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High A alto issues!

2K views 4 replies 3 participants last post by  gospelgirl 
#1 ·
My high A sounds like trash. A mixture of spitty, airy, thin, and just dead. Please help! :line6:

My A with the octave key is just not working correctly. I've taken it to music service shop to be fixed, explicitly letting them know that I had a problem with my high A. They "fixed" it for $60 and I took it promptly back when I went home and checked and the note still didn't play correctly, but to no avail. I play a selmer AS500; it's what they handed my mom when she purchased her 8 year old daughter an alto even though all she wanted was a little flutist. All other notes on the sax sound fine. Including all the other notes requiring the octave key and the a below middle C. I've tired ignoring it, but the sound of it causes me to cringe and any song including that A is ruined. I've been playing for 12 years now and I promise I'm not hitting the wrong keys! :lol:

Quite frankly, I believe my older sister broke it somehow accidentally. She paid the $6o actually. I had been teaching her the alto for the talent portion of her Miss America pageant competitions. She's played the clarinet longer than I've played alto, and was using it for talent. But apparently the clarinet isn't as much of a wow factor as the alto as her barely passable alto skills give her more wins. (it's demeaning to her and myself but that's show business!) Long story short I think somewhere between performance and dress rehearsal and all the in and out she messed something up. Or perhaps it was another contestants act of sabotage! hah!
 
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#2 ·
Sounds like it could be the octave mechanism, as A is the first note that the crook pip should open for and the octave pip just below the crook joint should close, finger the octave G and then the problematic A and you should see the two octave pips swap from open to closed and closed to open then finger the B nothing should change on the opening of the crook pip. I would try and gentle clean both these tone holes and see if this changes anything. Another thing to try is to wedge open the crook pip and see how the A plays it could be that the actuator arm on the sax has been pushed towards the body and the travel is not allowing the pip to open sufficiently. See how you get on.
 
#3 ·
I agree it is the octave mechanism and the top octave key, the one on the crook

Try plying the note as normal with octave key pressed, then release the key so octave pad closes on the pip, but try to hold the note so it stays up the octave. You will probably hear an improvement and the note sounding as it should, nice tone and more in tune.

If this is the case then there's your rough diagnosis of the problem area.
 
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