Tech/maintenance C#2 Very Flat

[turf3]

The palm key D alone is going to give you a good accurate middle D, no C#. I suppose you might be able to eke out a sort of C# by closing everything and opening palm D, but these alternate fingerings generally make it harder to move quickly to and from.

 

[JayeNM]

D as in dates... ahhh, those grow on palms, not just coconuts...

Better Palm Dates....than a date with your palm....I always say....

 

[JayeNM]

I think the use of palm D without octave key is quite common for D2 and is notated on several transcriptions where the transcriber has presumably heard the different tone quality / density.

Rhys

I have always been told that it is a 'cheat fingering'....but improper. Good if you are doing a quick passage where the D2 is a passing note, not being held ....

Some famous jazzers havd been caught on film doing this, over time.

As a tech, I would agree this is a 'cheat'. On Tenor, most of time, the intonation is...somewhere in the neighborhood of what D2 octave key fingering would be.

But when you get to shorter body tubes....alto, soprano, oftentimes it becomes quite noticeable that this fingering is not producing a proper intonation.

When I was first messing with sax, no formal lessons, I learned a few tunes and played them for a couple of experienced sax players who were friends. On both occasions, they saw me playing D2 palm, and they caught me.

One said "that's not actually a real fingering"...the other said ' cool, but what the heck was THAT ?'

So I would say...use it IF your particular horn has it intone within, I dunno, 12-15 cents .... and you do not need to play a whole note...you can get away with it...in most contexts...

 

[JayeNM]

For once I haven't measured it. Around 35-40 cents would be my guess.

Can you measure it and tell us ? Big diff between it being 20 cents off and 35...it'd be helpful for us to give suggestions

 

[turf3]

I have always been told that it is a 'cheat fingering'....but improper. Good if you are doing a quick passage where the D2 is a passing note, not being held ....

Some famous jazzers havd been caught on film doing this, over time.

As a tech, I would agree this is a 'cheat'. On Tenor, most of time, the intonation is...somewhere in the neighborhood of what D2 octave key fingering would be.

But when you get to shorter body tubes....alto, soprano, oftentimes it becomes quite noticeable that this fingering is not producing a proper intonation.

I often use these kinds of fingerings when playing lead and needing to cut the band off at the end of a tune.

 

[JayeNM]

D as in dates... ahhh, those grow on palms, not just coconuts...

@Veggie Dave, have somebody look over the entire regulation.

My guess is that your palm keys are way too open, so those notes are sharp and then the C# will be flat - relatively speaking. If you lower the palm keys to bring them in tune with the C#, then you have a good starting point for the rest of the regulation, my guess again is that all your keys are way too high. A good tech can probably fix this in an afternoon's time but it is a tedious labor of love procedure. And it is like a piano, you can only tune it when it is in tune, so it is a rinse and repeat procedure where you gradually sand off tiny amounts of the regulation/bar corks until you have the horn play in tune.

This would probably alleviate the issue quite a bit....

 

[JayeNM]

I often use these kinds of fingerings when playing lead and needing to cut the band off at the end of a tune.

Wait, you mean like everybody STOPS playing because they hear your sour note ? 😳

JK

Well, someone once told me Trane did this....so again, if one can get away with it intoning ok, I would use it...

 

[JSL]

I would think it was me if my tenor also had the issue, but that's close to perfect.

Solution is easy: Stick to tenor. 😉(Ok, just kidding, but I couldn't resist).

 

[skeller047]

Lots of tenor players use palm D w/o the octave key as D2. Dexter Gordon was fond of it, in particular. It’s a bit flat on many horns, but no more than10 cents.

Alto is a different story. I used to use C2 plus add the Eb palm key for a nice D2 on alto. These alternate fingerings are usedul if you are mostly in the lower register, and don’t want the D2 to stick out as a noticeably stuffy sounding note.

Another use for palm D is as an alternate octave key for D2. Finger D1, and add the palm D key, et voila - a very nice solid D2.

 

[Veggie Dave]

Solution is easy: Stick to tenor. 😉(Ok, just kidding, but I couldn't resist).

Already moved some alto songs over to tenor.

 

[Veggie Dave]

Can you measure it and tell us ? Big diff between it being 20 cents off and 35...it'd be helpful for us to give suggestions

I spend a lot of time listening to different peoples tunings thanks to the engineering/mixing I do (particularly as so many 'musicians' rely on autotune these days), so I'm pretty good at guessing these things ... but I was wrong in this case. I just did a quick test and it's between -37 and -45 cents. 😱

 

[JayeNM]

Actually you guessed close.
Yipes...that's big....

 

[LostCircuits]

I spend a lot of time listening to different peoples tunings thanks to the engineering/mixing I do (particularly as so many 'musicians' rely on autotune these days), so I'm pretty good at guessing these things ... but I was wrong in this case. I just did a quick test and it's between -37 and -45 cents. 😱

When you are in the area, stop by, you'll get it back the next day, it won't be perfect but probably a lot better. And, some other notes will be out of tune. 😉

 

[PigSquealer]

@Veggie Dave this below showed up on my instagram feed. I thought of you.

 

[SuperAction80]

This has been bugging me for a while now. C#2 on my EX90 II alto is very flat. It can be just about lipped up, but it's on the very limit of my lipping ability. Every other note on the horn is basically fine. Not as precise as my Keilwerth tenor but well within acceptable playability. To be honest, I don't use it that often but, of course, of the few times it comes out, that C# is a key note in most of the solos thanks to the popularity of certain keys with guitarists and pop song writers.

Is there anything I can have done to the alto to mitigate this issue in some way?

Since you're stating that your tenor is more precise than the equivalent alto, I'm going to venture a guess that there's something not sealing or venting correctly on the alto. Having not played on your particular horn myself, I can't say that with certainty, but I've played on a few EX90 II's in both pitches. Intonation issues are not the norm, so I'm assuming that the flat C# is a repairable outlier. Instead of attempting to compensate for the flat C#, I suggest going to a tech to see why the C# is this flat to begin with. You might as well bring up the other little problem spots that you alluded to as well. Get that alto to play as well as the tenor.

 

[LostCircuits]

why the C# is this flat to begin with

Because the palm keys are waayyyy too open. Simple as that!

 

[rhysonsax]

Because the palm keys are waayyyy too open. Simple as that!

But the palm keys are all closed for C# . I'm confused.

Rhys

 

[SuperAction80]

Because the palm keys are waayyyy too open. Simple as that!

The keys that are typically shut on all 3 standard octaves of C# are over venting from the closed position? Unless you mean that the rest of their scale is blowing very sharp, which makes the C# relatively flat. But if that were the case, the rest of the horn would be flat and the outliers would be the sharp palm keys.

I'm thinking that it's more likely that something in the main stack (probably the upper stack) isn't venting enough, but that's just a guess.

 

[PigSquealer]

Because the palm keys are waayyyy too open. Simple as that!

Are you smoking catnip or licking any frogs today 🤪. I’m an awful player, but I’m reasonably sure I don’t use palm keys for C#.

 

[Veggie Dave]

@Veggie Dave this below showed up on my instagram feed. I thought of you.
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I saw that, too! I did try their alternative fingering but it sounded even worse.

Clearly I need a new alto.