Why do sax players use different nomenclature than everyone else.

[Jimbroni]

I've played with two different sax players, over the last few years. The first guy had an incredible feel for music, but didn't communicate very well. He kinda seemed like a vietnam vet who was shell shocked, so that didn't help. But he always insisted calling the notes by a different name. We would always have transpose our ideas, down by like a minor third interval. We just thought he was nutbar, but dealt with it for a while cause he could jam.

 

Anyway about a year ago, we started jamming with this local kid who plays sax and can hold normal conversation, but has actually had some music classes. Samething though he called all the notes by different letter thant we did. Fortunately, he understood this and could transpose his lines taking the burden off us.

 

No big deal or anything. We're not looking for a sax player, they're just fun once and while.

But.

Why is this?

[Thomas Wilburn]

Saxes are often in the key of Eb, just as clarinets are tuned in the key of Bb. For those instruments, what they call a C is actually an Eb or a Bb in concert tuning.

 

It takes some getting used to, but that's just how it works. Most people who play these instruments professionally and really get into the theory probably learn to work across the transposition barrier. I never really learned to, myself, but I could do it if I had time.

[jeremy c]

Saxophones and trumpets read in a different key than basses, guitars and pianos.

 

There are Bb and Eb saxes and Bb trumpets.

 

This means that when an alto sax player (who is playing an Eb horn) thinks he is playing a C scale, he is actually playing an Eb scale.

 

There are various reasons for this. Instruments come in all different sizes to produce various sounds. But if an instrument is a different size, you'll get a different pitch. The fingerings are reasonably standardized, you don't have to learn a new fingering for each size instrument. So someone can play flute, piccolo, clarinet, alto sax, tenor sax, soprano sax using approximately the same fingerings. All of us who play with horn players know at least several people who can play all these instruments.

 

When the music is written, it is transposed to the key of the instrument.

 

When music is played by ear, it is the player's job to do the transposition.

 

Pros do this all the time.

 

Your horn player friend needs to learn how to transpose. You shouldn't transpose for him.

[craigb]

Yep

 

Eb - alto, bari

Bb - tenor, soprano

 

There exist "C melody" saxes but those are few and far between. I'm not sure of the key on the more esoteric saxes (sopranino, bass).

 

I started on sax (actually clarinet but I try to forget those "wasted years" before I got a sax), primarily tenor and play it sometimes. I just remember that concert Bb (what everyone tunes to in concert band) is C on the tenor sax. So I have to take the "standard" notes/chords and move them up 3 half-steps to get what I need to play.

 

Blues in E? That's blues in F# for tenor.

 

There's a reason why horn songs end up in Eb and Bb

 

I believe it's all done that way so that the parts for a given instrument lie primarily on the staff for written music.

[I I mjrn]

Originally posted by jeremyc:

[QB]...There are various reasons for this....

As you say the main reason is that the horns by nature of their particular dimensions produce notes of certain pitch but why the transpositioning in notation?

 

Is it to avoid excessive accidentals in scores, so that players have easier reading ?

[jeremy c]

It's so you can switch instruments without having to learn new names for the notes.

[Jimbroni]

It's so you can switch instruments without having to learn new names for the notes.

OK. I just curious the whole thing never made sense to me. Now it does. Still seems like it'd be difficult, knowing what real name of the note is. Probably not as difficult as learning new chops for every horn you play. Just get used to it I guess.

It'd be like someone who tunes to say D std with 4ths between strings and then calling the D an E. So you don't have to relearn all the modes/chords

 

Though it must strange studying theory that way.

[Nicklab]

As a former sax player, I found it disorienting when I made the changeover to bass. The pitches didn't match the way I knew how to read them. It was a strange little adjustment period.

[Edendude]

Our sax player is probably one of the most talented, technically proficient, and most theory-knowledgeable musicians in our region...

 

He always talks the straight goods with us in the rest of the band. No confusion over keys with us, even though the guitars are dropped a half step, and we have a sax player.

 

Just use the term..."Concert pitch" and there should be very little confusion.

[Jimbroni]

"Concert pitch"

Good tip Edendude. Sometime simple little phrases like that are all thats needed to break mental barriers. I don't play with sax players all that much, Now that I know what to expect its easier to accept. I just remember first meeting Jim "Jupiter" as we called him and nobody could understand what he was talking about, even though he always could figure it out by ear. It was really both our faults.

 

But thanks for info guys.

[jeremy c]

By the way, eventually you will find out that guitars and basses are actually transposing instruments as well.

 

All our music is written an octave higher than it actually sounds.

 

That's why when you look at the basslines in a piano arrangement they often look too low.

 

You're right about down-tuning bands. They don't think "ok my guitar is tuned down to Eb so the note on the third fret is Gb", they still call it a G. It might get a little confusing talking to the other band members if instead of tuning down, you play your lines on a five string (which is what I'd do, if the issue ever came up for me).

 

On every woodwind instrument, the natural key, and by that I mean the key that you get with no fingers down and gradually adding one finger at a time until you get all your fingers down, is called C. Clarinets come in A, Bb, and Eb.

A flute, a bass flute, and a piccolo are all different sizes of the same basic instrument and they are in C, F, and Db. Saxes come in Bb and Eb (and there is the rare C saxophone). And oboe is in C and an English Horn, which is really a larger size oboe, is in F. Recorders come in the keys of C and F.

 

There are differences between the fingerings, but a good wind player would be able to switch pretty easily. I have read music on Bb and A clarinets, Bb saxophones, C oboe and flute, and F recorders without having to learn anything new. I've also sight-transposed concert pitch music while playing a Bb instrument. And then I switched to bass.

[...]

Originally posted by jeremyc:

You're right about down-tuning bands. They don't think "ok my guitar is tuned down to Eb so the note on the third fret is Gb", they still call it a G. It might get a little confusing talking to the other band members if instead of tuning down, you play your lines on a five string (which is what I'd do, if the issue ever came up for me).

A lot of Yogi's material is written/played with the guitars tuned to drop Db. I play all that material on my 5 string in standard tuning. "What note was that?" "D...uhh... I mean, Db" teehee.