Question for Saxophone Players - Out of Tune Playing?

[goldenwave77]

I have a question for any sax (or other wind players) out there? What causes out of tune playing, exactly?!

A column of air is blown across a reed (or two)---a key is depressed that changes the length of the air column (like pressing down on a fret) and the pitch is changed. So, assuming the instrument was properly constructed and is functional (keys work properly), what causes the inaccuracy (out of tune tone)?

I've always assumed bad wedding bands with the trumpet players or sax players playing "In the Mood" (usually flat) were probably the victim of leaky valves, and maybe instruments that were played occasionally and not properly maintained....is it also a question of the "embouchure". I ask about this, as I always thought embouchure affected volume, maybe tone, definitely attack...but not pitch itself....also how does one slur a note on these instruments...is it a momentary thing (?!) as the key is depressed and is not quite closed, for a micro-second before it is fully closed?

I know this is a bit off topic for guitarists, but there is a lot of expertise here, and perhaps someone can lift my mist of ignorance.

[jasaco]

I'm not a sax player but I am the Dad of a professional one and, FWIW, it's my understanding that embouchure has a lot to do with playing on pitch.

[GodinFan]

Intonation in woodwinds has a huge number of variables.

The short answer is: physics.

Find some of Arthur Benade's writings on wind instruments and you'll start to get an understanding.

[goldenwave77]

Intonation in woodwinds has a huge number of variables.

The short answer is: physics.

Find some of Arthur Benade's writings on wind instruments and you'll start to get an understanding.

I would like to thank you for your response...I really would, but it's impossible to do: Referring someone to what appears to be hundreds of pages written in dense technical prose is not really what I was looking for.

It's pretty obvious from my original question that I know that physics is at the root of this, as opposed to say metaphysics, or religious belief. Your response reminds me of someone who was a personal friend of my in-laws. This fellow was a nuclear engineer, and as my father-in-law used to say "Ask Charlie what time it is...and he'll tell you how a clock works...".

I am almost certain that sax players are not required to read these learned disquisitions--though I may be wrong. So let me ask again, are there any sax players who can help me out on this? Perhaps I need to rephrase this, to make explicit what I thought was implicit, namely...what does one do, as a sax player...to make a proper tone....it sounds like blowing and shaping of the mouth, is involved.

[Stuart Elliott]

A quick search finds this

No saxophone is perfectly in tune—given the way how saxophones are built, this simply looks improbable. Each and every saxophone, irrespective of the manufacturer and its price tag, has a few notes that are slightly off (sharp or flat), sometimes even entire ranges in which they are consistently flat or sharp.


Granted, this construction challenge has significantly improved over the last 20~30 years. All saxophone manufacturers indeed do everything they can to release instruments with acceptable tuning—even entry-level and student saxes sound a lot better these days (if one discards certain dirt cheap offerings and dubious discounters).
Intonation challenges saxophone

Saxophone players invariably have to compensate for minor intonation deficiencies of their instrument. Let’s have a look at the most likely notes and ranges:

1. On most saxophones, the E (sometimes also the F) in the second octave is somewhat sharp.
2. The C# below is often flat.
3. The complete upper register is often sharp (starting from the A2, and especially the D3), while the entire lower register (from the D1 onwards) is flat.

This list is also useful, because it allows me to pinpoint a typical and usually dreadful mistake: while playing in the low register, some sax players think “oops, my sax is flat,” and then tune it higher using the mouthpiece, only to notice a little later that their instrument is seriously sharp in the high register.


Obviously, not all tuning problems should be blamed on the instrument: some issues are “home made”. If your breathing technique is rudimentary, with little or no “diaphragm support”, playing notes in the high register often causes you to put too much pressure on your lips and your jaws—and so your tuning is hopelessly sharp. Consequently, intonation has a lot to do with breathing technique and a controlled attack.
Simple rule-of-thumb: the more pressure you exert on your lips (and jaw), the higher the notes become, while releasing the lips lowers the tuning.

[nowhere man]

I am a trumpet player, and any brass instrument is very difficult to play in tune. The lips act like vocal chords and allow a a lot of variation in pitch. Some mouthpieces provide a nice sound but are nearly impossible to play completely on pitch, and the instruments have some inherent design problems that also have to be overcome. And finally, any temperament system you use has some built in problems. It's not like fretting a guitar string or pressing a piano key.

[goldenwave77]

Responses to posts #5 and #6:

Thank you. Now we are getting somewhere. (I'm not actually looking to play sax, but there is a guy who posts on youtube on bebop theory, and he plays sax, and some of his playing examples are out of tune...though youtube stuff can play back, and be out of tune, so maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt.)

And even if he's not a great sax player, his analysis may still have some value: After all, Casey Stengel was a pretty mediocre major league player, but an undeniably great manager, whereas Ty Cobb was the reverse.

So bottom line....the player is an integral/essential part of being accurate in pitch. Now I've learned something.

I had a college roommate who was a chemistry major....really smart guy but an absent minded scientist type...would walk around with one brown shoe/one black shoe kind of guy...he went to MIT after studying Physical Chemistry in college to learn about how to build machines that MIGHT have application for some research applications...he now has a high-level position with IBM doing ultra small chip production---spends half the yr. in Japan, and the other half in a clean room: He used to practice his sax in the science hi-rise corridors at night when no one was around, a la Sonny Rollins. Maybe I'll ask him if he's read Arthur Benarde.

[docbop]

If I remember from school the French horn is suppose to be the hardest to play in tune?

Every instrument has it unique challenges. I mentioned it in another thread but I watching an improv video for sax players a week or two ago, and they were getting into issues of embouchure, tonguing, air control and how they have vary all those factors for playing in ranges, styles, and other aspects. Then trumpet players on high notes have to pre-hear the pitch in order to try and play it in tune. Guitar is pretty simple compare to other instruments.

[pamosmusic]

Embouchure, air flow ... the temperature and humidity can wreak havoc while a player is playing. I think the bottom line is that if you're in tune and the player is playing out of tune on a regular basis without correcting then there's something wrong with the horn or someones ear

[nowhere man]

I have also heard that said about the French horn.

Although, I would think that trombone players would need a really good ear. And then there are violins, cellos and upright basses that have strings but no frets.

[jasaco]

...And then there are violins, cellos and upright basses that have strings but no frets.

And steel guitars.

[pamosmusic]

It's also a weird thing to think about for fretted instruments but intonation is relative. Technically guitars are a little out of tune all the time and were taught that a pitch is made by putting your finger down and if it's out of tune then you live w it or stop playing and get a tuner. An instrument that can adjust its tuning in tiny increments has a lot more to consider than we do. Especially when you take into account that embouchure and airflow are factors. That means your tuning is probBly directly affected by your choice of timbre and color. Not saying that's an excuse for bad intonation. I'm just saying horn players are probably a little wary of fretted equal tempered instruments that are quick to judge their intonation

[nowhere man]

I have used a chromatic tuner with my guitars and observed that the notes are not always right on the pitch. It makes sense. If the string is on the pitch when it is played open, then fretting the note will require bending it slightly, making the note a little sharp. But the degree of change is not significant. With a trumpet, you can be off pitch to a considerably greater extent, but if you have a good ear, you can be right on it.

I doubt anyone in this guitar forum is interested, but if you google conn mouthpiece guide you will find an analysis of the matter.

[pamosmusic]

Guitar is actually out of tune because it is equal tempered. Because notes are different depending on their place in each key fretted instruments can only truly be in tune in one key so the way the problem was solved was to make each half step an even division of he octave. So it's a little out of tune in every interval but the octave. But equally out of tune in every key

[nowhere man]

Equal temperament applies to band instruments as well.

[GodinFan]

I would like to thank you for your response...I really would, but it's impossible to do: Referring someone to what appears to be hundreds of pages written in dense technical prose is not really what I was looking for.

It's pretty obvious from my original question that I know that physics is at the root of this, as opposed to say metaphysics, or religious belief. Your response reminds me of someone who was a personal friend of my in-laws. This fellow was a nuclear engineer, and as my father-in-law used to say "Ask Charlie what time it is...and he'll tell you how a clock works...".

I am almost certain that sax players are not required to read these learned disquisitions--though I may be wrong. So let me ask again, are there any sax players who can help me out on this? Perhaps I need to rephrase this, to make explicit what I thought was implicit, namely...what does one do, as a sax player...to make a proper tone....it sounds like blowing and shaping of the mouth, is involved.

You could have said thank you and then asked for a bit more elaboration. I make my living playing woodwinds.

However, at this point, given your snarky response, I'm not inclined to engage in any discussion.

While my answer may have been terse, I did point you to one of the most informative sources ever on woodwind intonation. Sorry you don't feel like wading through it. In any case, what would you do with that info? Tell off any of the out of tune sax players you meet, and explain to them what they should be doing to play in tune better?

[pamosmusic]

Equal temperament applies to band instruments as well.

Only in that they play with equal tempered instruments like guitar and piano. For example if the pitch of an E needs to be altered slightly because it's the third of a chord, a saxophone in a wind ensemble can (and often is required) to do it. A piano cannot.

[goldenwave77]

You could have said thank you and then asked for a bit more elaboration. I make my living playing woodwinds.

However, at this point, given your snarky response, I'm not inclined to engage in any discussion.

While my answer may have been terse, I did point you to one of the most informative sources ever on woodwind intonation. Sorry you don't feel like wading through it. In any case, what would you do with that info? Tell off any of the out of tune sax players you meet, and explain to them what they should be doing to play in tune better?

YOUR reply was brief---but what it pointed me to---a guy who has literally spent a lifetime writing reams about the application of differential equations to the analysis of cross-sectional vortex vacuums in wind instruments, and other technical gobbledegook is NOT HELPFUL: If you fail to see how that is the case, I am not sure what else to say. (And yes, thank you for providing a worthless response--do you feel better now?!)

You might look at some of the other responses--brief and to the point, and ...HELPFUL. (And if you'd looked at the other posts in the thread--at least up to #7, you'd have figured out my interest.) But I'm done debating this---and in fact don't need to: Your own words do a pretty good job of undercutting your position. It is Sunday, and I am resting, both for today and for all time, on this particular interchange.

[docbop]

So from this and similar threads here and other places I'd say pitch is relative and perfect pitch would be boring like computer generated music. A computer or machine can produce perfect pitch reproductions of instruments and we spot it. I would say that why Pat Metheny's Orchestron is more acceptable because it's real instruments with machines striking, plucking, etc. them That subtle adjustments humans make for scale degree of a note, or for equal temperament, response in a particular room, or just style all come into play to make music human sounding.

As humans what separates us from the machines and that we hear and appreciate is the subtle variations in time, pitch and timbre.

[goldenwave77]

Gee, I'm not sure about this. I took a stab at playing non-pedal steel and let me tell you, that will sharpen up your sense of pitch, and frustration with pitch/tuning like nothing else that I've experienced. (Spend some time over on the steelguitarforum, and you'll find massive, extended, and frequent discussions devoted to pitch, and tuning conventions, etc.)

I will agree with you re: rhythm. Some of the cuts on a double Howard Roberts CD I have (HR is a Dirty Guitar Player and Color Him Funky) have him playing against on a click track. To me, these are the least satisfying cuts on this disk---stilted, artificial sounding, and HR's playing sounds more "out of the pocket" than anywhere else on this CD. In fact, I've read that somebody did oscilloscope analyses and found that a really tight rhythm section is not clockwork, monotony but actually expands/contracts together, for a sort of "breathing" phenomenon that is more musical-sounding. Better stop here, before I hijack my own thread...)

(From a biological evolutionary perspective, I think humans are hard-wired to notice and respond to differences in pitch and rhythm....kind of like how the trick for a hunter/animal in stalking is to avoid having his movement noticed. To the listener, maybe slight differences "tell us" to keep paying attention.)

[Spook410]

I've been playing saxophone a long time. (Godinfan: '71 Selmer MkVI, Yanagisawa soprano, just getting back into it after years away). Guitar and keyboard players often don't get it. Horns are not inherently in tune across all registers. Some are better than others. It also varies by type. Most soprano saxophones are less in tune across their range than a tenor. You can also move across much of a half step with your embouchure if you're using a stiff reed and open mouthpiece. In general, it's challenging to keep them as close as we typically do.

So.. why do you ask?

[pubylakeg]

I hope this isn't considered off topic, but it's my opinion that every player has their own concept of intonation. To the point where the listener sometimes has to calibrate their ear to the players way of thinking. Someone like Lee Konitz might be the most immediately apparent person to demonstrate my viewpoint.

[docbop]

I've been getting into more horn materials and reading things about horn and pitch. They getting into things on small changes in pitch based on the scale interval. So playing a horn beside having to make adjustments for pitch are also adjusting for how the note being played is being used. The more I discover about horns and ratio of embouchure, wind, and tongue placement no wonder so much of there learning and practice is on long tones, tone production, overtones, then the fingers can get to be nuts for altissimo and effects.

Who here said guitar is the hardest instrument to play, and for effects guitar you stomp on a box and horns its a product of false fingering and how they blow the horn.

Check this out if interested of what they go thru.

[Spook410]

On the other hand, on saxophone the chord voicings are a little easier.

[goldenwave77]

I've been playing saxophone a long time. (Godinfan: '71 Selmer MkVI, Yanagisawa soprano, just getting back into it after years away). Guitar and keyboard players often don't get it. Horns are not inherently in tune across all registers. Some are better than others. It also varies by type. Most soprano saxophones are less in tune across their range than a tenor. You can also move across much of a half step with your embouchure if you're using a stiff reed and open mouthpiece. In general, it's challenging to keep them as close as we typically do.

So.. why do you ask?

See post #7. As noted, there is a guy on youtube, Conn6, who claims that Charlie Parker's use/"invention" of what we call the bebop scales, was based on his hearing harmonic overtones (1st, 3rd, 5th) off of chord tones. Thus, in a major scale, the 3rd off of the 3rd gives us a #5, etc. Thus, CP's famous quote about hearing upper tone "extensions" as the genesis of bebop was probably not using the same terminology we are familiar with, as he may have been hearing these harmonics and not the 9th, 11th, 13th which is what most of us think of, when we hear the term "extensions". It is an interesting point, as it implies that bebop (additional) scale notes are not just rhythmic "space fillers" to align downbeats and weak (up) beats, but have harmonic implications--literally. (BTW, the "definitive" analysis of CP's playing by the fellow who did the 400 pg. doctoral dissertation at UCLA just repeats the conventional interpretation of what CP said which doesn't make sense---the additional notes are not just 9ths, 11th's or 13th's, and plenty of people (Bix Beiderbecke and Tatum and others) were doing this already, so this "explanation" doesn't really explain anything.)

The youtube fellow is no fool and seems pretty careful about tracing this through, but I saw one of his playing posts, and it sounded out of tune---though I know that youtube playbacks are not always reliable. So, it's just one bit of information to kind of assess the overall credibility of his theories, though I've pointed out that great players can be lousy analysts/coaches--in music as in sports. Witness Isaiah Thomas, a great player but quite likely the most inept/toxic front office mgmt. person in basketball history. Sorry to vent but it's hard to be a nominal Knicks fan when for the last ten years they've been like an outtake from a "Walking Dead" episode.