Saxophone & Uke help needed

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joelele

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Hi guys,

I'm new to ukulele.

If I play ukulele along with a saxophonist.
Say for example, I strum a C chord in standard tuning would a saxophonist hold their standard C note and they would layer well together!?

I'm used to playing guitar with piano and they play together fine. I hope I'm making sense.

Would the C chord of a ukulele work well with a C chord of a guitar!?

Best wishes.

Joel
 
A c chord is a c chord - so guitar and uke play fine together. As long as you are playing the same (or complimentary) chords there is no problem.

The saxophone might be a different story. Most woodwinds, brass, and so on are what are called "transposing" instruments. I.e. the music is written one way but what is played may be a different key. I.e. a "C" position on an alto (I think) saxophone is actually Eb. So if you tell a sax player to "play your C" you might get an Eb note out of him!

John
 
BTW, I actually tried to learn tenor sax, once. The best I succeeded in doing was making very loud noises that sounded amazingly like flatulent elephants. After an intervention by my family, I gave the sax to a young man who actually could make music on it! :)

John
 
I thought the same, thank you for that and thank you for the thought of flatulant elephants :)

The sax seems to work really well with the Ukulele.
I havnt had so much fun with an instrument before, the ukulele is a forgiving instrument too.

Really love it, I'm going to call my ukulele Lukulele!
 
What size sax? Alto is Eb as far as I remember, and Tenor is Bb. I guess if it was a bari or a soprano you would have said.

Instruments in the key of Eb transpose a minor third (or three half steps, on the line or space below the note being played by the instrument in C) _below_ the note.

So a C on a uke is not an Eb on an alto sax. It's an A.

If you're using a tenor sax and you're in Bb, so the rules change. On the tenor sax, you would play the note two half steps above the one being played on the uke in order for them to sound the same. And you might need to add an octave to that. So the C on the uke would be D on the tenor sax.

It's the same rule for keys. If the key of the song is C, then on the Bb tenor sax, the key is D (two sharps - F# and C#). On the Eb alto sax it's the key of A (three sharps - F#, C#, G#). If the key is minor, then the third of the key is flatted a half step, but that would be apparent in the music anyway.
 
Last edited:
Transposing isn’t hard at all. That is if you have worked hard to learn it. I can do it, but then I have been an arranger for over 40 years.

Within jazz certainly, but also within certain sorts of popular music you can buy compilations or anthologies of the same songs edited as well for C concert instruments with chord symbols, as well as for melody instruments in Bb and Eb, and possibly more keys. They have the advantage that the sax player plays happily from his book and you from yours, and then the melody and the chords just match, because the books were made that way.

Klaus
 
OldePhart said:
BTW, I actually tried to learn tenor sax, once. The best I succeeded in doing was making very loud noises that sounded amazingly like flatulent elephants. After an intervention by my family, I gave the sax to a young man who actually could make music on it! :)

John
Click to expand...

Just remember bad sax is better than no sax at all. :D

Sorry about that, but I don't get many chances to use that joke.
 
Howlin Hobbit said:
I play a lot with horn players. Basically, you let them worry about the transposing. You simply go, "key is C" (or G or whatever) and they do any necessary mental gymnastics.
Click to expand...

Yup. If they've been playing for any length of time, they're completely used to transposing to concert pitch.

If you were writing out a part for saxophone (say, you were making an horn arrangement for a song), you might want to fool with transposing it. But for just jamming, playing along with lead sheets, etc., you usually don't have to fool with it.

JJ
 
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