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Home Alt Forums Problems With Your Sax? Sharp high notes

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  • #25585
    Anonymous

      Hi Jake, on my alto, every note above Mid C is sharper, i have to embouchure down to get them more in tune (i believe Modern Pro sax’s are more even in all the registers compared to student models like mine).

      I did read somewhere, that its more common for the mouthpiece to be shoved all the way in than being pulled all the way out. two other things apparantly sax necks are like mouthpieces, changing to a different style neck can give a complete change over, and on the negative side, necks are easily damaged sound wise.

      But interesting, like to hear the answer to your question!

      #25590
      jake
      Participant

        Wow, great idea James. I just through a different alto sax neck on my sax and cant believe how much better in tune it is. The high F# is just about perfect. The Low Bb is right on, Also, the mp goes on about 1/2 way instead of just over the end of the cork. Hmmmm, guess I’m getting a different neck.

        #25592
        Kevin
        Participant

          Jake, My experience with intonation on my YAS-52 are that the if I’m properly tuned to say an A (concert C), my notes as I go higher gradually get sharper, and my notes below that gradually get flatter. So if I play a song that uses more notes in the 2nd octave I tune to say an C or D, and vice versa if my song uses more of the lower notes. I actually tune predominantly to a C because to my ear lower notes that are played slightly flat are not as glaringly noticeable as high notes that are played sharp. My struggle then is when I try to “lip up” the lower flat pitches, it easily triggers the unwanted overtones!
          My Tenor has the same intonation tendency, but is not as out-of-tune at the limits as the Alto.
          Glad to hear that a neck change was a noted improvement to your intonation. That gives me hope to find a cure that I haven’t been able to find.
          I thought maybe the MP was a likely culprit, but I have had 4-6 different MP’s on the Alto only to find the same thing once the tuner was turned on.

          One curious thing that was noticeable more than once- I got one of those reed trimmers, and when a favorite reed got a little corner chip on it, I would trim the reed about 1mm shorter and the intonation was better. That’s not a solution I want to have to use to be more in tune, but it was a curiosity…

          Hope more provide there experience with there instrument and setup regarding intonation. I hate not having an instrument(setup) that can be played without having to work so hard with corrective “lip” tuning measures.

          #25615
          Anonymous

            Tuners are great instruments for an average reading, but still not as good as tuning an instrument
            to a generated pitch sound, when you hear a pitch, and you bring your instrument in line with that
            pitch as JF demonstrates that’s the best method.

            The reason why tuners aren’t as good, is they rely on a microphone, the crappier the microphone,
            the crappier the reading, they often give misleading readings if there are other noises happening
            at the same time as they don’t know which pitch to focus on – camera software has the same problem
            in focusing the lens when taking a picture, and often give blurred results.
            Most tuners are reliable within a fixed range, so those very high notes & very low notes – tuners
            might not be so reliable? see the manual for their range/tolerance.

            But saying all that, i rely on a tuner after i’ve tuned up with pitch sounds, as its a pain to
            generate a lot of different pitches to compare to, which is where the good old keyboard sounds
            come in, press & go.

            And just to be more awkward, the old reed changes when it warms up, so more tuning probs…

            #83902
            Simon
            Participant

              OK, i have a problem with my palm key notes being sharp. If i play with yamaha custom 4cm mouthpiece i’m perfect in tune on high D to high F#. But when i play with high baffle mpc i’m sharp as hell up there. No matter what i do i can’t lower pitch on that notes. I can make them even sharpier, but can’t lower them. I know many will say: play with that yamaha mpc, but problem is that yamaha mpc sucks to play. I need to use no.4 reed on that coz it’s so closed. So i would like to stay with high baffle and open mpc, just don’t know how to fix that sharp notes. Any exercises for that?

              P.s.: i play tenor sax

              #84236
              john
              Keymaster

                first make sure your sax is in tune to itself;
                to do that you need to play a harmonic:
                finger the low Bb, as you do with the Altissimo exercises…
                now while holding that hit the F harmonic
                once you have the F harmonic sound change you fingering to the actual middle F
                now you can hear if one F is sharper or flatter than the other.
                this is how we can see how close the sax is in tune to itself.

                beyond that, the trick to getting those high notes flatter is to decrease your bottom lip pressure.
                do the octave exercise: middle D to high D, middle D# to high D# etc
                make them long notes and experiment with your lip pressure and air pressure.

                #84261
                Simon
                Participant

                  Thanks Johnny. Well Regular F fingering is perfect in tune, but If i press low Bb and play overtone F, then that F is sharp. I can now get High notes in tune, but i need huge air pressure and very low pressure on lips, but tone is not really strong and clean then. I’ll kepp practising and see how it will go.

                  #98999
                  john
                  Keymaster

                    Reading John’s comment, what could cause a sax to be out of tune? My horn is new and I actually took it to the shop to have it checked as I was having difficulty playing in tune. I always have my mouthpiece out quite away and depending on the day, I have to pull the neck out a bit. Is that normal? I use a guitar tuner that i clip on the sax as well as a tuner on my phone. I will try the technique today of the Bb and F Harmonic.
                    Bill

                    #99012
                    saxomonica
                    Participant

                      🙂

                      #99014
                      Anonymous

                        If you play a middle C, then you can place the mouthpiece anywhere on the sax neck and play that middle C in tune, by just adjusting your embouchure.

                        However there is really only one place for the mouthpiece depending on the neck dimensions and the type of mouthpiece. Once you find the right place, mark it on the cork, then every day depending on room conditions all you need to do is shove it in a fraction or pull it out a fraction from that pencil mark.

                        A Pro looked at my mouthpiece and told me it was in the wrong place on the neck after i told him i had tuning issues. I had to move my mouthpiece in by half an inch, this took me several weeks to change my embouchure to play in tune. Each day i shoved it in by a tiny bit more until i could finally play in tune with the mouthpiece a half an inch inwards.

                        The one thing i noticed later on, was when you did Johnny’s demo of comparing the lower overtone F with the middle F, they sounded not just more in tune, but their tones sounded more identical. Once this occurs all the keys in all three sax registers will be easier to play in tune.

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