Sax Fingerings

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2Dog
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Re: Sax Fingerings

Post by 2Dog »

I commented earlier that there is more than one way home and I expected to see differences in how to finger accidentals. The bata is set up to get all accidentals, that you can't finger like a sax, using the same hole. It takes getting used to but it is very playable that way. And in some keys you can keep your fingers down and lift others and play a scale that has a lot of accidentals easier than you can on an acoustic instrument or even a wind-controller (maybe some may have a way of customizing fingerings). Judging from the number of views of this thread it appears that there is interest in sax fingerings and I would like to hear from someone who has tried the bata for awhile. In both bag mode and breath mode.

It would be an entirely new ball game if you added another two thumb holes and other holes to simulate side keys. My LH pinky has nothing to do but hang out all day while my RH pinky does the heavy lifting. Just saying.
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Re: Sax Fingerings

Post by admin »

Yes, I've had a few other requests for that, but space is a little limited and because WARBL is mostly aimed at players of keyless instruments, I probably won't add those until I make the UberWARBL ;)

I'm releasing v.1.6 today, and for most users the sax fingering option won't show up because I still am not sure how to best combine these fingering options, but if you want to continue using the "beta" sax fingering you can use the version that I'm attaching here. It is exactly the same as the release version except that the sax fingering will show up in the Configuration Tool. It will also tell you that you have version 10.0 installed, which is just a workaround I used to be able to detect this special version. I didn't want to release the initial sax fingering to everyone, because I don't want too many people to start using it only to see it go away or be modified later.
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Andrew Mowry
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2Dog
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Re: Sax Fingerings

Post by 2Dog »

Any problem with just using the Bata I have? I don’t see anything in v 6 that I would use.
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Re: Sax Fingerings

Post by admin »

Nope that’s fine.
Andrew Mowry
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2Dog
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Re: Sax Fingerings

Post by 2Dog »

:D I am a happy camper and it is perfect the way it is for my purposes. :D
ubizmo
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Re: Sax Fingerings

Post by ubizmo »

Now that I've had an opportunity to test things, I find myself using the recorder fingering rather than the sax fingering, for chromatic playing. It just feels more natural to me, even though it's not exactly like a recorder either. Rather than start another thread, I'll just put my suggestions here.

As I mentioned in another thread, my instinct is to use the thumb to change registers. I now understand that this isn't implemented because it would create a conflict between the D2 and C3 fingerings. I feel that this should be doable, especially considering that the C3 fingering on a real recorder isn't at all "natural." So, I think the best solution would be to add a different C3 fingering, such as O|XOO|XXOO, which is pretty much how it's played on real recorder. You could add O|XXO|XXOO for B2 and O|XXO|XXXO for Bb2 as alternates too, since these would permit familiar combinations with C for recorder players.

If you wanted to go up to D3, that would look like O|XOX|XOXO on a recorder.

I have two other requests for improvements to the recorder fingering. One is X|OXX|OOOO as an alternate for B1. This is very commonly used for trills or quick transitions from C2 to B1. If you were to implement my suggestions above, it would be for the first octave only. Finally, I think there should be some way to play C#1. There's no natural way to do it, so it's just a matter of uncovering some arbitrary hole. I'd suggest uncovering L3, so you'd have X|XXO|XXXX, which wouldn't conflict with anything. Uncovering L1 would be fine, too.

Since the recorder is a keyless instrument (the soprano and alto, anyway), the WARBL recorder fingering can be more natural than any possible sax fingering, since the sax fingering has to compensate for a lot of missing keys.
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Re: Sax Fingerings

Post by admin »

Okay, thanks! I think I can implement all of this. I'm hoping to find some time in the next few weeks to sit down and go through all these fingering charts. I'll probably end up having two sax options as well as this upgraded recorder chart, and then you guys can test them and make revisions if you'd like.
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ubizmo
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Re: Sax Fingerings

Post by ubizmo »

Yeah, all the possible fingering variations are a lot to take in, especially when these are fairly far from your original vision for WARBL. But the instrument has a lot of potential trad music, and that can only be good.

Incidentally, I've been "half-holing" that low C# with the recorder fingering, and although it's a bit wonky, it's impressive that it works at all.
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Re: Sax Fingerings

Post by admin »

Ubizmo, I believe I've made all the suggested changes to the recorder chart. It wold be great if you could test it and see if it works as you would expect. I have it so that the thumb normally controls the register, but if you have "Overblow" selected in the Configuration Tool, a combination of covering the left thumb hole and overblowing will give you a third octave.

Also, I've added dborgo's suggestion for fingering, so now (once you have the attached version installed), you have have options for "saxophone, basic" (dborgo's version) and "saxophone, extended" (2Dog's version). The "basic" version works similarly to the recorder chart above, in the sense that you can select "overblow" to get a third octave by combination or overblowing and covering the thumb hole.

When this version is installed, it will say that you have version 10. Again, that's just a temporary workaround until I release version 1.7.
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ubizmo
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Re: Sax Fingerings

Post by ubizmo »

I'll get to it tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for pulling this all together.
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