Bb soprano saxophone

C6

Impedance

Fingering a key depressed a key not depressed a hole covered a hole uncovered a part of the mechanism that is not normally touched Details in fingering legend. Acoustic schematic a closed tone hole an open tone hole Non-specialist introduction to acoustic impedance Non-specialist introduction to saxophone acoustics Notes are the written pitch. Frequencies are the sounding frequency, for Bb saxophone. Unless otherwise stated, the impedance spectrum is for a Bb saxophone.

This is the eleventh note in the second register, meaning it plays on the second impedance peak . It differs from C5 (the corresponding note in the first register) in that it uses a register hole. This causes a leak in the bore that weakens the first impedance peak, but has little affect on higher peaks – see register hole for an explanation, and compare with C5, whose impedance spectrum is almost identical except for the first peak. Note that, even with the weaking effect of the register key, the first peak is higher than the second. Both peaks will play, using different embouchures. Above about 1 kHz, the third peak is hugely weakened and the rest of the curve is irregular: see the discussion in cut-off frequency.

This note is a cross fingering: there is a key closed below the first open key, as the schematic inset shows. Because of the large size of the tone holes, cross fingerings have little effect at low frequency.

Compare with the impedance spectrum for a tenor sax on written C6: same fingering but sounding one octave lower.

Sound

Sound spectrum of a Bb soprano saxophone played using fingering for C6.
For more explanation, see Introduction to saxophone acoustics.

Sound Clip

You can hear C6 played.

Impedance

Sound

Sound Clip