The saxophone is developed in 1846 by…
June 1846 CE
The saxophone is developed in 1846 by Adolphe Sax, a Belgian instrument maker, flautist, and clarinetist.
Born in Dinant and originally based in Brussels, he had moved to Paris in 1842 to establish his musical instrument business.
Before work on the saxophone, he had made several improvements to the bass clarinet by improving its keywork and acoustics and extending its lower range.
Sax is also a maker of the ophicleide, a large conical brass instrument in the bass register with keys similar to a woodwind instrument.
His experience with these two instruments had allowed him to develop the skills and technologies needed to make the first saxophones.
As an outgrowth of his work improving the bass clarinet, Sax began developing an instrument with the projection of a brass instrument and the agility of a woodwind.
He wanted it to overblow at the octave, unlike the clarinet, which rises in pitch by a twelfth when overblown
An instrument that overblows at the octave has identical fingering for both registers.
Sax creates an instrument with a single-reed mouthpiece like a clarinet, conical brass body like an ophicleide, and some acoustic properties of both the horn and the clarinet.
Having constructed saxophones in several sizes in the early 1840s, Sax applies for, and receives, a fifteen-year patent for the instrument on June 28, 1846.
The patent encompasses fourteen versions of the fundamental design, split into two categories of seven instruments each, and ranging from sopranino to contrabass.
Although the instruments transposed at either F or C have been considered "orchestral", there is no evidence that Sax intended this.
As only three percent of Sax's surviving production were pitched in F and C, and as contemporary composers used the E♭ alto and B♭ bass saxophone freely in orchestral music, it is almost certain that Sax experimented to find the most suitable keys for these instruments, settling upon instruments alternating between E♭ and B♭ rather than those pitched in F or C, for reasons of tone and economy (the saxophones were the most expensive wind instruments of their day).
The C soprano saxophone is the only instrument to sound at concert pitch.
All the instruments are given an initial written range from the B below the treble staff to the F, one space above the three ledger lines above staff, giving each saxophone a range of two and a half octaves.
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West Europe
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