Not all notes on saxophone are created equal.
Maybe they should be and maybe you want them to be.
But that’s going to take some work and control.
“My least favorite [notes] are c and c sharp. They just sound yuk. ugly….. Why do those notes not sound nice?”
-Wendy
Overall, the saxophone was designed pretty well to play in tune. The intonation needs adjustment from the player which you learn over time, but as a whole it’s not a task of colossal proportions to get the whole range of the saxophone in tune.
The tone of the notes however, is a bit more of a challenge to keep the same across the range of the saxophone.
The notes C and C# are actually notes that are pretty hard to make sound as good relative to some other notes saxophone. It’s a lot easier to make a note like G come out sounding good for some reason. Something to do with the acoustics of the saxophone. For a ‘C’ almost all of the tone holes are open and the sound can come out of any of them. For a ‘C#’ you’re not holding down any tone holes.
We learn the note C pretty early on, might have even been your first note. After all, ‘middle C’ is the middle of the piano.
But it’s definitely easier to make other notes sound good.
The first note young saxophone players learn should probably be a G, in my opinion.
What do you think?
Hello Neal ,
Thank you very much for this wonderful site !! Going through “saxstation” is as fun as practicing my tenor .
For me, the least favorite tone is low C . I can’t seem to be able to make it as round and full as the rest of the notes , specially when I’m moving from E. This is somewhat frustrating to me as I love to play on the lower register a lot.
Cheers
Mala
Thanks for your comment Mala. One thing you might be doing is placing the low C key down slightly before the third finger on the right hand, if you do that, it will become more difficult. Pay attention that and check out what you’re doing.
Basic fingering for Middle D, and sometimes E sound stuffy. I started using the palm key for D when possible. E – still working on. .
You may want to also see if you can make it less stuffy without using the palm keys. The palm keys can open it up, but that’s not going to be a convenient way to play a lot of the time.