Tuning, Intonation, And The Saxophone

Playing your saxophone in tune with others in your band requires much more than simply playing a reference note into a tuner and adjusting the mouthpiece on the instrument. In order to really understand the tuning process and how best to tune your saxophone it helps to know the physics behind the sound that you produce while playing. When we are talking about physics and the saxophone we are dealing in the realm of invisible vibrations called sound waves.

To better understand these sound waves it helps to think about a guitar string. When you pluck a note on a guitar the string vibrates at a specific rate or