Hi everyone,

Himself has just bought an alto sax. He doesn't have any music theory knowledge at all, and I have no idea about saxes....seeing as they are transposing instruments, is the bottom note counted as a 'c' for scale purposes, even though it's not actually pitched as a 'c'? He can play an octave scale starting on the bottom key of the sax (the same sort of fingering as on the recorder/flute/oboe) and I thought this must be counted as C Major, am I right?

But then I looked at the scale requirements for Grade 1, hoping to encourage him by saying "look, you can play a Grade 1 scale already!" and C Major is not there....

Sorry, I know this is very basic but we're totally confused!

T xxx

Yeah, it is C as in written C.

Nope. bottom C is considered too hard for beginners so they don't put it in until grade 3!

Hey thanks!! That's going to make him feel even better than if I told him it was in Grade 1 then (although the Grade 3 scale is 2 octaves)

I note that G Major (1 octave) is a Grade 1 scale - I would have thought that it was harder going up above D (equivilent to pinched notes on a recorder) - is this not the case?

No, it isn't that hard really, you just add the octave key. It's a lot easier than clarinet for example. Get him to try it!

I think that his octave key must need adjusting, cos he simply cannot get it to work. His sax was incredibly cheap though so it's not surprising - it was only about 80 quid new, from a website we found that was also flogging flutes and clarinets for 40 quid!

He doesn't have a teacher or anything but we're going to take it into Howarths and get them to have a look at it (if they don't die laughing first).

Ah right!

Yeah, get it seen to, even if it is a rubbish one, they still might be able to do something with the octave key.

Or he could just try overblowing the bottom notes.

I played a sax once...and couldn't get the low ones! I was overblowing them..pushed them up an octave, I think....

I gave up after that, went back to Clarinet

Giving up so easily! Honestly

of course you could tense your lip more to jump an actave, its not exactly the right tone but very very close...