Nothing growls like an Angry Sax™

1. Choose a key and scale

Select key and Select scale are placeholders. Choose both to begin. For C major, choose C under Key / root note and Major under Scale. Choose one or two octaves, then click Show exercise. Starting octave is initially 3. After changing controls, click Update exercise; until then, the staff and downloads represent the last displayed exercise. Clearing the key or scale hides the displayed exercise and returns to the start. After a successful Show or Update, the page scrolls to the downloads above the staff. Practice instructions and downloads share a row on wide screens and stack on narrow screens. Choose your instrument at the top: Piano, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone or flute. Study Builder is inside Scale Settings, on the right on desktop and below on small screens. Basic Scales uses the scale selector; Custom Studies uses a published study and retains the key selector. The switch below Scale Settings reveals notation and technique controls. Note icons choose the duration for basic scales.

2. Select your instrument and range

Key and starting octave refer to concert pitch. Selecting a saxophone transposes the staff and downloads to written pitch: alto up a major sixth, soprano up a major second, tenor up a major ninth, and baritone up a major thirteenth. Piano uses concert pitch and displays an 88-key keyboard with the pressed key highlighted and a large staff note beneath the staff. Click staff notes or use the arrows below the keyboard; the display also follows playback and clears the pressed key during rests. No finger numbers or separate piano key guide are needed. Text stays below the diagram.

Selecting a saxophone chooses a starting octave that fits the current exercise within written B-flat3 to F-sharp6. This is the standard range used by the starter fingering library. High F-sharp needs its dedicated key. If two octaves cannot fit, the selector changes to one octave and explains the adjustment. Root, scale and range changes continue adjusting automatically until you manually choose a starting octave. Selecting another saxophone enables automatic adjustment again. Manual choices remain available, with a notice when notes exceed the standard range. No altissimo fingerings are included.

Flute has an interactive numbered fingering chart for C4–C7. Click a staff note, use the arrows, or turn on the chart during playback to follow the notes. Main fingers use 1–6; filled keys are pressed and outlined keys are open. Choose B-flat alternatives from the Fingering menu. Low B and the high-C gizmo require a B footjoint. Flute entries can be edited in the dashboard Fingering Library. Expand Show flute key guide beneath the staff to see matching numbered controls and the optional B-footjoint keys. Open full-size key guide provides the larger image. The guide is also included in Help & Instructions and PDF downloads. Flute notation stays in concert pitch and exercises fit C4–C7. Playback sound remains independent.

3. Build technique with exercises

Straight scale plays the scale itself. Select a published exercise for a scale-degree pattern. In C minor pentatonic, degrees 1-5 are C, E-flat, F, G, B-flat, and 6 is the next C. Ascending moves complete pattern groups up the scale. Descending reverses them. Up and down mirrors the complete ascending path, sharing the turnaround note once. Stay at starting note repeats a pattern in one position.

Repetitions, articulation and tempo customize practice. Tempo is a quarter-note marking shared by the practice controls, piano player, staff and downloads. Change it without rebuilding the note pattern. Exercise defaults load when you select an exercise. Administrators can add patterns of 2-128 entries, using degrees 1-32, in Exercise Builder. Publish makes an exercise available for its applicable scales; drafts remain private to the editor.

4. Choose rhythms and notation

Even notes uses the selected note value. Published rhythms repeat continuously through the exercise. Rests do not advance the pitch sequence; notes crossing a barline are tied. Previous / Next fingering treats tied fragments as one note. Visible rests complete the final 4/4 bar. Rhythm Builder supports quarter, eighth and sixteenth values, one dot and rests. Even notes also supports thirty-second notes. Even notes also offers quarter-note, eighth-note and sixteenth-note triplets, with explicit 3:2 notation and exact playback timing.

Choose accidentals beside notes or a traditional key signature. Tonal scales use their written key signature. Diminished, blues and chromatic scales keep explicit accidentals. Administrators can create rhythms of up to 128 steps and preview them before publishing.

Full circle of fifths is off by default. Check it in Scale settings and click Show exercise or Update exercise. It uses the selected built-in scale, rhythm, tempo and articulation for 13 complete ascending and descending scales through all 12 keys, repeating the starting scale at the end. Each scale starts on a new measure with its written key label; saxophone labels also show the concert key. The top note is played once. Each saxophone scale is fitted independently to written B-flat3–F-sharp6; two octaves fall back to one only where needed, with a notice. Slur each group treats each scale separately, with rests interrupting the slur. Exercise pattern, direction, repetitions and starting octave are inactive while the circle is on; turning it off restores those controls. MusicXML includes key changes when traditional key signatures are selected. Long circle JPEGs reduce their width if necessary to fit the image height limit.

5. Follow the fingering chart

The fingering section appears after a saxophone or flute exercise is displayed. The heading identifies the displayed instrument. Changing instruments hides the section until Update exercise is clicked. The switch controls the chart and selected-note highlight, and starts off unless enabled by the administrator.

Saxophone chart details: Click a staff note, press Enter or Space on a focused note, or use Previous / Next note. The selected note is highlighted in gold with a dark red notehead. Filled keys are pressed and outlined keys are open. Open Show key-name guide to see numbered keys; Show saxophone key guide expands the illustration directly under the staff, to the left of the fingering chart on wide screens. On narrow screens, the chart comes first and the expandable guide follows. The guide starts collapsed. The interactive chart sits beside the staff when space allows and immediately below it on narrow screens. Left and right refer to the player's hands. Numbers identify keys, not scale degrees or finger numbers. The verified references are 1–6 for main keys, 7–8 for right pinky keys, 9–11 for side keys, 12 for front F, 13–15 for palm keys, 16–19 for the left pinky cluster, oct for octave and bis for bis B-flat. Model-specific keys remain unnumbered.

The starter library covers written B-flat3 through F-sharp6, with side and bis alternatives for B-flat4 and B-flat5. Choose an alternative when available. A large red message marks notes without a published fingering; the staff note remains highlighted. Low A is baritone-only and is not a starter. Fingering Library lets administrators publish verified alternatives, choose instrument applicability and mark preferred entries. Key shapes and locations are schematic and may vary between saxophones; only controls pressed by the player are shown, not every linked pad.

6. Download and customize

Download JPEG saves the notation on white, at 2000 pixels wide by default. Download MusicXML saves editable notation for compatible music software. Downloads omit interactive fingering diagrams and selection highlights. The instructions PDF includes this guide and its graphics.

Administrators use Basic Controls, Appearance, Exercise Builder, Rhythm Builder, Fingering Library, License and Instructions. Appearance has separate color and opacity controls for Scale & instrument and Technique & practice. Opacity 0% is transparent and 100% is solid. Fingering and help text retain readable colors, and unavailable fingerings remain red. Save settings to apply them. Existing shortcodes and saved libraries continue working through upgrades. The local license is entered once per installation in the License tab. Dorian, Mixolydian, Lydian and Phrygian start disabled. Enable each under Basic Controls > Available scales. Use Exercise Builder to assign applicable patterns to these modes. The backend sets Piano or Saxophone playback sound, independently of display instrument, and a default visitor language. Visitors can choose English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Simplified Chinese or Japanese; their preference is remembered on this site. Note names remain C–D–E. Optional exercise translations fall back to the original title and instructions when blank.

Appearance uses compact, collapsible color groups. Instrument selector colors independently control its section background, headings and labels, option background, option text and borders. Each color has its own opacity; Clear sets it to 0%. Expand Live appearance preview to check all three control sections before saving. The four saxophones have distinct icons: straight soprano, curved alto, larger tenor with a bent neck, and largest baritone with an upper tubing loop.

7. Playback and swing

The player sits above the staff, below practice instructions and downloads. Click Play to load the local instrument samples and begin; audio never starts automatically. Playback sounds at concert pitch while the staff and fingering chart show the selected saxophone’s written pitch. The dark red notehead and gold highlight follow the playing note. Fingerings follow only when Show fingering chart is switched on.

Pause holds your place; Resume continues there. Stop returns to the beginning. Tempo accepts whole numbers from 40 to 240 BPM and stays synchronized with the practice controls, staff marking, JPEG and MusicXML. Changes apply while playing or paused. Rests stay silent and tied notes sustain without being struck again.

Open Playback settings for a one-bar count-in (on by default), optional metronome and looping. Choose None or One bar for the rest between loops. Music volume and metronome / count-in volume are independent. Playback uses the displayed exercise until you click Update exercise; updating stops the player. Leaving the browser tab pauses playback.

An internet connection is needed for the first instrument sample download. If samples fail to load, try Play again. Staff notation and downloads remain available even when audio is unavailable. Use the device’s volume controls if playback is too quiet.

Swing starts off. In Playback settings select eighths or sixteenths and choose 50–67%: 50% is straight and 67% is approximately a triplet feel. Only ordinary equal pairs aligned to the subdivision are swung. Explicit triplets remain exact; bar length, count-in and metronome remain steady. The staff and exports indicate Swing eighths or Swing sixteenths when enabled.

Instrument selection automatically matches the playback sound, on initial load and whenever you change instruments: any saxophone selects Saxophone, Flute selects Flute, and Concert pitch selects Piano. You may choose a different sound manually; it stays until the instrument changes again. Ordinary exercise updates, tempo and swing changes keep that manual choice. Sound changes retain position and tempo and do not start playback automatically. Apply notation changes with Update exercise. The backend default playback sound is a fallback when no recognized instrument is available.

Playback follows the articulation of the displayed exercise until Update exercise. Slur groups use smooth connections, tongued notes have a fresh attack and small separation, and Slur two / tongue two alternates these treatments. Tied notes sustain as one sound; rests break slurs. Both piano and saxophone use sampled approximations of legato.

8. Study Builder time signatures

Published custom studies carry their own time signature. In the backend Study Builder, choose 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/8, 7/8, 9/8 or 12/8. Existing studies use 4/4. Basic Scales and the separate Rhythm Builder continue to use 4/4.

Beat groups count the bottom-number note value. For example, 7/8 can use 2+2+3 or 3+2+2; 6/8 defaults to 3+3. Groups control beaming and metronome pulses. In 7/8, the metronome and count-in click all seven eighth notes: a strong downbeat, lighter group accents, and soft intervening clicks. Tempo always measures quarter notes: a dotted-quarter pulse at 80 BPM lasts 1.125 seconds.

Click a bar heading in the entry list, choose its signature and optional groups, then Apply to this bar. The starting signature returns at the following bar. An override there takes precedence. Remove change restores the starting meter. Changes to bars not reached by the notes remain available for later composition.

Bar cards show used rhythmic space and rest symbols for the remainder. Auto ending rests complete the last bar; they are not authored entries. Notes crossing a barline are tied automatically. Optional | markers must land on complete boundaries; incomplete or overfilled marked bars report an error. Meter changes are included in Undo/Redo.

The staff, playback and MusicXML/JPEG/PDF downloads follow the assigned bar lengths. The one-bar count-in follows the first bar and the optional loop rest follows the final bar.