Saxophone Tuner

How to tune your saxophone, step by step

1. Choose the preset for your instrument: Alto sax, Tenor sax or Baritone sax. For soprano, choose the B♭ transposition.
2. Play for a few minutes to warm up the instrument: a cold saxophone plays flat.
3. Play a sustained note, without vibrato, at a medium dynamic, aiming for the written note shown in large type.
4. If the needle shows you are flat, push the mouthpiece further onto the cork; if you are sharp, pull it out slightly.
5. Play the note again to check, then test one or two other notes in the register before rehearsing.

Reference table

Written note vs concert pitch: transposition explained

The saxophone is a transposing instrument: the note you read and finger is not the one that sounds. So that every saxophone shares the same fingerings, the music is written shifted. An ordinary tuner shows concert pitch, which forces you to convert in your head.

Here, the written note appears in large type and the concert note in small type. You can tune to the F♯ on your part without working out which pitch it actually sounds.

The offset is counted in semitones, with this rule: written note = concert note + offset.

• Soprano saxophone in B♭: +2 semitones. It sounds a whole step lower than written.
• Alto saxophone in E♭: +9 semitones. It sounds a major sixth lower than written.
• Tenor saxophone in B♭: +14 semitones. It sounds a major ninth lower, that is, an octave and a whole step.
• Baritone saxophone in E♭: +21 semitones. It sounds an octave and a major sixth lower than written.

Real-world examples

The examples below use scientific pitch notation, where the tuning-fork A is A4 = 440 Hz.

On alto sax, a concert A at 440 Hz shows as F♯5: that is the written note you finger to produce this A. Likewise, the concert B♭ at 466.16 Hz, often used to tune a concert band, corresponds to a written G5.

On tenor sax, a written C5 sounds B♭3, at 233.08 Hz. On baritone sax, a concert A3 (220 Hz) shows as F♯5, just like on alto but an octave lower.

If your director calls a note “in concert pitch”, think of it as the sounding note: the tuner shows you, in large type, the note to read on your part.

Pushing in or pulling out the mouthpiece

On a saxophone, overall pitch is set by the position of the mouthpiece on the neck. Pushing the mouthpiece in shortens the tube and raises the pitch. Pulling it out lengthens the tube and lowers the pitch. The movements are small, around a millimetre.

This adjustment shifts every note at once. It does not fix the notes that naturally run sharp or flat on your instrument, which depend on the bore, mouthpiece, reed and your embouchure. Those are worked on by ear, through lip pressure, an open throat and air support.

Avoid biting down to “lift” a note while tuning: you would end up with a badly placed mouthpiece and intonation that collapses as soon as you relax.

Making an intonation chart for your saxophone

Tuning one note does not tell you how the whole instrument behaves. The “Intonation chart” exercise in the Pitch tab fills in a grid, written note by written note, with the average deviation in cents. Play a slow chromatic scale, holding each note for about two seconds, with the transposition set.

You get a map of the notes that tend to come out sharp or flat, which you can export as an image. It is a good basis for a conversation with your teacher or for choosing a mouthpiece.

• Redo the chart with the same reed and after warming up.
• Play at a constant dynamic: forte and piano change the pitch.
• Compare two charts a few weeks apart to measure your progress.

Choosing the reference pitch

The tuner is set to A = 440 Hz by default. If your band tunes to 442 Hz, change the reference in the settings: the written notes stay the same, only the target frequencies shift by about 8 cents. You can also calibrate the reference to a note played on a piano.