Types of Saxophones
Like all instruments, saxophones come in different sizes but these don’t relate to the size of the musician. Saxophone sizes relate to the register they have and the note ranges that they can reach.
Alto Saxophones
An alto saxophone is the middle size of saxophones it is smaller than the tenor saxophone but bigger than the soprano saxophone. The majority of classical saxophone music was and is written for the alto saxophone. Because of this fact many children start learning to play the alto saxophone before looking at other saxophones. The saxophone is usually taught to children through classical methods before they move onto jazz tuition. Alto saxophones can be brought for massive price ranges. You can pick one up from a few hundred dollars or go for a top end alto sax for thousands of dollars.
The alto saxophone is an Eb transposing instrument and reads and plays from a score written in the treble clef.
Tenor Saxophones
Tenor Saxophones are the biggest common saxophones and are usually used in jazz music, jazz bands, big bands and wind bands. The tenor saxophone is pitched at Bb and written as a transposing instrument in the treble clef. Because it is bigger than the alto saxophone, the tenor saxophone uses bigger reeds and mouthpieces than the alto saxophone. The sound that the tenor saxophone produces is also deeper than the sound produced by smaller saxophones.
Because it is bigger and heavier, than other saxophones, the tenor saxophone is not generally used in marching bands although there is a range of tenor saxophone music written for marching bands.
Bass Saxophones
Bass saxophones are the saxes that aren’t that popular with children wanting to learn due to their sheer size. Bass saxophones make much deeper sound that any of the smaller saxophones and for this reason they often play the descant part in ensembles which include them. Bass saxophones are the second largest instrument in the saxophone family.
The bass saxophone is pitched at Bb or C so that it either needs to be transposed up a tone or not at all. The bass saxophone isn’t very commonly used so it was decided that some should be pitched at C so that the composer wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of always transposing the bass sax score up a semi tone every time a few bars was written for the instrument.
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