Bb tenor saxophone

B5

Conventional Fingering

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 tenth note in the second register. It differs from B4 (the corresponding note in the first register) in that it uses a register hole. This causes a leak in the bore that weakens the first impedance peak, but has little affect on higher peaks – see register hole for an explanation, and compare with B4, whose impedance spectrum is almost identical except for the first peak. Above about 1 kHz, the third peak is weakened and the rest of the curve is irregular: see the discussion in cut-off frequency. Above this frequency, the spacing of peaks in the upper part of the curve roughly equals that in the curve for the lowest note, A#3. This is because, at high frequency, the wave propagates past the open tone holes, reflecting only at the bell.

Compare with the impedance spectrum for a soprano sax on written B5: same fingering but sounding one octave higher.

Sound

Sound spectrum of a Bb tenor saxophone played using fingering for B5.
For more explanation, see Introduction to saxophone acoustics.

Sound Clip

You can hear B5 played.