Playing the saxophone Tuner app

[Marge]

Hiya hope everyone is having a good weekend. It's raining, for a change, in my bit of yorkshire! Just wondering if anyone can recommend a decent, ideally free, simple tuner app that would be understandable for a learner. I have a physical metronome but I'm having trouble finding an app I really understand for tenor sax, the ones I've seen are a bit over technical. Or more likely I'm under technical.....🙂 thank you

 

[Guenne]

octave key open could help.

Playing low notes with octave key open or playing notes without that would normally played with OK are good to learn to "convince" the reed to vibrate with a certain frequency, without changing embouchure pressure (too much).
You can do this by changing vowels (u, a, "aw" for lower notes, e, i for higher - very simplified).

Cheers, Guenne

 

[mizmar]

Yeah, well... I think the OP has been playing about a year, and would guess that developing a solid air supply is still a priority.

 

[Woodpad]

I have a Korg CA1 tuner. Always worked fine. Must be very old.

 

[Marge]

Thanks for your thoughts everyone. I think it's a bit of both for me...developing breath control and for some reason my embouchure isn't as firm on lower notes. I think I'm OK down to D. .certainly my newly downloaded tuners have a nice smile green face at that point, but C and B I'm very erm....inconsistent. I can go from D to C and hit C quite well, if I start on D but I can't get C consistently from scratch and don't get me blinking started on that blinking B! Thank you I'll keep on it...my neighbours must hate me by now anyway! @mizmar Dont worry about early post ive been up since 5.30 with my feline alarm clock...Kev Kat likes to be up and at em by 6am.

 

[Pete Thomas]

.developing breath control and for some reason my embouchure isn't as firm on lower notes

Have you made sure there are no leaks involved on your saxophone? Low notes are usually the first to suffer. Especially check for any issue the G# tab linkage

One thing to try is to play low D and while sounding it press the G# key. If you hear even a very slightest change in sound it means there could be an issue.

Or hold down the the f key lightly, finger G# and look for any movement of the G# key at all. A leak light can help find teeny leaks that can have a huge effect on the low notes.

 

[Marge]

Thank you, I had it serviced when I bought it, second hand about 3 months ago so I think it should be ok. It's a Trevor James one, I have a leak light but it's not showing anything that I can see. I've just tried your test and on the D I can't detect any change in tone at all but I think there is a tiny movement on the G# key when holding F. I'll get a second opinion from my tutor. It might be worth getting it looked at in shop again? Thanks x