Setting Intonation With Key Heights

I read a lot about this topic on the web. Many of the "experts", including a few who are actually old enough to shave, insist that the way to set intonation is through adjusting the key heights. This is simply not true.

Proper key height does affect the way the note speaks. If a key is not open enough, the voice of that note will be stuffy. True, lowering a key over a tone hole will tend to decrease the pitch, but very much at the expense of "voice"

The reality is that the only way to set intonation that is resonable for most saxophonists to try themselves is through moving the effective center of the tone holes through the use of "tuning crescents". Place a tuning crescent in the top of the tonehole (nearest the mouthpiece) if you wish to flatten a note. Put one away from the mouthpiece is you wish to raise the pitch.

I make these crescents using Devco brand Marine Epoxy. Cork absorbs moisture and encourages the growth of stuff you don't want living in your horn.

Of course, you can also adjust intonation through changing the diameter and taper of the neck (you get a total of one chance: once the neck is altered, it's pretty much altered forever, so if you're wrong...) but this requires a complete understanding of where the nodes are located and some tools that most of us don't have in our inventory.

It's also possible to alter intonation through the use of inserts in the body, but I've got to tell you that this seems to be a black art and my results doing this have been spotty at best.

The key should open 30% of the diameter of the tone hole. Any more makes no difference. Any less, and the note will sound stuffy. It is true that opening some adjacent toneholes up a bit may help certain notes (open the low C# to bring the D2 up), but generally at the expense of intonation.