There are four commonly played saxophones – soprano, alto, tenor and baritone. It’s easy to think that if you can play one, you should be able to play all of them. Here, I’m looking at what the potential difficulties can be in swapping between saxes and whether it’s as easy as it sounds.
In general, if you can play one of the saxes to a reasonable standard, you will be able to get by on the others. They have the same fingering between embouchure changes are needed and size can be a factor with some of them.
Playing the saxophone is difficult, as is playing any other instrument. But as there are multiple saxes, it becomes easier to play others once you can play the first one. Most people start on alto, or possibly tenor, but at times it can be useful to be able to play others as well. An example of this is for pit band work – pit band woodwind musicians usually double on most woodwind instruments, sax included. First, let’s talk about which things are the same between saxes.
What do the different saxes have in common?
The biggest thing the four saxes have in common is fingering. There is no variation in fingering at all between the saxes, meaning that once you have learnt the notes for one, you know them for all of them. This can be confusing, because the pitch you hear when you play the same fingering on different saxes varies. For example, if you take the fingering for G on alto and play that same fingering on tenor, you hear a different pitch. However, when you see that note written in the music, it still says G.
This is because the alto sax is written in Eb and the tenor is written in Bb. By this I mean that a written C (the reference key signature) on alto sax sounds as an Eb and on tenor sax sounds as a Bb. On violin, piano, flute and many others, a written C will sound as a C as expected. Soprano sax is also Bb, but an octave higher than tenor and baritone sax is Eb, an octave below alto. If this wasn’t the case, you would have to learn different fingering for all of the saxes.
There are other similarities between saxes that are helpful in playing more than one type. They are all single reed instruments and so the process of creating a sound is very similar. The alignment of the keys is also pretty much the same, although obviously stretched for the larger instruments.
How does embouchure change between saxes?
Despite the similarities between saxes, there are also quite a few differences. The biggest thing people will talk about in terms of switching between instruments is your embouchure. By embouchure, I mean the position your mouth makes to produce the desired sound on the instrument. Plenty of things define your embouchure, including reed strength, playing style and skill level.
As the different saxes themselves are different sizes, the mouthpieces also are. There is also quite a bit of variety in the shape of the mouthpieces. Changing the size and shape of the mouthpiece affects the air stream you need to create. The bigger the mouthpiece, the more air you need. This means that if you go from, say baritone, to soprano sax, you might overblow on the soprano and end up squeaking and going from soprano to baritone, you might find that you can’t get enough air down the sax.
Another significant embouchure difference is the tightness of your lips around the mouthpiece. If you have a smaller object in your mouth, you need to create a smaller air stream. This means you need a tighter embouchure for a soprano sax than a baritone sax. If you go from a baritone to a soprano, your lips might be too relaxed and your tuning will suffer on the soprano.
In my opinion, it is generally a bit easier to switch to a larger sax from a smaller one. This is because the tightness of the muscles needed for the higher instrument is harder to achieve for me than increasing the amount of air. This might just be a personal preference for smaller instruments but I have always found these easier to master.
Is size an issue when switching between saxes?
Another factor in switching between saxes is their physical difference in size. Most adults will have no trouble with alto or soprano saxes. Most children will have no trouble with soprano or alto saxes. However, a lot of people have trouble with baritone sax, due to its size compared to the others.
For some people, the baritone sax is just too big. It can be very heavy, but this isn’t often the deciding factor, as you can get a harness to support a lot of the weight across both your shoulders and back. The bigger problem is the spacing of the keys. It can be quite a big stretch to reach all of the keys, which makes it much more difficult to play quickly. For some small adults and a lot of children, it may actually be impossible to reach all of the side keys, especially the low Bb key.
Conversely, for some adults, the soprano sax might just feel too small. It could be that the keys are so close together that the fingers are squashed up. The player might then have difficulty playing at speed as the fingers would be tripping over each other a lot. This is usually more of an issue on the curved soprano than the straight soprano, but can be a problem on both for some people.
Additional points on switching between saxes
In my experience, switching between saxes is very doable. However, I definitely favour the alto. This is the one I started playing first, and it’s also the one that I would say is the most appropriate size for my body. I didn’t really find much difficulty at all switching between alto and tenor – the sizes are quite similar and the embouchure doesn’t change dramatically.
The soprano sax requires a much tighter embouchure than the others. This can take a bit of work at first to build up the muscles you need. However, once those muscles are there, it isn’t so hard to switch between that and alto or tenor. I’m quite small so the soprano is a reasonable size for me to play, so I don’t struggle with finger positioning.
Baritone sax is the one I find the hardest to switch to. Having practiced playing it quite a lot, I don’t struggle too much with the embouchure change between this and other saxes. I do sometimes struggle getting enough air flow though, as the baritone is a big thing to fill. It’s also a bit big for me – I can reach all the keys but they’re a stretch. This means that after a while of playing baritone my hands get tired, and I can’t play quick passages too easily. Luckily, on baritone, you don’t often have to play quick passages!
Overall, I would say that if you can play one sax, you can play them all, but at first, embouchure differences will affect your tuning and sound quality. If you have particularly big or small hands, you might find that you need to miss out either soprano or baritone, but this is specific to each player.
The best thing to do is just give it a try, and if you’re struggling, it’s a good idea to get a similar mouthpiece for each of the different saxes. You can’t expect to switch perfectly straight away if you’re playing a metal mouthpiece on one and a classical mouthpiece on the other. You can get the same shape (scaled) mouthpiece for different saxes and this might be helpful if your embouchure is struggling.