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Welcome to the Home of the Manx Saxophone Ensemble

Ever play your saxophone alongside a piano ?

 

If you haven’t, you should - it’s the best way to appreciate how transposing instruments work.  Play a ‘C’ note on the piano.  Then play a ‘C’ on your saxophone. They’ll produce notes of different pitches.

 

This is because all standard saxophones are ‘transposing instruments’, that is to say that they do not play at concert pitch like a piano, but are offset from it.

 

Alto and Bari saxes are Eb instruments.  Play a ‘C’ on one of these and it produces a concert-pitch Eb note (the same as if you’d pressed Eb on a piano).

 

Soprano and Tenor saxes are Bb instruments.  A ‘C’ on one of these produces a concert-pitch Bb note (the same as if you’d pressed Bb on a piano)..

 

Why introduce this complication ?  Because through combining the different instruments, it enables an orchestra to achieve a wide range of notes, to make the music more interesting and dynamic.

 

So, how does it work in practice ?  We’ll start with the Bb instruments ...

 

Working with Bb instruments (Soprano or Tenor sax)

 

When you play a ‘C’ on your Soprano or Tenor, your sax produces a concert-pitch Bb (it sounds one whole note lower than the key you pressed).  To compensate and play a concert-pitch ‘C’ note, you’ll need to play one whole note higher on your sax - in this case a ‘D’.

 

The principle above works for every note.  When playing with a piano or other concert pitch instrument, you’ll need to play one whole note higher across the range.

 

The same applies to the musical key you use.  If the pianist plays the tune in the key of ’C’, you’ll need to play the same tune in the key of ‘D’ (which is consistently one whole note higher) in order to play together.

 

Note : the key of D has two sharps whereas the key of C has none.  This introduces another important rule.  Against a concert pitch instrument, a Bb saxophonist will always have to play in a key with two more sharps in it.

 

Take a look at the table below, which shows which key you have to play in to stay in tune with a concert pitch instrument.

The table also shows you which key an Eb instrument will have to use to join in on the same piece of music.  The coloured cells represent keys that are common in bands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Eb saxophones (Alto and Bari), check out the next page.  Click here