Saxophone Fingering Lessons

Welcome To Your First Saxophone Fingering Lessons

Johnny Ferreira

Below are the links to the three saxophone fingering lessons videos. Don’t get overwhelmed by saxophone fingering charts you may have seen. These step by step instructions make it much easier for you to learn the notes than simply looking at a fingering chart. These can look complicated and the saxophone fingering system really isn’t. Some people like to learn from text and charts and others prefer learning from watching a video lesson. Well, here you get both!

We’ll start slowly with the main 7 fingers; three on the left hand and four on the right hand. These 7 fingers cover most of the main face keys on the saxophone. The extra side palm keys will come into play later.

The Fingering is the Same for all Saxophones

It doesn’t matter whether you’re playing a soprano, alto, tenor, or baritone or even bass or any other type of saxophone. They all have the exact same fingering. All saxes are transposing instruments, which means the notes they play do not match the sound of a concert instrument (non-transposing) such as piano or guitar. This means we need to play in a different key so the actual sounding notes match up to the concert pitch instruments. If this is confusing you can learn more about it from this saxophone keys explained lesson.

For now, don’t worry about whether you’re playing a Bb or Eb sax. Just know that they all share the same fingering positions. So let’s learn them!

Lesson One

By the end of the first saxophone fingering lesson you’ll be able to play the easiest saxophone scale which is C major. The notes are low C, D E, F, G A B and middle C. This scale makes use of most of those pearly white keys that are on the front of your saxophone.

Lesson Two

We stay with these same notes of the C major scale and stretch out a bit with some simple exercises. These will start to develop your finger coordination.

Lesson Three

On the third saxophone fingering lesson you are introduced to two more new notes. These are the F# and C#. Once learned you now will be able to play the D major scale on your saxophone…pop a cork it’s time to celebrate! Playing the middle D means you’ve now crossed over into the second, or middle register of the saxophone.

Learning the Musical Notation at the Same Time

The first lesson will show you all eight notes and finger positions for the C major scale. At the same time you’ll learn how to recognize the musical notes as they’re written. Sure, you can learn all the notes and memorize them but it’s far better to also learn how to read them in the musical notation form. You don’t need to be an amazing sight reader of music but someone who can alt least read on a basic level will be way better off than someone who only plays by ear.

If you can only play by ear, you’ll be limited to the amount of songs you can learn to play. Once you can read, even at a simple grade one level you will be way ahead and able to access and play a much wider range of music. You’ll also be more satisfied and less frustrated when it comes to learning a tune.