The lowest register, unless you have a good 4th trumpet, is generally unfocussed. This is the general range of the trumpet. The easiest way to score-read alto parts is:įrom a transposed score - read down a major 6th (But leave the low notes in for bari sax!) If you want to write very conservatively, maybe for amateur or younger players, take a 4th off the top and bottom of the range and you’ll be safe in pretty much every situation at every dynamic. All trills and most trems of a third are possible. Saxes are all very agile and the break doesn’t prove much of a problem like in clarinets. The fingering for these high and low notes is also slightly awkward, so while the sax is capable of playing blindingly fast, take care with these aspects of the range. Think of the saxes capabilities like an oboe too: Avoid the bottom few notes in quiet passages and be wary of intonation issues above the highest C. Unlike brass instruments, all notes are (relatively) readily available although intonation in the highest 5th or so of the range can be a bit troublesome, as can playing quietly in the lowest 3rd.Īs a comparison for orchestrally-inclined composers and arrangers, when looking at any saxophone in written pitch, you’ll notice the range looks nearly the same as an oboe. The entire range of the sax is easy to access for even intermediate players. Writing any note in a big band arrangement above F# - even if you have a good altissimo player who could do it - never happens. (Contemporary classical sax music which pretty much lives in that register is another matter!) The altissimo register extends beyond high F# and only specialised professionals will have full control over it, which they might pull out in improvised solos. Good players can of course hide this through a combination of embouchure and/or alternative fingerings and you won’t really notice much of a difference when a good player crosses from C# to D. No keys are pressed down, so the resistance is very little and makes it hard to control the intonation and colour. Written C#, both on the stave and above are annoying notes. The ‘break’ happens from written C# to D in the middle of the stave. The register gets gradually thinner as less keys are used. Notice how the lowest notes, with the most keys pressed down are the thickest sounding. Here’s the range for every sax as the players would see it: That means that once the written sax range is memorised, checking any big band score in transposed pitch should show how well it’s suited to the sax. The fingering system for all saxes is also the same. The brass instruments you really have to know the capability of your players to give you your upper (and sometimes lower) ranges.Įvery saxophone has the same written range. If you’re working with half-way decent players, you can think of the range of the sax and rhythm section instruments a bit like the piano (to an extent) in that all the notes are laid out before you, you as the arranger just have to make sure they’re the right notes. It’s worth noting that the full range of the sax is easily accessed by even intermediate players (tuning it is another matter!), whereas brass instruments like trumpet and trombone take years to develop even a passable upper (and lower) register. Assuming you’re working with good players or professionals, I’ve tried to create range charts that don’t require that pinch of salt. If you’re anything like me, I take ranges in books with a pinch of salt and then have to figure out what we can really use on the job. So you stop writing the top G and then another player on a gig plays your regular G up the octave and says ‘why didn’t you write that up the octave?’. So you write a top G and some player tells you that’s too high. We hear crazy high trumpets screaming in big band charts all the time for instance, so then you go and check a trumpet range in a book and then you see a top C. Range charts also seem to contradict what we hear. Does anyone actually see an oboe range in a textbook and then think ‘I need a buttery oboe sound here’ and proceed to only use the lower register? I prefer practical words like ‘difficult’ or ‘controllable’ to know how my writing will affect the player. I also enjoy the kind of pompous adjectives that get attributed to various parts of instrumental ranges like a sonic wine tasting. A low Bb on a sax versus it’s top F# is completely different in terms of intonation, dynamic, control and black and white dots on a stave don’t reflect this very accurately. At worst they don’t seem to represent reality, or at best imply that each note feels exactly the same as every other note, like a piano. If you’re anything like me, instrument range charts kind of frustrate me.
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