Bb soprano saxophone

A#6

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.

This is the fourth note in the altissimo or very high range. It is not a member of a simple register: it plays at the third 'largeish' peak, or the sixth peak... perhaps it is just a cross fingered note whose operating peak falls above the cut-off frequency and so cannot readily be described in terms of an effective length.

The weakness of this peak (due to the relatively large cone angle of the saxophone) explains why notes in this range are hard to play and require the player to assist the weak impedance peak of the bore with a strong impedance peak of the vocal tract. See this page for an explanation and some interesting results.

Sound

Sound spectrum of a Bb soprano saxophone played using fingering for A#6.
For more explanation, see Introduction to saxophone acoustics.

Sound Clip

You can hear A#6 played.