Intonation of an Alto and a Tenor Saxophone
Robert W. Young · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1959
In common with other reed instruments, the intonation of the saxophone is distorted because only two octave holes are used: the interval between the two registers may exceed on octave by as much as 20 cents for the note D served by the lower octave hole. The intonation of a saxophone can be markedly affected by the mouthpiece: a large cavity therein lowers the intonation whereas a small cavity raises the intonation. The effect is not uniform throughout. The difference in intonation for a metal mouthpiece having a large cavity and a rubber mouthpiece (bearing the same brand name) having a small cavity was found to be as great as 50 cents on some high notes. The common method of tuning by sliding the mouthpiece back and forth on the corked mouthpipe thus functions by change of mouthpiece cavity as well as by change of length of the air column.