Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75456 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Customer Reviews

Good, but it's not what he played
If you listen carefully to the recordings, you'll find the piano arrangements very different to what's here (I think he played 'stride' piano, but not sure).

The arrangements here are nice, and for the most part include the melody on the top of the right hand, which makes for more interesting playing than just chords. In terms of difficulty, it varies from really quite easy 'The Old Dope Peddler' for example, to more complex - 'Vatican Rag' etc. Most of it should be within the grasp of people with grade 6 or so.

Unfortunately, not all the piano parts are there. In 'New Math' for example, only the chorus is provided, and you are invited to come up with a chord pattern for the verses. If you find this hard, find it on a midi file, and convert that to sheet music and play that. (All the lyrics, are, of course, provided). Similarly 'Lobachevsky' has no music provided - only the lyrics.

Chords are included.

The book itself is not very well bound, and falls to bits when you try and bend it to stay open.

Overall a good book to get if you like Lehrer's music, but not quite as good as it could be. And if you get it, make sure you read the foreword - very funny!

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come back tomorrow night, we're gonna do - fractions!
I agree with most of the comments above, it's pretty good for anyone who wants to do their own versions of Lehrer's songs. Guitar chord boxes mean that you don't technically need to be able to read music to be able to make up an accompaniment. I tend to mix the two, not being a great pianist, nor very keen on following things to the note.

Fortunately most of the little fills, intros etc are there, so you can learn those and make the songs sound roughly like Tom does, then play any old accompaniment underneath if you so wish. Which is closer to Lehrer's own performances anyway, since (with a few notable exceptions) his piano parts are generally quite basic and support the tune, as they should of course.

A shame OEdipus Rex, Clementine and It Makes a Fellow Proud to be a Soldier from An Evening Wasted With... are missing. Especially the first; the bluesy little riff he plays at the end of each verse makes the song for me, and is an integral part of what makes it so funny.

And the book itself is nigh-on impossible to stand up on a music stand, especially if the latter has nothing to hold it up! This is a real pain! A real shame, too.

If you like Tom Lehrer, you'll love this - ALL the lyrics
To quote the man: "Life is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it". Tom Lehrer used to be a mathematican at Harvard in the '50s. That didn't pay so he started writing highly satirical, usually tasteless, and extremely funny songs. This has all the lyrics and most of the music from all his albums, plus the specials for the 1983 revue "Tom Foolery", and the songs he wrote for "The Electric Company". If you know "The Elements", "The Masochism Tango" or "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park", you need this book. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then buy the CD "An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer" first.