Tenor Sax Altissimo Fingering Chart

Tenor Sax Altissimo Range

An introduction

Altissimo on tenor sax begins immediately above written high F♯ — high F sharp. All notes below that — down to low B♭ — are classed as being within the standard range. The standard range is covered on our standard saxophone fingering chart. Above high F♯, the notes stop being produced by opening tone holes in the prescribed sequence and start being produced by venting the tube to give prominence to an upper partial. Your voicing technique (the skill of shaping air flow through you throat and oral cavity) works in tandem with these vented fingerings to produce the desired note. It is for this reason that altissimo register playing requires and advanced level of skill - it demands greater synergy between the body and the instrument.

The chart on this page covers thirteen altissimo notes on tenor saxophone, from altissimo G up to the G an octave above it, with sixty-five fingerings in total. That is more than most players will ever need. A realistic working target for an intermediate tenor player is altissimo G up to C — six notes, reliably, in tune, at any dynamic. That covers the overwhelming majority of what jazz and pop repertoire actually asks for.

On tenor saxophone specifically, standards in altissimo range and dexterity have markedly improved since the 1960s. Today, tenor saxophonists are increasingly expected to have a markedly more versatile and flexible command of the altissimo range than their altoist counterparts. For the aspiring student, it should be recognised that fingerings for notes beyond altissimo become markedly more specific to the model and instrument, as well as more dependent on your mouthpiece and reed. Develop and consolidate your voicing technique in the lower altissimo before experimenting with this upper altissimo range.

Why tenor is a good horn to learn altissimo on

Tenor offers less resistance than alto, and that changes the feel of the register in a way worth knowing about before you start. The notes tend to speak with a slightly lower tongue position than alto players expect, and the larger instrument gives you more room for error in voicing before the note breaks. The trade-off is that the same slackness makes it easier to let the pitch sag, so tenor altissimo needs more attention to intonation than it does to simply getting the note out.

The other advantage is repertoire. As previously mentioned, the altissimo register on tenor sax is far better documented in recordings. There is a deep well of recorded altissimo playing to learn from. In the early 1960s John Coltrane set new standards in altissimo playing, integrating the register into his range for fluent playing across the break. After his trailblazing innovations, players such as David Liebman, Steve Grossman, Michael Brecker, Bob Berg consolidated these standards throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Today, all prominent tenor players have a fully developed and integrated altissimo register. Make sure you spend time identifying and listening to the canon of tenor saxophonists to contextualise your technical practice with musical examples.

Interactive Tenor 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 what you slur up from — a clean high F♯ is the launch point for your first altissimo note.

Altissimo G on Tenor Sax

The gateway note

Altissimo G on tenor sax, sometimes called simply high G, is the note immediately above written high F♯. It is the smallest voicing leap from the standard range, it is the most forgiving of imperfect technique, and unlike the notes higher up, its fingerings are reasonably consistent from horn to horn.

There are three fingerings worth knowing, and they are closely related.

The main fingering

Octave key, LH1, side B♭, high F♯ key. This is the one to try first on tenor. The left index finger stays down, the right hand adds the side B♭ key, and the high F♯ key is held throughout. The high F♯ key is doing real work here — it vents the tube at the point that stabilises the partial you want, which is why this fingering tends to lock in more securely than the stripped-back version below.

The two alternates

Alt 1 — octave key, front F, LH1, G♯ key. This one builds from the front F position rather than from LH1 alone. If you already have a well-developed front F, this can feel more natural, and it moves more smoothly to and from high F. Many tenor players end up preferring it for that reason alone.

Alt 2 — octave key, LH1, side B♭. The main fingering with the high F♯ key released. It is simpler and quicker to reach, but it is also less stable, and on many tenors it sounds flatter. It is useful in fast passages where there is no time for the full fingering, but it is not the one to learn the note on.

How to actually get it

Do not start by fingering altissimo G. Start by finding the pitch as an overtone, from a low fingering, using voicing alone. It will be unstable and it will not sound good — that does not matter. What matters is that your body learns the oral cavity shape that produces that pitch.

Then take that shape and apply it to the main fingering, slurring up from high F♯ rather than tonguing the note cold. Tonguing an altissimo note from silence is a separate and harder skill; build the note first and learn to start it afterwards.

A correctly voiced altissimo G on tenor should feel easy. No clamping, no straining, and no more air than you would use for a high D. If it only comes out when you bite, you have not learned to voice it — and biting is a habit that has to be undone before the notes above G will work at all.

Altissimo A, B♭, B, C and Above

Working up the register

Once altissimo G is reliable, the register opens up in a fairly predictable order. Work up one note at a time and consolidate each before adding the next.

Altissimo A

Altissimo A on tenor sax is the second note most players learn, and the main fingering is octave key, RH1, side B♭. Do not let the simplicity mislead you: A demands a noticeably higher tongue position than G, and it is the note where sloppy voicing stops working. If A will not speak while G does, the fingering is not your problem.

There is also a bare octave key plus RH2 alternate, which is about as simple as a fingering gets, though it tends to be flat on most tenors, which requires some adjustment by either voicing or keywork.

Altissimo B♭ and B

B♭ (written A♯) usually follows readily once A is secure. B is where air support starts to matter more than tongue position — it is a note that will speak but then sag or drop out partway through if the support is not steady underneath it.

Altissimo C

Altissimo C is a sensible ceiling for an intermediate tenor player and covers most of what the repertoire asks for. It is worth consolidating properly here rather than pushing straight on. Five or six altissimo notes you can play in performance are worth far more than ten you can only manage in the practice room.

Above C

From C♯ upward the fingerings get more instrument-specific and more dependent on your setup, and published sources disagree with each other more the higher you go. The chart above gives every option in the dataset up to altissimo G an octave above where you started — treat those as a menu to test on your own horn rather than as fingerings to memorise.

Altissimo Fingerings for Tenor Sax — Every Note, Written Out

The full list in text

Every fingering in the interactive chart, written out note by note so you can read, copy or print it without the tool. Main fingerings first, then alternates in the order worth trying them.

Alternate Fingerings and Why They Vary by Horn

Why your tenor disagrees with the chart

Adolphe Sax designed the saxophone to have standardized fingeringsacross the whole family of instruments — a written G is the same shape on a soprano and a baritone. However, the altissimo register diverges from this design. This primarily for technical reasons surrounding the physical properties of the instrument.

An altissimo fingering does not regulate the length of the tube. It introduces vents at particular points along it, suppressing the fundamental so a an upper partial tone can dominate the perceived sound. Whether a given combination of depressed keywork succeeds depends on exactly where those vents fall relative to the pressure nodes of the partial you are chasing — and that depends on bore taper, tone-hole size and placement, neck design and keywork.

Those things differ between a tenor and an alto by a wide margin. They also differ between two tenors from different manufacturers, and usually between a vintage and a modern horn from the same maker. In addition to this the physical makeup of the player themself can have a large impact on the efficacy of any given note in the altissimo register. The physiology of the player's throat, tongue position, oral cavity, dentition and even bone structure can affect voicing and resonance to a degree where it changes the air column. These are some of the reasons why altissimo fingering charts published by different players disagree with one another, and why none of them are necessarily wrong.

How to use the alternates properly

Treat every fingering here as a jumping off point. Test two or three for each note and keep whichever speaks most easily and is closest to pitch on your instrument. Expect your winner to differ from your teacher’s and from the one in a book.

Where a fingering is marked as slightly flat or slightly sharp, that is how it is just advice on how this fingering might behave. Perform your own experiments with the notes and decide for yourself.

Once you have found a combination that works on your instrument it will keep working as long as your voicing technique is well consolidated. Don't flip flop between fingering options, live with one for a while and test it thoroughly - it will take a long time to build fluency with altissimo notes so they can be relied upon in a pressure situation. You cannot rush the process, so don't even try.

Voicing and Overtone Exercises for Tenor

The work that makes the fingerings usable

Overtones are higher notes produced from a low fingering without moving your fingers — The basic principle can be tried by fingering low B♭ and change the shape of your mouth until the note lifts to a higher note. Building the muscle control and aural awareness to find all the available notes in the harmonic series - the octave, then the twelfth, then higher - takes time. The saxophone overblows at the octave, so from a low B♭ the series runs B♭, B♭ an octave up, F a twelfth above the fundamental, B♭ two octaves up, then D and F above that.

Overtone practice matters because it isolates the same skill required to sound out altissimo notes. With your fingers doing nothing, the only variable left to control is the shape of your oral cavity.

The mechanics of voicing — what moves, what should not, and how to feel the crossover point — are covered in more depth in our complete altissimo guide.

Tailoring it to tenor

Tenor’s lower resistance changes the exercise in two specific ways. First, the overtones come out more easily than they do on alto, which is encouraging but can hide imprecise voicing — a tenor will let you produce a partial with a less acccurate tongue position. Second, that same slackness lets the pitch drift, so matching exercises are key. Listen for timbre and note colour as well as pitch. Timbre (the quality of the note) is a better guide to pitch than the absolute frequency of a note. Which is why it is generally never advised to use a tuner.

Both point at the same fix: use the matching exercise, and use it more than alto players need to.

A ten-minute daily routine

1. Low B♭, full and relaxed. Do not push.
2. Without moving your fingers, let it lift to the octave. Think the vowel moving from “aw” towards “ee”. If it will not go, slur down from the fingered octave B♭ first so your body learns the target.
3. Work up the series one partial at a time, holding each until it is steady rather than snatching at it.
4. Repeat from low B, low C and C♯. Different fundamentals put the partials in different places and expose different weaknesses.
5. Matching. Play a note normally, then the same pitch as an overtone, and make the two indistinguishable in pitch and tone.

Overtone matching is a vital practice tool for all saxophonists, but particularly for tenor players. Matching forces you to hear the difference between a note with a poor or blemished timbre, and a note that is in tune and full-bodied.

The other route: overblowing in sixths and ninths

The overtone work above climbs from a low fingering. The alternative is to start at the top of the standard range instead: finger anything between written A above the staff and high F♯, and overblow it. The pitch that comes out is roughly a sixth above what you fingered, and roughly a ninth if you keep pushing — both squarely in the altissimo register.

On tenor the lower resistance means the overblown pitch appears with relatively little effort, so tenor players can sometimes make slightly faster progress thann those playing other saxophone sizes. Producing the note however is only the beginning. Identifying the timbre / tone colour properly is vital to develop a holistic and integrated saxophone sound across all registers. This takes time and there is no shortcut.

An overblown fingering that speaks but is sharp or flat gets fixed by adding or dropping a side or palm key, which shifts the venting without disturbing the partial. That is what the alternates on this page are — and why tenor fingerings differ from alto ones, since the adjustment depends on the tube being adjusted.

While you are learning to produce these, aim for the centre of each tone rather than exact pitch. The full method is set out in our complete altissimo guide.

Common Problems on Tenor

What goes wrong on this horn specifically

If you have worked through these and altissimo still is not happening, it is very often something a teacher spots in seconds and a player cannot spot alone — jaw movement and tongue position are close to impossible to self-diagnose. Saxophone lessons are available in person in South East London and online, and altissimo is one of the most common things tenor players arrive with. Get in touch to book.

Recommended Reading

Two worth owning

Tenor altissimo lives mostly in jazz, and the reading that helps most reflects that.

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

Printable Tenor Altissimo Chart PDF

For the music stand

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