Saxophone beginners Chart with all standard and alternative fingering

[MLoosemore]

Thanks Colin and jbt... Guess I need music lessons in reading music. Can't get my head around the same note having different names and symbols... Condused? yes I usually am...

Will google enharmonics and try to make sense of them

 

[Colin the Bear]

The key signature is A major. Three sharps. F#C#G#. If the note was written on the F line it would be F# so it's written on the E line with a #. To avoid confusion allegedly.

 

[MLoosemore]

... To avoid confusion allegedly.

Not sure it is working ...

 

[Colin the Bear]

Many notes have two names.

A keyboard is the easiest way to see notes. A picture of one will do. The black notes are the sharps and flats between the white notes.

The black note between C and D is both C# and Db. String players consider these two notes to have a different pitch but on a keyboard they are the same. And since the saxophone was invented after the keyboard they are the same for us.

There are two places on the keyboard where white keys are adjacent. There is no black key between E and F or B and C.

B# is a semitone , one key up, from B. This is the C key.

So B# is C and E# is F. Same as C# is Db.

Music has a long history and written music has had to adapt to technological changes in instrumentation. There are remnants of past customs and practices littered throughout. Don't let this phase you. It's a robust system of notation that with a little study communicates sounds visually. Quite an achievment. Don't be surprised if there are bits that dont seem to make sense at first encounter.

 

[kevgermany]

The key signature is A major. Three sharps. F#C#G#. If the note was written on the F line it would be F# so it's written on the E line with a #. To avoid confusion allegedly.

Not really, it's because the composer has sharpened the E, if he wanted an F he'd use the natural sign. Same for the B#.

However another convention is to sharpen on the way up and flatten on the way down the scale.

Need to be careful, however, if you're using transposition software, it often gets these things wrong. even to the extent of adding a double sharp or double flat (which are legitimate - e.g. if you wanted to sharpen F#, it'd be a double sharp, not a G).

 

[sushidushi]

I think I prefer G to F##. And F to E#, C to B#. I'm sure there are.some very good reasons for the (to me) odd ways of writing those enharmonics, but I really don't like them.

 

[Colin the Bear]

They call them accidentals, but I think they do it on purpose.

 

[MLoosemore]

They call them accidentals, but I think they do it on purpose.

Thanks for the earlier reply Colin, I actually understood that. When it comes to reading music I am not totally clueless, as long as I know where I am starting from and the pitch of that note then I can sail up and down the lines pretty accurately. My problems start when having to give the little b*****s names and as for whether they are sharp going up or flat coming down that's when the wine bottle comes out.

As for Kev and Sushi????? (Great name for a meal) CHEERS!!!! double sharps and flats????? Whenever mine's a double that is not exactly what I had in mind.

But seriously and keeping this thread from drifting too far, your piano example actually made a lot of sense Colin :lb: I think I just might be able to figure out 'Autumn Leaves' now.... whether I can play it or not is another thing...... If I do then keep an eye on the other thread (assuming I can get the Audacity to put it on to the Cloud of sounds)

 

[kevgermany]

I think I prefer G to F##. And F to E#, C to B#. I'm sure there are.some very good reasons for the (to me) odd ways of writing those enharmonics, but I really don't like them.

Don't like it myself. The idea is that it preserves the harmonic structure. There's only one note for each letter in a scale. So you must have ABCDEFG in every scale. We adjust to maintain the diatonic using sharps and flats, so D has C# and F# for example. So if you want to sharpen the note, and make that clear structurally, it must be sharp F# or F double sharp, not a G. Makes more sense as you progress , but it's a real sticking point at first. Believe it or not, it makes things easier to read when you get used to it.

It can also help with transposition - take a tenor score for example. This is written a tone up from concert pitch. So to get back to concert pitch, you need to move all notes down by 1 tone. Now take the E# - transpose down a tone and it's clear it should be D#, not Eb. It's still a sharpened note, whereas if it'd been written as F, it'd be a flattened note. All roads lead to Rome, but the journey's different on each road.

You often see it when a composer repeats a phrase in a tune, but at a different pitch. By preserving the structure, it's easier for the eye to recognise that this is the same phrase at a different pitch. Whereas if the E# was written as F, it'd be on a different line of the stave and the pattern of the dots on the stave would be different.

 

[Profusia]

So you must have ABCDEFG in every scale.

Unless its a blues scale ;}

Sorry, flippant I know but I couldn't resist

 

[kevgermany]

Unless its a blues scale ;}

Sorry, flippant I know but I couldn't resist

Flippancy aside, it's a good point - because notation, instruments are built around diatonics.

 

[saxman80]

Hi,
John Packer supply a plastic card around 9" x 6" in size called a Fingerfax, it has basic fingerings on the front and altimisso on the back for Tenor and Alto.I think they retail for around £ 3.50, i've found it quite useful.🙂

Given the recent threads discussing the Bis key and others, I wondered...

has anyone ever produced a fingering chart which shows ALL standard and alternative fingerings??

in a readily understandable form...

 

[jbtsax]

Don't like it myself. The idea is that it preserves the harmonic structure. There's only one note for each letter in a scale. So you must have ABCDEFG in every scale.

Good answer. Another way to say it is that all major and minor scales must go line - space - line - space. So in the C# major scale you can't have C natural to C#, it must be written B# to C#. Also it can't go F natural to F#, it must be written E# to F#.