 The Fingering Forum
|
Author: special sam
Date: 2004-01-13 00:09
Is there a way to play a low A on a tenor saxophone? I know that on an alto you can, but can you on tenor?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: ~Heather ~
Date: 2004-01-13 01:05
check out fingerings and it will tell ya all the notes it can play plus it's fingerings.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: special sam
Date: 2004-01-13 01:09
no, see, the low A is not a written note. when i played on my alto, i discovered that to get a low A all you have to do is cover the bell with the inside of your leg while you're playing the fingering for a low B flat. and i was wondering if there is a way to play a low A like that because every way i try i can't get one out.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Carolyn
Date: 2004-01-13 02:32
Nope. I personally don't think it's worth it to try...sometimes you can get vintage tenors with low A's on them, but those are rare and expensive...if you play tenor later in life, i promise it will never be expected of you to play a low A...PROMISE
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: TorusTubarius
Date: 2004-01-13 18:24
Umm, why not just stick your leg into your tenor's bell? There's no physical reason why that shouldn't work on both horns.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: JfW
Date: 2004-01-16 16:53
Selmer used to make a low-A alto. In the Modern era, the only instruments that are produced with low A capability are Baritones.
To my knowledge, no one has ever manufactured a Low-A Tenor.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: you are sooo wrong
Date: 2004-01-23 19:11
in reply to what carolyn said i play a tenor and i am in high school and one of the pieces (liberty bell march) i was given require me to play a low A but since i can't i bump it up but see i am asked to play a low A so there has to be a way to do it
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: TorusTubarius
Date: 2004-01-24 16:03
Yeah, there is a way to do it, if you had a low-A tenor, which I'm not sure even exists. Otherwise, despite what your music says, you cannot play a low A because the tube simply is long enough to create a vibrating air column of that length.
Often times when a composer, even Sousa, writes out parts, he'll come up with a line that the "tenor voices" would play as opposed to coming up with a specific part for each individual instrument. This also goes instruments playing the "soprano line", the "bass line", etc. Then once he has an idea of what he wants the "tenor voices" to play, he then writes that line in on all the tenor/baritone instruments like the euphoniums, the trombones, and the tenor saxophones. The fact that your part has a written low A only shows that the "tenor line" just happened to be conceived of with a melody extending down to that low G (low A for tenor sax), and is consequently slightly out of the range of your instrument. And instead of going back to change the line to accommodate the tenor saxes, it was just left alone. He probably figured, as do most people writing for bands, that the tenors could just fend for themselves; all he really wanted to hear was euphoniums anyway. Believe me, as an oboe player, I know all about playing band pieces where my part was written as nothing more than an afterthought.
So yeah, moral of the story: the physics behind the production of sound on your instrument governs what notes you can play, not splotches of ink on a piece of paper. If I thought the reverse, that would be like someone bringing me a jacket with three arms and me thinking, "Well I must be able to stick my third arm in there somehow; after all there's a third sleeve so it must be possible somehow."
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
