fingering for alto saxophone

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Fingering for Alto Saxophone Low Fingering

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Page 1: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

Fingering for Alto Saxophone

Low Fingering

Page 2: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

C on a Bb saxophone (tenor/soprano) is a Bb on piano.

C on an Eb saxophone (alto/bari) is Eb on a piano.

C# and Db are enharmonic equivalents – they’re written differently, but sound the same.

Page 3: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

D is usually just written as ‘D’, technically it could be E double flat or C double sharp, but generally not.

Low Eb and D# on the saxophone.

Page 4: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

E is generally known as ‘E’, but E and F are a half step apart and you’ll occasionally see Fb.

F is also commonly known as ‘F’, occasionally you’ll see it as E#.

Page 5: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

Middle Fingering

Low F# has two possible fingerings on saxophone, but the first sounds a lot better.  The other one should only be used if it makes your execution of the music cleaner.  For faster tempos, it becomes more useful and the sound that isn’t quite as good becomes less noticeable.

G on the staff on saxophone is actually one of the easier notes to play.  The whole middle change comes out a little easier than the very low or very high notes.

Page 6: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

Ab or G# has a lot of options. There’s the main G# key, but you can use any of those table keys in its place. Makes going between the low notes and G#/Ab a bit easier.

A is known as ‘A’, the notes G double sharp and B double flat would sound the same, but they’re not too common.

Page 7: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

Bb on saxophone has a number of possible fingerings.  We tend to favor one or the other, but having faculty over all of them will make your playing more smooth.

B on the staff or ‘middle B’ for saxophone.

Page 8: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

When you play ‘C’ on saxophone, on piano it’s Bb for tenor/soprano and Eb for alto/bari.

C# and Db are both commonly written in music.

Page 9: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

D can be a bit stuffy on saxophone…. so be aware and sometimes also using the D palm key can help make it more clear.

Adding this one key to go up a half step from D makes Eb a lot less stuffy on saxophone for some reason…..

Page 10: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

Just one way to play middle E on saxophone, not exciting alternates here.

Page 11: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

High (top of staff and up):

The F top of the staff.  Here’s how to play it on sax.

An octave below the top of the normal range of Saxophone!

Page 12: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

G on tenor/soprano is concert F and G on alto/bari is concert Bb – which is often used as a tuning note.

Got a few possibilities here!  But generally the regular one is fine.

Page 13: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

A above the staff on sax.

Like an octave below, this Bb on sax has a few possibilities.

Page 14: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

B above the staff on sax.  Just one fingering here.

One main fingering and an alternate for C on sax, like an octave below but with the octave key.

Page 15: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

One fingering here, only key pressed on the saxophone is the octave key.

The first note on saxophone that uses the palm keys.

Page 16: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

The transition from high Eb to high F on sax is difficult to execute cleanly using the regular F fingering with the palm keys, so you usually want to go from Eb to F using the alternate fingering for F.

Dealing with the palm keys can seem uncomfortable, especially at first.  One reason is that we don’t play the extreme ends of the saxophone all that much.  Just practice slowly and things will get better.

Two options, depending on context you pick.  Both sound fine on sax.

Page 17: Fingering for Alto Saxophone

Two options for high F# on saxophone.  One uses the ‘high F# key’ and the other doesn’t.  If your saxophone doesn’t have a high F# key…. you’ve got one option, but it works fine, so don’t worry about it.