Bari Sax Altissimo Fingering Chart

Baritone Sax Altissimo Range

Where it starts and how far up is realistic

Altissimo on baritone sax begins above written high F♯ — high F sharp — exactly as it does on every other saxophone. Written pitch is identical across the family, so altissimo G is on the same line for a bari player as for an alto player — it simply sounds a great deal lower.

What is not identical is the effort. Baritone asks for substantially more air than the smaller horns. This aspect of baritone saxophone technique shapes everything about learning the register on this instrument. It is the reason bari altissimo has a reputation for being hard.

This chart covers thirteen notes with sixty-seven fingerings. That is fewer options per note than the alto chart offers, and the difference is not an oversight — there is simply less published bari altissimo material in existence. Comparatively few players pursue the register on baritone, so the accumulated body of tested fingerings is thinner. You will find yourself doing more of your own experimenting here than an alto player would.

A realistic target on baritone is altissimo G up to B or C. That is a slightly more modest goal than on alto, and deliberately so: the air demands mean that holding a usable altissimo C on bari through a phrase is a different physical proposition from doing it on alto. However the pitch of the instrument itself offers the potential of a much larger range than on any other saxophone, making the prospect of a four octave range far more attainable than on the other horns.

The one advantage bari players have

Baritone gives you more resistance than any other saxophone, and resistance is feedback. The horn will not let you produce an altissimo note with vague, approximate voicing. That is discouraging in week one and valuable by week six, because when a note finally speaks on baritone you can be confident your voicing is correct rather than merely close.

Bari players who develop altissimo tend to have unusually solid voicing as a result. If you also play alto or tenor, you will likely find the register easier there than players who learned it on those horns.

Interactive Bari Sax Altissimo Fingering Chart

Click any note to see its fingering

Select a note to see its main fingering and every alternate, with the keys highlighted on the horn. The three bridging fingerings at the top of the standard range are included because they are your launch point — on baritone especially, an unsteady high F♯ is not a foundation you can build altissimo on. These alternate fingerings also offer options to plan fingering paths through melodies that cross the break into the altissmo register. Certain fingerings blend with certain altissimo notes better than others.

Altissimo G on Bari Sax

The gateway note

Altissimo G on bari sax — high G — is the note directly above written high F♯, and it is where every baritone player should begin. It is the closest note to the standard range, so it asks for the smallest change in voicing, and it tolerates a rough first attempt better than anything above it.

Five fingerings are given here, and unusually for baritone they cover a wide spread of approaches — from three keys to nine.

The main fingering

Octave key, LH1, high F♯ key. Simple, and the right place to start. Like its equivalent on alto, this fingering has a known tendency to be slightly flat, and on baritone that matters more than on alto. A flat altissimo note on a bari is very audible — the instrument's pitch is at the low end of an ensemble, so intonation registers much more with the listener where rhythm sections players are playing notes all around your baritone pitch.

Resist correcting it with your jaw. On baritone the temptation to bite is stronger than on any other saxophone, because the reed has more room to move and correct pitch than smaller horns. DO NOT do this. Raise the back of the tongue instead, or move to an alternate.

The alternates

Alt 1 — octave key, LH1, side B♭, high F♯ key. Adds side B♭ to the main fingering, which stabilises the partial noticeably. This is the first place to go if the main version is flat or unreliable on your horn.

Alt 3 — octave key, LH1, RH1, side B♭. Brings the right hand in and drops the high F♯ key. Some baritones respond considerably better to this shape; it is worth testing even if Alt 1 works.

Alt 2 is the stripped-back octave key, LH1 and side B♭ — quick to reach but the least stable of the set.

Alt 4 deserves its own paragraph, and gets one below.

The low A fingering

Octave key, LH1, LH2, LH3, low A, RH1, RH2, RH3, low C. Nine keys, using the low A key that only baritones have.

It is a fingering that is slow to perform and useless in a fast passage. But it vents the tube in a way the shorter horns cannot replicate, and on some baritones it produces a markedly more stable and better-centred altissimo G than any of the four-key options. If you have been struggling with G and cycling through the simpler fingerings without success, try this one before concluding the problem is your voicing.

How to get it speaking

Find the pitch as an overtone before you touch the altissimo fingering. Work up from a low fingering using voicing techniques alone until the pitch appears, however ugly it sounds, then transfer that oral cavity shape to the fingering.

Slur up from high F♯ rather than starting the note cold. And give yourself a full breath before you try: attempting bari altissimo on the tail end of a phrase is not providing yourself with a strong platform for success.

Air Support: The Baritone Difference

The factor that decides whether any of this works

On alto, poor air support makes altissimo harder. On baritone, it makes altissimo impossible. This is the single largest difference between learning the register on this horn and learning it on the others. A larger air column takes more energy to set into a stable higher-mode vibration, and it takes more energy to keep it there. The altissimo note is harder to start on baritone, as well as being harder to sustain, and it will collapse the moment the pressure behind it wavers. Ensure your foundation for breathing technique and air support is steady. For more information and practice techniques on this topic, please visit our dedicated breathing tutorial.

Fast air, not loud air

The most common mistake is confusing volume of air with speed of air. Blowing a greater quantity of air through an unchanged oral cavity gets you a louder low note, not an overtone. What altissimo needs is air moving quickly through a narrowed channel, driven from the abdomen with consistent pressure behind it.

A useful check: your cheeks and throat should feel much the same as they do on a comfortable middle-register note, while your abdomen is doing noticeably more work. If the effort is happening in your face and neck, you are pushing rather than supporting.

Building it

Long tones on low B♭ and low A, held to the absolute end of the breath at a steady dynamic, do more for bari altissimo than altissimo practice does. They train the sustained pressure the register requires in a place where you can hear immediately whether it is wavering.

Then add this: play a middle-register note, and without changing anything about your air, arch the tongue upward until the note lifts. The instruction is to change the tongue while holding the air constant. Most players unconsciously push harder as they voice higher, and on baritone that habit will cap your range long before your voicing does.

Practise altissimo early in a session while you are fresh, not at the end. Fatigue affects bari players far more than alto players, and an hour of tired attempts teaches your body the wrong things. Just 10 minutes per practice session is enough - the revisits matter more than extended time spent in repetition.

Altissimo A, B♭, B, C and Above

Working up the register

Progress above G can be slower on baritone than on the smaller horns. Take one note at a time and be willing to spend as long as you need to develop a rich full tone consistently over multiple attempts.

Altissimo A

The main fingering is octave key, LH2, LH3, G♯ key, and it is flagged as slightly flat — so of the first two altissimo notes on baritone, both main fingerings run low. If your voicing is sound and the notes are still flat, the fingerings are behaving as documented and the fix is a fractionally higher tongue, not a firmer jaw.

There are only two alternates here, which is characteristic of how much thinner the bari material is compared with alto. The nine-key option using both pinky tables is stable but slow; the other is unusually sparse and is discussed below.

Altissimo B♭ and B

B♭ has five fingerings, the most generous set on the bari chart, so this is a note where testing variations pays off. Altissimo B is where the main fingering becomes strikingly simple — just the octave key and palm E♭ — and where air support becomes essential for progress.

Altissimo C and above

Altissimo C is a reasonable ceiling for most baritone players and covers the great majority of what a variety of styles you play will ask for. Above it, the fingerings become both more instrument-specific and more physically demanding, and the published options thin out further.

One curiosity worth noting: altissimo E♭ on baritone lists the octave key alone as an alternate. A single key. This is an overblown fingering, and whether it speaks depends almost entirely on your voicing and your particular horn. It is a good illustration of how access to the altissimo register is really down to your overtone technique and ability to shape your larynx, pharynx and oral cavity.

Altissimo Fingerings for Bari Sax — Every Note, Written Out

The full list in text

The complete contents of the chart above, set out note by note in plain text for reading, copying or printing. Main fingerings first, alternates after, in the order worth trying.

Alternate Fingerings and Why They Vary by Horn

And why baritone has fewer of them

Hand a standard fingering chart to any saxophonist and every note works, because the standard range is tone holes opening in sequence on proportionally scaled instruments. Altissimo charts will not function that way, and baritone is the clearest illustration of why.

Altissimo fingerings work by opening holes in places that make the fundamental unsustainable, forcing an upper partial to take over. Where those holes have to fall depends on where the pressure nodes of that partial sit along the tube — and a baritone’s tube is roughly twice the length of an alto’s, with a different taper, larger tone holes and a keywork layout that includes a low A the smaller horns do not have. The geometry is not comparable, so the fingerings are not transferable.

Baritone also varies more between individual instruments than the smaller saxophones do. Bore designs differ more widely across makers, and vintage baritones can behave very differently from modern ones. A fingering that is rock solid on one bari can be unworkable on another.

In addition to the physical constraints of the instrument itself, each player has their own physical constraints! Any given person playing the saxophone has a different physical presence to any other given person - their mouth shape, dentition, their height and physique, even bone density all work together to affect how the instrument sounds when played. This translates to how the altissimo register works for any given player as well, meaning altissimo fingering choices are highly personal.

Why the alternates run thin here

The other reason this chart is shorter than the alto one is simply that fewer people have done this work. Alto altissimo has been documented by generations of players; bari altissimo has not. Several notes here offer two or three options where alto offers six.

The practical consequence is that you should expect to experiment more, and you should treat a fingering that almost works as a starting point for your own variation. Adding or removing a single side or palm key from a documented fingering is exactly how the documented ones were found in the first place.

Keep a written record of what works on your instrument. On baritone this matters more than on any other horn. If you have your own set of fingerings that are not represented here, I would love to hear from you! Please let me know by email.

Voicing and Overtone Exercises for Baritone

Slower to arrive, and worth more when it does

An overtone is a higher note produced from a low fingering by reshaping your mouth rather than moving your hands. Finger a low B♭, keep the fingering entirely still, and alter the space inside your mouth until the horn gives up the low note and jumps to the one above. The saxophone overblows at the octave, so that single fingering will yield the octave, the twelfth above the fundamental, the second octave, and further partials beyond.

The baritone will not produce a partial for approximately correct voicing, which means that when one does speak, you have learned something precise. Alto and tenor both allow a degree of fudging that slows real progress; baritone does not offer that option.

For the underlying mechanics of voicing — with tips on how to improve this vital skill, see our complete voicing guide.

A routine built for baritone

1. Long tones first. Low A and low B♭, held to the end of the breath at a steady dynamic. Support before partials.
2. Low B♭, relaxed and full. Without moving your fingers, let it lift to the octave. Think the vowel travelling from “aw” to “ee”. If nothing happens, slur down from the fingered octave B♭ so your body has a target to aim at.
3. Hold each partial for a full four counts before attempting the next. Snatching at them to achieve is a result is counter-productive.
4. Repeat from low B and low C. Different fundamentals place the partials differently and reveal different gaps.
5. Constant-air drill. Play a middle-register note and arch the tongue upward without altering your air at all. Separating voicing from pushing is the specific skill baritone demands.
6. Matching. Play a pitch normally, then as an overtone, and work until the two are indistinguishable in tone and pitch.

Ten to fifteen minutes daily, early in your practice while you can focus on total control.

The other route: overblowing in sixths and ninths

Alongside the overtone series, there is a second way in. Take a fingering from the top of the standard range — between written A above the staff and high F♯ — and overblow it without changing your fingers. The resulting pitch is roughly a sixth above what you fingered, or roughly a ninth if you aim higher, and both land in the altissimo register.

On baritone this demands the same thing everything else on this horn demands: air. The overblown note will not appear on hopeful voicing alone, and a bari player attempting it on the tail of a breath will conclude the method does not work. Take a full breath for each attempt and expect fewer successful repetitions per session than an alto player would get.

The compensation is reliability. Baritone will not hand you a partial for approximately correct voicing, so an overblown note that speaks on bari is one you have accurately produced. Baritone can be extended by an octave or more this way, the same as alto and tenor.

This is also where the fingerings on this page come from: an overblown fingering adjusted with an extra side or palm key until it is in tune. Given how comparatively thin the published bari material is, that matters more here than elsewhere — it is a method you can use to derive your own. Aim for the centre of each tone while producing them. The full account is in our complete altissimo guide.

Common Problems on Baritone

What goes wrong on this horn specifically

Bari altissimo playing is most commonly disturbed because of air support issues or jaw problems. If you are interested in getting help improving your altissimo playing, saxophone lessons are available in person in South East London and online. Get in touch to book.

Recommended Reading

Two worth owning

Bari altissimo is thinly documented, so the useful reading is general rather than specific to the horn.

Both are covered, along with two more, in the reading list on our complete altissimo guide.

Printable Bari Altissimo Chart PDF

For the music stand

A printable baritone sax altissimo chart covering all thirteen notes with main and alternate fingerings, sized for A4 and Letter.