Bb tenor saxophone

A4

Conventional Fingering

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.

At frequencies below about 1 kHz, this curve looks rather like that for G4 and G#4, but raised in frequency. At higher frequencies, however, the situation is complicated by the cut-off frequency. Here, the 1 kHz cutoff weakens the third peak. The first peak can be reduced in magnitude and shifted in frequency using a register hole (operated by the octave key): see A5.

For general comments about the first register, see A#3. Compare with the impedance spectrum for a soprano sax on written A4: same fingering but sounding one octave higher.

Sound

Sound spectrum of a Bb tenor saxophone played using fingering for A4.
For more explanation, see Introduction to saxophone acoustics.

Sound Clip

You can hear A4 played.