Intonation Front E3 Fingering on My Baritone is 40 cents sharp

[Stephen Howard]

Out of interest I have checked the front F on my soprano, alto, tenor and on all of them it opens the F palm key "fully" - certainly way more than "just barely cracks open".

Am I misunderstanding what you meant @lydian ?

What do our esteemed techs think ? @Stephen Howard , @PigSquealer , @Griff ?

I generally like to say "It's where your money runs out" - but you'd kinda think that a top of the range bari ought to be handle anything you care to ask of it. However, the 'fake' fingerings have always been a case of pot luck with regard to tuning....and your luck seems to have run out!

There are ways and means of getting that E in tune but they'll all have a knock-one effect when it comes to the standard fingerings. The staring point would be to limit the opening of the palm keys. You can test this yourself by taping bits of card to the body under the key feet. You can also move the adjuster for the front top F to reduce the opening height of the F when the front top F key is in play. This will all help to flatten the rogue fake E....but it will also flatten the standard fingerings.
You might find a sweet spot that works for both fingerings...but equally you might not.
Thereafter you're into fitting crescents in the toneholes - which is trickier and comes with much the same payload.
After that you're down to learning how to voice the notes for that particular horn.

 

[Pete Effamy]

Thereafter you're into fitting crescents in the toneholes - which is trickier and comes with much the same payload.
After that you're down to learning how to voice the notes for that particular horn.

Speaking of which; what are the notes around it like for tuning ?

In other words, 40cents sharp is horrific, but are the notes around it near to 0 or are they up around 20cents or so ?

C#, D, D#, F

 

[Pete Effamy]

Talking other fingerings: what is palm D + Palm F like on your instrument - does it give a decent E ?

And will it help in the passage you speak of ?

 

[SuperAction80]

Speaking of which; what are the notes around it like for tuning ?

In other words, 40cents sharp is horrific, but are the notes around it near to 0 or are they up around 20cents or so ?

C#, D, D#, F

Your voicing, along with a decent chamber that fits it, along with a reed that accommodates the tip opening of the piece can get quite creative in ironing out intonation discrepancies that are picked up by a strobe tuner to variable degrees of difficulty. It's when you can't iron these discrepancies out in a way that's pleasing to the ear (note that I didn't say to "the digital software") where there's a genuine setup concern. Mostly, it's a mouthpiece and reed issue. Sometimes, it's an inherent issue with the horn. Always assume that you're the issue, first. Figure out everything that you can do to iron out those issues. Once you've exhausted all possibilities, THEN look at the equipment. Pick up some other baris and blow a few notes into them, paying attention to your horn's problem spots. If the issue is remaining consistent through various models and vintages, safely assume that the problem is in voicing. If it can't be ironed out, assume mouthpiece and reed combo. If it still can't be ironed out, assume chamber size. Then keep working yourself down from the mouth to the bell from there. It's an ongoing process, but whenever I'm stumped, I rule myself out of the equation first. Every single pitch on any saxophone is inherently very flexible. If the high end and low end can't find common ground, I'm adjusting everything I'm doing to the mouthpiece in order to find the law of averages. The front fingerings do voice themselves differently from the palm key fingerings. It could be a voicing issue, it could be an issue with how far open that front F key is pushing the palm F open. (Look at the mechanism and see what it's doing). Another test is to put less pressure onto the front F key in order to see if less venting brings the altissimo E into tune.

As has been mentioned, this is a very finicky section of the saxophone. I'm trying to list things that are potential problems before remembering that there are more potential problems. The adjustment screw, found on your Serie III is so personal to individual players to the point in which I know who my tech has been setting horns up for before getting my horn to the bench. Generally speaking, classically trained players prefer that the front F doesn't move the F palm pad up my more than a fraction of a millimeter. The jazzers and rockers would prefer that the entire key cup would shoot off of the mechanism temporarily, but only while pressing that front F key. Once again, this all boils down to voicing and personal preferences. (Rubs temples) Ain't this fun?

 

[Pete Effamy]

Always assume that you're the issue, first.

Which is where I’m coming from. If everything has crept up in sharpness (maybe biting) then it might not be such a rogue note.

It could also be that a player is playing generally with too much jaw pressure which might prompt a general look at embouchure pressure throughout.

I’ve heard Rhys play though, (but not high notes) and too much embouchure pressure wasn’t something that nudged my ears.

 

[SuperAction80]

Which is where I’m coming from. If everything has crept up in sharpness (maybe biting) then it might not be such a rogue note.

It could also be that a player is playing generally with too much jaw pressure which might prompt a general look at embouchure pressure throughout.

I’ve heard Rhys play though, (but not high notes) and too much embouchure pressure wasn’t something that nudged my ears.

We also have the man who knows more than a thing or two, and who play tested this particular horn after setting it up. If there is an unusual outlier on this saxophone, Stephen Howard would pick up on it. If he didn't, it's operator error, somewhere. And apparently, we can rule embouchure issues out as well. That's pointing towards a front F venting versus voicing preference issue, which is very simple to correct. Try putting less pressure on the Front F, and see what happens.

Aren't forums cool?

For what it's worth, I still find myself getting frazzled by these types of anomalies at least once a year in a studio setting where I'm very objectively identifying an issue somewhere. This process of elimination keeps everything fun, and I usually learn a lesson or two along the way. The changing variables on saxophone are near limitless.

 

[Pete Thomas]

I may be wrong, but my understanding of the front F is that it is the 2nd overtone of A, and that it some acoustic anomaly that makes it a minor 6th rather than a 5th.

I imagine that originally this was not built into the saxophone design by M. Sax and was originally a special fingering to obtain what would have been technically altissimo. We know (or presume) the plam key can before the aux F. The aux F was therefore added to make this alternate altissimo fingering easier. I would also speculate that the E fingeringing was later than that, possibly discovered by accident. Again no part of the original acoustic design so as @Stephen Howard says it's a bit of pot luck. Be greatful that it is there but don't expect perfection for an imperfect mechanism. And let's not mention the missing cone. Or mayve we should and blame it for everything.

 

[Taragot]

The front e''' isn't usable either on my king zephyr baritone. It's only a tad lower than high f - more like a alternate fingering for f - and I lowered the key openings a lot.
On my modern bari (jupiter 889) it's working, but I had the impression, that e''' with front f key is not ideal on bari.
I would try to learn the passage with palm e (or change the note in the arrangement since you wrote it 🙂 )

 

[Jimmymack]

I have the same thing with my Zephyr Special tenor, way sharp and needs a lot of effort to play in tune, F is fine. On the S20 it’s close to spot on. I don’t like or often use it but it’s irritating. I’ve been playing Forest Flower recently and it really doesn’t work on that horn. I might have another try with some of the suggestions here.

 

[turf3]

I have found that different horns work better with different amounts of opening on the front F. Most seem to prefer it to just crack the pad open. This is adjustable. You might have to tolerate some slop (lost motion) in the mechanism depending on how it's made.

You can easily experiment with this, by putting a stack of tape under the foot of the F key, then playing front F and front E, but instead of using the front F key, just open the high F key with the side of your ring finger. See if reducing the opening brings down the front E.

I believe, though without any test data, that this may be one of the intonation anomalies that can result from using a too-small chamber mouthpiece and pulling too far out, thus making the scale wonky. One thing that happens when people do that is that the palm key notes all run flat, so the pad heights get raised real high, which makes those notes wild, and also plays heck wiht the front F key notes (E, F, F#, G).

 

[turf3]

Another good high E on all the horns I've tried it on, is to finger G#, then the high E side key. This pops out a good strong high E on all the horns where I"ve tried it. You avoid sliding the LH index finger, but you move the RH out of position to hit that side key.

 

[Colin the Bear]

Had an experiment with the Startone. Front E is a bit sharp but lips in. I only use it for brief visits and trills.

On a different note, see what I did there, I've found a very usable A4 by opening the spit valve. 😁

 

[turf3]

The fingering is a bit iffy on most pitches and horns. ...

I disagree with this. I have had exactly ONE saxophone where front E was squirrelly, my Conn baritone. On my Conn and Martin altos, my Conn tenors, as well as the Martin Keilwerth Selmer and Yamaha altos and tenors I've tooted around on, I've found the front E to be spot on in tune. When I simulate the front E and F fingerings on horns that don't have the key, it comes out just fine on my Holton, Couturier, and Buescher sopranos and my Beaugnier bass.

Now high G, that's a different story.

 

[LostCircuits]

What is a normal amount? For me, front E, F and altissimo work best if F just barely cracks open.

Another thing to try is closing more holes, like adding your right middle finger (F#) or index and alt F#.

You could try fingering G and using the top F# key as a vent.

I worked on a tenor for a friend and adjusted the front F to a crack to get the altissimo notes to come out - guess what, the guy wanted it back all the way open because that's how he plays F and he does not play altissimo at all. That thought never occurred to me... Well, the customer is always king.

 

[SuperAction80]

I disagree with this. I have had exactly ONE saxophone where front E was squirrelly, my Conn baritone. On my Conn and Martin altos, my Conn tenors, as well as the Martin Keilwerth Selmer and Yamaha altos and tenors I've tooted around on, I've found the front E to be spot on in tune. When I simulate the front E and F fingerings on horns that don't have the key, it comes out just fine on my Holton, Couturier, and Buescher sopranos and my Beaugnier bass.

Now high G, that's a different story.

There may be a correlation there based around my blowing preferences. I should have clarified that I find the front E squirrelly on modern Selmer and Selmer based copies, and this is usually an issue with tenors. Vintage Conns and my Buescher 156 are exempt. Yamahas, Yanagisawa, and Keilwerth are exempt. The issue seems to be from the Mark VII onwards where the note wants to blow sharp. It's manageable with practice, but it's something I don't notice on other saxophone bore types.

The problem is made worse on older ( around 30 years ago) Taiwanese and Chinese SA80 copies. I attributed at least some of this to the octave pip size being drilled too big. It's a flaw that both the Taiwanese and Chinese copies ironed out since. For instance, the current Selmer USA pro horn is being made in the same factory as my 25 year old Bently sax from ebay. The horns are identical down to the factory machine marks on the keywork. The only real change made to the USA was the neck pip itself. The octave hole is about 1/3 smaller now, which is about what I had to plug up on my Bently in order to keep that front E in any semblance of tune. Before that, the front E and F were virtually the same note, and I made every other possible adjustment before looking at the neck venting. Of course, slapping my SA80 neck onto the thing made it very clear where the problem was.

The front E on my bari is pretty locked in, but that's a Couf Superba II stencil, and Keilwerth seems to have put a lot of effort into getting that high end to play well. It's something that I've noticed along with other non-sax playing musicians have noticed. G2 all the way up to high F# projects more clearly and pure than any other low A baritone I've played. Going back to the Selmer baris, I have not gotten my hands on many post VI horns, but have played a few Serie II's where once again the front E seemed a bit sharp. I didn't play on these long enough to really mess around with the adjustment screw to see if that would help, so it's more of an initial observation.

Back to the correlation, it's funny that you mentioned G3. For whatever reason, and there may be an acoustic explanation, the horns with the problematic front E seem to have the most stable G3. It may just be me.

 

[rhysonsax]

Here are some clarifications from me and some further information:

• I've played saxophone for something like 45 years and baritone for 28 years, concentrating on bari for much of that time, but very much as an enthusiastic amateur.
• I am "working at this quartet arrangement" in the sense that I am practising it and trying to play it better - I haven't arranged it myself.
• When @Stephen Howard worked on the Selmer Serie III bari for me last year it was to sort out an issue with the bell keys and a previous poor repair (by someone else) on the bell brace. It wasn't a full service and so he wouldn't have touched the palm keys, front F etc and he probably wouldn't have played them after his excellent work which has left the bell keys sealing and playing beautifully.
• I play different mouthpieces for sax quartet (Vandoren Optimum BL4 with a 0.090" tip opening) and for big band and jazz (SR Technologies Pro with a 0.115" tip opening). The intonation is pretty much the same on both of these and the front E3 is really 40 cents sharp whereas the front F3 is pretty much in tune (less than 10 cents sharp).
• The normally fingered palm key E3 is in tune (less than 10 cents sharp).
• Fingering the front E3 and adding the F# key on the right hand improves the intonation considerably but it is still 15-20 cents sharp.
• I don't really venture above F#3 on any of my saxophones, so I am not concerned about ease of altissimo.
• I just tried playing on my Selmer Serie II baritone - that's another excellent bari and in good condition. I was surprised to find that the tuning on the F3 and E3 were very similar to those on the Serie III. The front E3 was also about 40 cents sharp, the palm key E3 in tune. While adding the right hand F# key did make the tuning better (about 20 cents sharp) it made the tone quality muffled and poor.

So in summary, I will avoid conventional front E3 on baritone and either use the standard palm key fingering or will add the right hand F# key to the front E3.

Thanks for all the interesting thoughts and suggestions. I've learned a lot.

Rhys

 

[SuperAction80]

All in all, the saxophone isn't a perfect instrument. There are weak spots in every horn from every manufacturer from every vintage. This is just one that I've picked up on throughout the years, because I've had to play a lot of front E heavy solos based upon works done by players who were using other horns. So, there's a reason why I pay attention to the tuning in this area. I'm glad to see that your experience with the Serie II matches mine, and at this point I'm just going to say that it's baked into the modern Selmer bore. Stick to the palm E for held out notes. Use the front E whenever you're going up and down the scales quickly.

This is reminding me of something I've wanted to do with a DAW. We've all heard our share of sax solos in recordings. I've been learning where some of those weak areas are on certain models based upon my own playing experiences as well as what I've heard from professional recordings. Maybe one of these days I'll type out a list of every strength and weakness I've found on various horns. One thing I can do with my DAW is to use AI separation to pull the saxophone stem back out of the mix, and I can look at that directly with the built in strobe tuner in real time. Obviously, now there are chromatic pitch correctors that can iron all of those intonation discrepancies out, but this wasn't the case back in the 70's and 80's. I'd be interested to see where name brand players really were in the grand scheme of things. Personally, I feel that we've hyperfocused our attention to strobe tuners, and that the idea is to get as close as we can to pitch without wearing ourselves out trying to do it. The tuner will always be more sensitive than the ear. That said, it would be nice to see that the greats were dealing with the same issues that we deal with in a quantifiable way.

 

[turf3]

I'd consider putting a crescent in the high F tone hole. You can raise the F palm key (when used as a palm key) height to compensate for flattening of F. Give it a try. It's easily reversible. I had to do this to my Conn eventually. Don't remember whether I reversed it when I got a mouthpiece better matched to the horn (Maybe tonight I'll have a look).

 

[rhysonsax]

Another update after I have played on a couple of other baritones I have lying around (don't ask):

• Buffet Crampon transitional SDA-S1 low A (1976): Front F3 is in tune, palm E3 is very in tune, front E3 is 50 cents sharp ! And it doesn't get much better when adding the right hand second finger.
• Selmer Mk VI low Bb (1969): Front F3 is in tune, palm E3 is in tune, front E3 is 40 cents sharp, improving to only about 20 cents sharp when adding the right hand 2nd finger.

So now my theory is that the front E3 on many modern baritones is unusably sharp. How have I not noticed this before ?

I would love to hear from other forum members who have a baritone, especially different makes like Yamaha, Yanagisawa, Keilwerth etc, how the front F3, front E3 and palm E3 tune for them, without doing any wild embouchure changes.

Rhys

 

[Pete Thomas]

I would love to hear from other forum members who have a baritone,

My Bauhaus is very sharp on the E. I don’t remember how it was on previous baritones, e.g. Conn 11m and Selmer MK VI because it’s not a note I was in the habit of playing.