[aidantru]

I know that you can do scoops and smears and the like, but I'm talking about starting on a fingered pitch and raising it up. An example would be to take low A :treble::space2: (fingered 1 and 2) and to play the A, but then raise it to a Bb only changing voicing and embouchure. An analogy would be playing a note on a keyboard and moving the pitch wheel upwards. Is this at all possible on the saxophone?

 

[Instrument Attic]

On some horns with some setups, yes. For example a "flexible" soprano up in the palm keys you can do this. On a tenor down on the staff would be much more difficult.

It's easier to finger the next note up and scoop / bend into it.

Here's an example. First is fingering a palm D and bending up to (almost) an E-flat. Then I alternate between fingering D to E-flat and bend the pitch by voicing into (and a bit above)
the higher pitch.

 

[saxoclese]

Generally you can't lip a note up that far on a saxophone. Once you tighten the embouchure to a certain point, the reed closes off. Perhaps using a very soft reed and playing very low on the mouthpiece pitch with a loose embouchure, one could achieve that much of a bend, but the tone would sound like crap to begin with IMO. Sometimes in jazz charts you will find a small upward curve at the end of a note indicating to bend the pitch up---the opposite of a "fall" or "drop". Brasses can do this easily, but saxes have to do a quick short chromatic run upward to try to imitate the brass. It never sounds very good and you hope the brass covers you up.

Instrument Attic has posted a very good example of bending pitches in the highest register of the saxophone. This is possible because the shorter tube length does not have a strong "natural resonant frequency. It is the "natural resonant frequency" of the length of the tube that collaborates with the reed to set up the frequency at which the reed vibrates. The weaker "natural resonant frequency" of the shorter tube allows the player's oral cavity to take charge of the reed's vibrations. Dr. Gary Scavone in his studies found that this is possible on most saxes down to about A2. Below that note bending the pitch using the oral cavity no longer is possible. Using "false" fingerings also weakens the natural resonant frequency allowing the player to play notes in the altissimo range.

 

[click]

https://tamingthesaxophone.com/saxophone-mouthpiece-exercises

https://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?205309-Mouthpiece-in-the-Car-Anyone-Else-Doing-This

http://www.bobrk.com/saxfaq/2.6.html

Exercises might help control bending pitches

 

[adamk]

If you center the pitch of your embouchure (I'm working on this now on tenor) you can lip up too but probably not as for as down.

 

[milandro]

much will depend also from how soft your reed is but certainly the bending the sound up has tighter limits than bending it down.

You can try to pitch your mouthpiece higher and then start your sound from a lower position and the result may be a very high sound but then you are lipping down the rest of the playing which may be very tiring

 

[soybean]

Michael’s Brecker used a combination of fingerings and extremely loose embouchure to create an effect that sounded very much like a guitar bending pitch.

 

[Kritavi]

Garth Hudson of The Band, uses that effect at the end of his soprano solo on this great tune of theirs.

 

[7notes]

Here's an awesome example of Brecker bending up, in the passage starting after his pause at about 4:11 in this performance. It starts out as an overtone series, but then he shifts into a fingering change.

 

[BH9]

That's awesome but it sounds more like a fingered pitch change than a bend.

 

[7notes]

That's awesome but it sounds more like a fingered pitch change than a bend.

I guess so, maybe slurred up using a slow key opening and/or scooping up to the higher note? Whatever, it's the sound that matters.