Advice on using a tuner

I'm also new to playing sax (but I've been playing guitar for 11 years) I use a tuner everyday when I practise long tones and stuff like that. Just to keep track on where I'm at and to help me memorize which notes are sharp or flat.

However when it comes to practising intonation (even though intonation is more or less developing every time you play). I prefer using a "real" instrument as much as possible. Sometimes I hit chords on the piano with the sustain pedal and play the arpeggios on sax as the sax resonates against the piano it's really easy to hear. Sometimes I type in the chords into logic or band in a box. I think it's important to involve your ears in every aspect of your practice routine. It's just as important to know how it sounds to be in tune than how it feels.

But a tuner is a important tool. And if you buy one make shure it's a transposing one so you can change between trumpet and sax. And try to get one with a metronome as well. A metronome is even more important than a tuner!

I'm so - so on the importance factor. Convenient yes, important? If I play a gig with a pianist who plays a piano provided by the venue, being able to tune to the piano is imperative regardless of how accurately it is tuned or how, for example things like temperature affect tuning. How we play relative to the group is what the audience hears.

Aside from the initial placement of the mouthpiece when tuning up, saxophone players constantly adjust, adapt, and maintain intonation with embouchre and their ears and periodically with a little tweaking of the mouthpiece position based upon what their hearing (or band mates) tell them.

Tuners are good learning tools to find out what we need to do (compensate) to keep our specific instrument as closer as possible to being in tune relative to itself. I personally like trying to match tones with my electronic keyboard because I grew up in an era of saxes with questionable intonation and guitar players tuning amongst themselves who constantly had me adjusting my mouthpiece... In that situation, we all could have benefited from a tuner.