Saxophone beginners Using tuner for beginner

[jhol111964]

I read thru the thread, but couldn't tell if you are using a visual tuner with no tone generator? try playing your scales with a tone generator on the root note - like G, while you play a G scale. Works wonders for improving intonation.

 

[kevgermany]

My D on alto plays a little sharp (on the tuner) .

Have you thought about adjusting the key height to correct it? There's an excellent article on music medic about setting key heights by tuning.
Another interesting article there discusses crescents to do the same thing.

 

[Dibbs]

My D on alto plays a little sharp (on the tuner) . So if a piece is in F I pull out a couple of millimeters to get tonic closer. I only do this with BiaB backing tracks. The tuning is very tight. With a live band there's such a spread of ideas as to what pitch is you can blend easily.

Both Ds or just the middle one?

Have you tried closing the B key?

 

[Colin the Bear]

D2 plays about 5c sharp with as much lip down as I can manage. Not a massive problem. A little tweak sorts it and brings the piece together.

 

[phoeg]

...couldn't tell if you are using a visual tuner with no tone generator? try playing your scales with a tone generator on the root note - like G, while you play a G scale. Works wonders for improving intonation.

It has the tone generator. I will give that a try. Thanks! 🙂

 

[jbtsax]

My experience with D's on the saxophone is that the low D is typically a bit flat and the middle D is typically quite sharp. When lowering key heights or adding crescents to bring the middle D down a bit it has the side effect of making the low D even flatter. Notes on a saxophone are more difficult to lip up---especially the low register.

The source of the problem is that the bore taper is not conical enough causing the octaves to be too wide. If one were to keep reducing the taper, the octaves would get wider and wider until they are a 12th (octave and a 5th) apart when the tube has become a cylinder.