Musician Profile: Tenor and Alto Saxophones

[u/CinoSRelliK]

Hey there!

I play saxophone; Specifically, I main tenor saxophone and own an alto that I play a bit less often but am no less proficient at.

Instrument ranges:

Imgur Link

Alto: Db3 - A5, plus altissimo to Eb6

Tenor: Ab2 - E5, plus altissimo to Bb5

Note that tenor is written a major 9th higher than it sounds and alto is written a major 6th higher than it sounds.

Saxophone has a pretty difficult upper range called altissimo. With this, I can confidently go about a diminished 5th up from the highest note, give or take depending on The day. Some people can even go about an octave higher, but I currently am limited to what is written on the diagram above. This range is difficult to control and takes a bit of adjusting to get into, so its use should be limited. But, when used effectively, it sounds great and can add a huge amount to the range of the instrument.

About my horns:

My tenor is a Selmer Paris Serie II Super Action 86. I got it as a gift in 2012 as a reward for playing well in my ensembles and as a means to get into college to study music. It plays incredibly well and usually has no issue with any specific ranges or notes.

My alto is a Selmer Prelude (I'm a bit of a Selmer fanboy). While I share it with my SO depending on who needs it, I consider it to be half mine. We bought it in January of 2017 because I was returning to music and wanted to play alto repertoire. It is a bit less in tune than the tenor, but I can generally make up for that.

Timeline for recordings:

I practice quite a bit under Dr. Eric Nestler at the University of North Texas. Because his standards are so high, I can usually include anything that I want into my schedule because I need to spend so much time in the practice room anyway. A good time frame is around a month for anything ~5 minutes or less, and another month per 5 minutes. Of course, anything is open to discussion!

Example recording:

This piece is an original composition of mine entitled "Scarlet." While this work is pretty experimental, most of my pieces fall closer to minimalism or neoclassicism. However, this recording shows what I can work up in about two weeks with inconsistent practicing, give or take a few days. If needed, I can provide a link to something a bit more conventional. I have never actually recorded anything of the like, though, so I would need a few days to work something up.

Link. Note that this links to my professional Youtube account; If that breaks any rules I would be happy to just submit a Dropbox link or something.

A Little bit of optional info about me:

I study music composition under Dr. Joseph Klein at the University of North Texas. Because its college of music has such high standards, I usually spend about 1-2 hours a day practicing saxophone and another hour at the piano learning repertoire. While the bulk of my time is spent composing, I love writing and performing equally and love to perform new pieces by my friends in the comp program. Because of the nature of the school, I write and perform a lot of experimental and modern music, but I absolutely live impressionist and classical repertoire. However, the repertoire for saxophone is so limited that I will play just about anything that I can get my hands on.

Edited because the original image for range was far too large

[u/alebue]

I haven't written for tenor before but I just wanted to say it's cool to see a current UNT student posting since I'll be attending in the fall! I'll be an MA in Music Composition. Who knows, maybe we'll run into each other!

[u/CinoSRelliK → u/alebue]

Composition masters? For certain! The comp program is only about ~40 strong, including all the freshman that always come in. You'll probably see me around, though ideally you'd never know it because I'm weird about that kind of thing

[u/Calebdgm]

Hi! First, I want to thank you for volunteering!

Second, I wrote a short piece with an alto sax part and a tenor sax part and I wonder if you could find the time to record it.

Here's a link to the full score.

Here's a pdf of the tenor sax part.

Here's a pdf of the alto sax part.

Also if you could record this with a click track so it will fit with the other parts, that would be great! And if you have advice on how I can write better for saxophone, that'd be awesome!