Saxophone Intonation: An article

[Richard Bush]

Many factors affect how well a saxophone plays in tune, or how well in tune the player plays his sax. Seven general categories come to mind off the top of my head. They are:

• Reed strength as it relates to the mouthpiece facing or schedule.
• The mouthpiece itself, its internal dimensions and particularly the baffle shape and depth.
• The angle at which the instrument enters the player's mouth.
• The position or placement of the mouthpiece on the neck.
• The overall pitch level at which the player plays on his instrument. The way the player plays, e.g. degree of throat opening and position of the larynx, the shape and position of the tongue, the amount of mouthpiece taken into the mouth, the pressure exerted against the reed with the lower lip when applied to the reed and the hardness or softness of the lower lip tissue, breath support or air speed (velocity) provided by the player all effect pitch. They are all part of that magical formula we call being a good player.
• The design of the instrument and its tuning tendencies. No saxophone is perfectly in tune. Far from it, but some instruments do indeed have inherently better scales than others. (When I use the term, "perfectly in tune," I am talking about being in tune to an equally tempered scale, or the tuning readout of common electronic tuners, and the tuning found in the mid range of a well tuned piano.)
• The regulation or status of repair of the instrument in question.

Now, lets run down this list item by item.

REED STRENGTH

Reed strength is inversely proportional to the mouthpiece tip opening, that is to say, the closer the facing the harder the reed will need to be and the more open the tip opening of the mouthpiece, the softer the reed will need to be.

The actual set up that a player chooses or likes for himself is a matter of personal taste, his needs for such things as delicate playing or very loud playing, the size of the hall, the type of ensemble the player is playing with and the players embouchure or chops. One who plays a lot will have a stronger embouchure, and as any player becomes further conditioned, will probably migrate toward harder reeds. So, I guess we could also say that reed strength is proportional to embouchure strength or conditioning.

As reed strength increases on any given mouthpiece, the overall pitch level of the instrument rises. If reeds are way too hard, the instrument will play exceedingly sharp. Conversely, if too soft of reeds are used, pitch will be flat and the high notes will play unacceptably flat. Overall reed strength needs to be heavy enough to play to the top of the instrument with consistent tone quality and good tuning, yet soft enough to produce the lowest notes on the horn without sounding like a bull elephant in rut. (More on this later as it relates to tuning the instrument or determining mouthpiece position on the neck cork.)

In a very general way, saxophone players should choose to play on reeds that are softer than what is considered appropriate and desirable for clarinet. Saxophone tone does not improve like it does on clarinet by using harder reeds. Quite to the contrary, too hard of reeds will be less efficient and will produce a strident sound. And, as I said earlier, too hard of reeds will make low note playing difficult, if not impossible. Those who are also clarinet players, or coming on to the sax from clarinet should learn to play on reeds that feel quite a bit softer and less resistant than what they choose for their clarinet playing.

Recommending specific reed strengths is almost impossible. There are just too many variables. Not only will there be great variety within a box, but reed strengths vary from brand to brand. And what feel just great for one player will be too soft or hard for others. Weather also plays a role. Reeds play softer on a rainy day than when it is dry and the relative humidity is low. Also, reeds play harder at high elevations and softer at sea level.

I can tell you what I play on but that won't help you in your quest for the right set up. All I can say is that I play on reeds that would be considered medium or medium hard for my clarinet playing and choose reeds for sax that would probably be considered to be medium soft or soft.

Reed strength is also often confused with a reed's playing resistance. If a reed is out of balance from side to side or from front to back, it might be perceived as being hard, when in reality it is just non responsive and noncomplient. Eliminating those areas of the reed that don't want to vibrate, or to balance the reed so that both sides of the reed want to vibrate at the same speed and at the same time for any given note will give the impression that the reed is softer. After working on a reed, the reed probably is softer, so here again, it is hard to recommend a reed strength because what a player starts out with when a reed first comes out of the box and what he ends up with after breaking the reed in and balancing it are two different things.

For anyone who takes his sax playing seriously, I would recommend learning about reed adjustment. I would also recommend investing in a good reed clipper. Both the book, Larry Teal's "Art of Saxophone Playing" and the reed clipper can be had from any music store that does more than selling flat picks and amplifiers.

THE MOUTHPIECE

Saxophone mouthpieces have changed and evolved a great deal over the years. One needs only to listen to very old King Oliver bands, or going to a couple of decades later, to the sax section sound of vintage Glen Miller Orchestra or even early Stan Kenton to realize that today's sax players are getting a much different sound because of the equipment being used. Granted, instruments have changed in their bore, but the biggest differences in sound have occurred because of the mouthpieces we now use.

Mouthpieces fall into three basic categories, (1) student model mouthpieces, (2) classical mouthpieces, and (3) jazz mouthpieces. We might also consider a fourth category, and that would be a general purpose mouthpiece that will work fairly well with a large variety of musical groups. I have what I consider to be such a mouthpiece for my alto and that is a '60s Selmer hard rubber that has been refaced with a facing that is somewhere between a D and a C* facing.

Most student model mouthpieces are conservative internally and have conservative facings. Most student model mouthpieces are simply terrible! Any beginner beyond his or her first year or two should upgrade to a quality mouthpiece.

Classical mouthpieces generally have deeper and straighter baffles and are usually faced with relatively long and close facings. Such mouthpieces produce an appropriate sound for solo classical music, for ensemble work with concert bands or wind ensembles and the very limited possibilities when a saxophone or several saxophones are used in symphonic orchestra writing.

Jazz mouthpieces are anywhere from a little "jazzy" to very radical. Such mouthpieces often favor a greater production or generation of the higher overtones. We sometimes describe this as being bright or having a cutting sound. Some also allow the player to play with greater ease and predictability in the altissimo register. When  such special playing characteristics are built into a mouthpiece, something must go or be compromised and that is often overall, good intonation. (I have to laugh at some band directors who tell their kids to get the latest and greatest Sanborne or Gottlieb model. We don't provide formula I race cars for driver education, but we tell the young sax student to buy a radical mouthpiece and then wonder why the player can't control it or the tuning goes crazy.) If "that jazz" sound is so important to the stage band, then maybe the player should have two mouthpieces so he doesn't crash the sound of the concert band.

I'll probably get shot down on this, and maybe it is because I'm getting older and more conservative, but my personal feeling is that a more conservative mouthpiece will better serve the young player and his playing needs.

PLAYING ANGLE

Maybe I should start out by saying, A SAXOPHONE IS NOT A CLARINET! I don't think that anyone will argue that point, but the point needs to be made because so many sax players, clarinetists learning to play sax and band directors who know little about saxophone often treat the sax and teach the sax as if it were a clarinet.

The correct angle for clarinet is about halfway between straight down (the angle of the chin) and straight out (a 90° angle). The correct angle for the sax to enter the mouth is just slightly down from coming straight in at 90°. That would probably be about 70°. Of course, this varies from player to player as we all have different faces, different overbites or underbites and different mouths.

If the saxophone is allowed to hang naturally on the neck strap, falling somewhat under the arm pit, the angle of entry will be too far down. Top register notes will play very, very sharp. This is easy to correct. Loosen the neck strap and push the bottom of the sax forward. When the sax body is almost parallel to the players body, the angle will be just about right. When this is done, the mouthpiece will come into the face almost straight, which is what you want. Lots of tuning problems can be corrected by making this one simple neck strap adjustment.

TUNING THE MOUTHPIECE ON THE NECK

Have you ever just looked at a saxophone and asked yourself, "How in the world did the maker decide how far up or down on the tube to place the holes and decide exactly how big or small they should be?" Most of that figuring was derived through trial and error. Yes, there was some math put to it as well, but just remember that these guys have been working at it since the mid 1800s.

When considering tone hole placement and size, consider this; all calculations are based upon a point "A." That is a place just beyond the mouthpiece baffle where the bore of the mouthpiece joints the tubing of the sax. If we deviate very much from this beginning point the instrument starts to become out of tune with itself. The top note of the alto's fundamental register is the open, fourth space C#. It takes roughly 11 inches of tubing to produce this pitch. If we pull the mouthpiece an eighth of an inch, the C# will be flattened a great deal. C# an octave lower, and taking twice the tube length, plus about three more inches, is flattened approximately half as much by this pull. Each descending note in the fundamental register is flattened less and less as more note holes are covered and one goes down the scale to low C#.

The same thing happens in reverse when the mouthpiece is pushed on. Those notes that require the shortest tube length are sharpened the most and longer tube length notes are sharpened less and less with increased tube length. Just because a saxophone comes with two inches of cork on the neck, that doesn't mean that the player has two inches of latitude. Maybe, all told, the player has an eighth of an inch in each direction from the ideal spot to make his moves before the scale of the sax becomes uncomfortably out of tune with itself.

The size of the sax also plays into this scenario as a Bb soprano sax is effected twice as much as a tenor and a tenor is effected twice as much as a bass sax with an eighth of an inch move. Ditto for altos vs. bari.

Tuning saxophones to a concert pitch A works well for both Eb and Bb pitched saxes. Altos and bari players should tune their low F#, open C#, second register F# and high C#. This allows the player to check mid-tube length notes and short tube length notes against the sounding A. Tenor sax players will sound their low F#, one finger B, second register F# and high B natural against the sounding A. Same deal耀ampling mid-tube length and short tube length notes in both registers. (More on this when I concoct and present a typical, worse case scenario toward the end of this tome. Please be patient, as all of this will eventually pull together.)

ESTABLISHING A PROPER PITCH PLAYING LEVEL

Again, I will say that A SAXOPHONE IS NOT A CLARINET. Clarinets produce their characteristic tone quality when played near the top of their pitch spectrum. This requires a fairly stiff reed and a tight embouchure. Sax, on the other hand, produces its most efficient and also its characteristic tone quality when played in the center of the pitch溶ot too tight and not too loose. If played with a hard reed, a tight mouth and maybe even a choked throat, the sax tone will be very pinched in sound. It will sound strangled. It will also be sharp in pitch.

If the player is allowed to play this way, the only other way to bring the pitch down is to pull the mouthpiece. If pulled too much, as I've stated above, short tube length notes will be unduly flattened. Fourth space, open C# will become an intolerably flat note. That coupled with the next half-step higher note D, which is naturally on the sharp side, but being played even sharper by the up-tight player will produce a half-step interval that goes far beyond being a half-step.

To get all of this lined up in a proper way, the player must loosen his grip on the reed, open his throat and play at an overall lower pitch level. The mouthpiece can then be pushed back on to a proper spot and C# again becomes an acceptable note. That is part of the reason for using A as a tune up pitch. This gives the player the opportunity to determine mouthpiece placement by checking short tube length notes, either C# on Eb pitched saxes or one finger B on Bb pitched saxes. If C# is out-of-sight flat, then the mouthpiece is more than likely pulled too far and the player is playing too tight and high.

An interesting side light to this situation is the fact that only the fourth space, open C# suffers so excruciatingly. In such instances when the player is doing all of these things wrong, he is also probably doing two other things wrong that kind of balance out. He is probably cinching the neck strap too tight and drawing the sax under his arm pit. This drives the high notes sharp and counteracts the excessive mouthpiece pull which would otherwise cause them to be flat. Secondly, many inexperienced players loosen their embouchures when they play low and tighten them when going very high. One general setting, or degree of squeeze against the reed works best for all notes. High notes are brought to pitch, not by squeezing more, but by driving the air faster and giving more breath support. So, three things wrong, (1) an excessive pull because of playing too high and too tight of a  mouth, (2) too great of an angle downward which drives the high notes sharp, and (3) pinching even more for the palm key notes all balance each other out耀orta様eaving just that one open C# as the sorriest note in the world.

Learning to play the sax down to a proper overall pitch level requires two other things. These things are singing and breath support. They really shouldn't be mentioned in one sentence because each of them is so very important.

The best thing any wind player can do to improve his playing is to become a half-descent singer. The only difference between singing a note and playing that same note on an instrument is that the vocal chords remain inactive when playing a horn. What goes on sympathetically inside the person that is like singing should also go on in a nearly identical way when blowing a horn. Show me a lousy singer, one who can't even match pitches with their vocal chords because of his total lack of singing experience, and I'll show you a wind player that will never figure it out and get it happening in a right way. Do it any way you want to. Sing in the shower, hum a tune when you're in a car, and if you're so inclined, go to church and be active when the congregation sings the hymns.

Singing and/or playing a wind instrument also requires good breath support. Reed players often grab the reed and strangle it as an attempt to control or get a grip on the sound. A program of control through restriction and constraint will never work on a reed instrument. Once, proper breathing is established, blowing from a hard, firm gut, then one can go about the business of determining just how much control or restraint is optimum for efficient tone production.

THE TUNING TENDENCIES OF SAXOPHONES

If saxophones played in only its bottom register an extraordinarily well in tune scale could be built into the instrument. Also, if the saxophone had an individually placed and sized octave vent for each ascending half-step, a second register could be had that would be just as in tune as the fundamental register and every note would over blow a perfect octave. Well, the sax has only two octave key vents. Each one is a compromise, and this one size fits all configuration for the notes that each encourages to over blow to an octave causes problems.
 
(There was a time when Conn put a mechanism on saxophones that utilized three vents, but it was difficult to keep in regulation and was abandoned. Although I don't have first hand experience and can only speculate, I rather suspect that when this arrangement was working well, these instruments probably played so much better in tune than the two octave keyed instruments that they were actually incompatible and were therefore a source of new tuning problems amongst players of a sax section. Anyone who can shed some light on this, lets hear it.)

With an automatic, double octave key mechanism, all notes from D to G# are serviced by the lower (on body) vent. This single vent is much too small and too high to do a good job of overblowing D. D therefore comes out very sharp. (Try this: substitute the high D palm key for the register key when playing six finger D and notice how much better the note sounds.) The same is true for D#, but to a lessor degree, and to a small degree, for E as well. F and F# are treated nicely with this vent, but G# becomes a bit iffy and less stable because the octave vent is now too large and too low in its position.