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Saxophone Fingering Lesson One

How To Read Music!

While you’re learning the notes on the sax you might as well learn how to read them!

 

What you see here is the musical notes for the C major scale. They are written on music lines which are called the staff.

Starting at the left, there is the musical sign you might recognize called the treble clef. There are several other types of clef’s used for different instruments but us sax players read only in treble clef.

After the treble clef there are the 4’s on top of each other… that means the time signature for this piece of music in in 4/4: that’s 4 quarter beats in each bar. Count 1 2 3 4 and that’s one complete bar.

Notice the second C scale on the right side that has the black notes closer together… these are quarter notes and you play one on each beat as you count: 1 2 3 4.

The first scale that doesn’t have the notes filled in consists of the exact same notes but because they are hallow and not filled in they are called half notes. This means each note is worth half of the bar, so they last for 2 beats, while the black quarter notes only last one beat.. very easy math eh?

Let’s Recap All These Musical Terms We Just Covered:

  • Staff
  • Treble Clef
  • Time Signature
  • 4/4
  • Quarter Beats
  • Quarter Notes
  • Bar
  • Half Notes

WOW! That’s a lot to learn in one session but if you learn these terms you’re well on you way.

Click Here to Go to Saxophone Fingering Lesson Part 2