, take a student in a collegiate methods class or other adult beginner through the fundamental concepts of playing the saxophone. The In-Depth section then lays out critical concepts that are essential to the further development of any saxophonist. As a contemporary guide for teaching the musicians and music educators of the 21st century, this method addresses the pedagogy of not only the instrument, but of the whole student. It includes a diverse array of musical examples that celebrate communities and cultures around the globe, and a "Wellness for the Young Musician" chapter offers an overview of practices that will help students navigate performance anxiety and avoid injury while playing.Designed to be a lifelong reference for band directors and private instructors, the book includes "Hand-It-Over" sections that can be used as student instructional sheets. These materials, along with video performances and teaching demonstrations, are also available in the book's companion website.
Call Number: E-book, Online Access -
How Saxophonists Understand Their Music
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Foreword / Dr. Peter Wood -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Geoffrey Deibel -- Jared Sims -- Ed Calle -- Michael Lington -- Brian Utley -- Index.
Call Number: MT500 .E73 2019
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The Raschèr Reader
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The Rascher Reader is a compendium of over 200 articles written by or about Sigurd M. Rascher and compiled by Lee Patrick. The book presents such topics as: saxophone pedagogy, the nature of music, music education, history of the saxophone, the use of nuclear power, and much more.
Call Number: ML419 .R223 P38 2014 -
Saxophone Colossus
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**Winner of the American Book Award (2023)** The long-awaited first full biography of legendary jazz saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins Sonny Rollins has long been considered an enigma. Known as the "Saxophone Colossus," he is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz improvisers of all time, winning Grammys, the Austrian Cross of Honor, Sweden's Polar Music Prize and a National Medal of Arts. A bridge from bebop to the avant-garde, he is a lasting link to the golden age of jazz, pictured in the iconic "Great Day in Harlem" portrait. His seven-decade career has been well documented, but the backstage life of the man once called "the only jazz recluse" has gone largely untold--until now. Based on more than 200 interviews with Rollins himself, family members, friends, and collaborators, as well as Rollins' extensive personal archive, Saxophone Colossus is the comprehensive portrait of this legendary saxophonist and composer, civil rights activist and environmentalist. A child of the Harlem Renaissance, Rollins' precocious talent landed him on the bandstand and in the recording studio with Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, or playing opposite Billie Holiday. An icon in his own right, he recorded Tenor Madness, featuring John Coltrane; Way Out West; Freedom Suite, the first civil rights-themed album of the hard bop era; A Night at the Village Vanguard; and the 1956 classic Saxophone Colossus. Yet his meteoric rise to fame was not without its challenges. He served two sentences on Rikers Island and won his battle with heroin addiction. In 1959, Rollins took a two-year sabbatical from recording and performing, practicing up to 16 hours a day on the Williamsburg Bridge. In 1968, he left again to study at an ashram in India. He returned to performing from 1971 until his retirement in 2012. The story of Sonny Rollins--innovative, unpredictable, larger than life--is the story of jazz itself, and Sonny's own narrative is as timeless and timely as the art form he represents. Part jazz oral history told in the musicians' own words, part chronicle of one man's quest for social justice and spiritual enlightenment, this is the definitive biography of one of the most enduring and influential artists in jazz and American history.
Call Number: ML419 .R64 L48 2023 -
Saxophone
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Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. The saxophone is a contradictory instrument that has rooted itself in the soil of pop culture. It's the "devil's horn," it's the voice of jazz -- an extension of the player's soul -- it is a character trait of U.S. Presidents, YouTube sensations, and cartoon characters. It has both enhanced and ruined songs, it is sensuous yet abrasive, and it is the only instrument widely excluded from symphonies and orchestras, never quite being taken seriously. As an object that is symbolic of living on the margins of society, the saxophone has never been kind to its players. Blending research, cultural criticism, and personal narrative about her saxophonist father, who lived on the margins until his unexpected death, Mollie Hawkins explores more than just the history of this expressive instrument. She illuminates the dark paths that our passions can lead us down. Saxophone turns the lens around to ask us all: what does it mean to devote your life to such an object -- even if it kills you? Can music hold such power over us?
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The Saxophone
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In the first fully comprehensive study of one of the world's most iconic musical instruments, Stephen Cottrell examines the saxophone's various social, historical, and cultural trajectories, and illustrates how and why this instrument, with its idiosyncratic shape and sound, became important for so many different music-makers around the world. After considering what led inventor Adolphe Sax to develop this new musical wind instrument, Cottrell explores changes in saxophone design since the 1840s before examining the instrument's role in a variety of contexts: in the military bands that contributed so much to the saxophone's global dissemination during the nineteenth century; as part of the rapid expansion of American popular music around the turn of the twentieth century; in classical and contemporary art music; in world and popular music; and, of course, in jazz, a musical style with which the saxophone has become closely identified.
Call Number: E-book, Online Access -
Wind Talk for Woodwinds
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Wind Talk for Woodwinds provides instrumental music teachers, practitioners, and students with a handy, easy-to-use pedagogical resource for woodwind instruments found in school instrumental programs. With thorough coverage of the most common woodwind instruments - flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, and bassoon - the book offers the most topical and information necessary for effective teaching. This includes terminology, topics, and concepts associated with each specific instrument, along with teaching suggestions that can be applied in the classroom. Be sure to look to the back of the book for a "Practical Tips" section, which discusses common technical faults and corrections, common problems with sound (as well as their causes and solutions to them), fingering charts, literature lists (study materials, method books, and solos), as well as a list of additional resources relevant to teaching woodwind instruments (articles, websites, audio recordings). Without question, Wind Talk for Woodwinds stands alone as an invaluable resource for woodwinds!
Call Number: MT339.5 .E49 2009
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Resource Exploration and Evaluation-- Download the excel file and follow directions provided for your own adventure and fill in the boxes (some questions will be provided for you).
-- Learn to search for repertoire and compare the information included in the resources. You will search the VU Library Catalog, Digital Score Databases, and Other Web Resources.
-- Evaluate The Clarinet publication and a Special Collection Resource.
-- Email the Music Librarian with your finished Excel Sheet.
