Hi, I'm pro saxophonist Jamie Anderson and you're watching Get Your Sax
Together. This Sunday I've sifted through,
literally, hundreds of fingerings to bring you the ultimate
alto saxophone altissimo finger chart. You're gonna get no less than
six different fingerings for every note up to double F,
and they all work!
I'm going to try and keep the chat to a minimum this week as this alto
sax altissimo finger chart is more of a reference guide than a lesson.
Let's quickly get the plugs out the way first though - there's a fabulous free
PDF for you to download and print off, featuring every fingering
demonstrated in today's show. Just click the link in the description
or go to the URL below getyoursaxtogether.com/altochart.
And if you haven't already done so, be sure to go and check out my
one hour Saxophone Success Masterclass, which is an awesome FREE lesson with me
covering a whole load of stuff that will get you sounding instantly
better on sax. Just use the URL below or click the link in the description.
By the way don't panic if you play tenor sax, next week will be your time to
shine. In the meantime, try the alto fingerings
because loads of them will work on tenor as well.
Just before we get into the altissimo fingering chart
there's something very important that you need to understand.
If you're not proficient at the high notes yet, you must
watch my altissimo video linked on the card above
before you try these fingerings. If you don't you'll probably just get a few
low notes that sound like a cow giving birth and you won't understand why.
Plus, you'll be messaging me asking why the high note fingerings aren't working!
If you don't have the right formations in your vocal tract and embouchure
you won't get the altissimo notes. Simple as that.
The fingerings don't guarantee the notes I'm afraid.
However, my altissimo video will explain it all in great detail, so make sure you
check it out first. OK, that said, the fingering diagrams
themselves should be self-explanatory, but be sure to get your free reference
PDF from the link in the description, as that lists and explains everything.
You can print that off and keep it on your music stand forever.
I've provided fingerings for saxes with and without
a high F# key and I'm extremely grateful to my nine-year-old star pupil
Xavier Kusev for lending me his Jean Paul
alto for this video. If you want to see Xavier in action
and see what you can achieve with some focused practice, I've included a link to
his Instagram in the description. Me borrowing his sax also shows that
these fingerings come out on a super cheap beginner's saxophone. Now I'm
ashamed to report that in the course of my extensive research
I started losing track of whose fingering was who's, and in any case
can you even trademark or claim ownership of a fingering?
Comment below on that point if you've got an opinion. In any case, I'd like to
thank and acknowledge and put a collective shout out to all my
past and present teachers and colleagues, plus SirVallorSax, Wally Wallace, Jay
Metcalf at Better Sax, Ed Barker, Claude Delange, Tim McAllister, Sigurd
Rascher, Mark Charrett's Woodwind Fingering Guide
website, Music Education For All, Mossax, London Sax School, Steve Bone,
Scott Paddock, Nigel McGill and especially Sean Hurlburt for his
detailed and insightful series of videos on alto
altissimo. Links all these people are in the description
I also apologise in advance if you see your special unique fingering and I've
nicked it without properly acknowledging you.
If it makes it any better, the saxophone players of the world
tacitly thank you my friend. Lastly, I haven't given any of these fingerings
their nicknames (like "double fork", "triangle" or "split f") and
they're in any special order. Some work better than
others but it depends on your unique setup, so you should experiment yourself,
work out your favourites, and also work out which ones flow best
into each other. For the record, I used a Jody Jazz HR 8M
mouthpiece with a Vandoren Java Red Box 3.5 reed.
There are time stamps in the description so you can quickly go to any note you
want. Right, without further ado here's six
different fingerings for every altissimo note on alto up to a double F.
Turn up the volume if you want your neighbours to move out!
So that's it for this week. Hopefully this free online saxophone lesson
showing you a galaxy of alto sax altissimo fingerings was useful.
Next week we'll be doing the same thing for tenor sax. Don't forget to pick up
your free PDF using the link in the description,
and if you want to learn some more in-depth sax stuff, go to
www.getyoursaxtogether.com/masterclass to get your free one-hour
lesson with me. As always, thank you so much for
watching and supporting the channel. If you haven't already, please go ahead
and give the video a thumbs up, leave me a comment, subscribe to the
channel, click the bell icon to be notified
when I upload new content and check out my Insta and Facebook pages.
Until I sax up your Sunday next week, practice hard, practice smart,
but above all, enjoy your music. See you later!
to bring you the ultimate alto saxophone