Cómo tocar la nota Si bemol o La sostenido en el saxo - Lección 12-1

Let's start by looking at altered notes on the saxophone. We call altered notes those notes that have a sharp or a flat. These notes are called altered notes as opposed to natural notes, which are the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B. In our musical system, we have five altered notes, which can be called flat or sharp. That is, a note can have two different names. We call this enharmony. I don't explain these concepts in this course; you can learn them in my music reading course, my scales and chords course, and my harmony course, which you can find on the website and on the YouTube channel. They are free courses and very easy to understand. The first note we're going to learn is B-flat, also called A-sharp. We'll have to memorize not only the positions but also the two names this note can have. The key that operates B-flat is located between the B and A keys. It's a slightly smaller key than the others. Therefore, it's easy to locate. Since we have all our fingers occupied with their respective keys, we'll have to press this small key simultaneously with the B key, using our index finger to do this. We'll position the index finger slightly so that we can press both keys simultaneously. The saxophone was designed to do this, and the position should be comfortable. If it isn't, we're doing something wrong. Check your finger position relative to the keys with a mirror and the video. We're going to do a very simple but very effective exercise to get to know these positions well. We'll play the note C followed by the note B, then we'll play the note C again followed by the note B-flat using the fingering we just learned. We'll play this exercise slowly, separating the notes. That is, we won't play a slur because that would be too difficult to begin with. We can mark a pause between notes. We should articulate each of the notes. A second exercise would consist of playing the notes C, B-flat, and A. That is, a short scale, although we'll continue playing it without slurring. The third exercise involves playing the notes C, B-flat, and G. This way, we'll gradually add another step to what we already know. Once we've mastered these positions, we'll move on to playing the slurred exercises.