I think you are confusing cornet with trumpet sax mom. They are very similar. Trumpets though are keyed in F. The marching tubas and 3/4 scale tubas are in Bb, but the standard Tuba is also in F.

Wow, I stand corrected. I just talked to my repair tech Luke, and most trumpets today are Bb! Interesting. I remember my friend Brent had an old King silver trumpet in band that was in the key of F. What a sweet sounding horn!

My information was from the years of helping to sort band music for the various instruments, and then to put them back in the file in score order for storage. I don't remember any of the pieces even scoring parts for Trumpet in anything other than Bb (at least that I recall), but maybe I'm not as old as that! Of course I realize that treble and bass clefs have completely different notes, but a person playing treble baritone fingering a "C" would have matching fingering and embuchure to one playing bass clef baritone playing a "Bb". That's why a person who starts on trumpet and switches to baritone often stays treble clef, so they don't have to relearn fingerings for notes on a different staff. However, my husband (who plays baritone) prefers treble clef not for the fingering issues, but because there are fewer ledger lines in most of the band music!

woowee connsaxmanjim, even i knew that most trumpets were in Bb. I know i have a small vocab and almost no understanding of transposing, but peeyoo. Oh man, than info stunk. I'm not trying to be mean, but i couldn't contain myself( barely can now ). Just so funny. LOL

One of the reasons for my question is that I'm in touch with a local factory that makes wind instruments. They make Bb and Eb saxes Bb and Eb brass wind instruments by the dozen but only 1 C trumpet and only 1 C trombone. No C saxes! I'm trying to talk them into making some! Factories don't want to make anything that doesn't sell so I'm looking for a good musical reason why they should OR shouldn't. There seems to be a lot of personal opinion and hearsay but not much fact around!

What's the factory name?

Well, I don't play trumpet! I know Cornet is in Bb, but I thought most trumpets were in F. They've made trumpets in just about every key.

Thanks, Jim, I am glad to know that trumpets were once almost exclusively keyed in F. I like to learn from this site, and if I can contribute, I try to be kind about it. I thank you for your contributions (at least on this thread!) My guess is that the reason people don't make C saxophones any more is that music for bands is not written for saxophones in C. You can find some (antique) saxophones around that are in C, the C melody (similar in size and shape to the Bb Tenor) and one that is close to the size of the soprano, but I'm not sure what they call that one.

trumpets are in a variety of keys common are the Bflat,,C...EflatD ( one trumpet two pitches) There are also cornets in C . Now for the real reason for different pitches : first of all the keys on a sax as the fingering to a trumpet or to a clarinet are all constant meaning that an individual could go from a tenor to an alto,,,, or a bflat clarinet to an A ,,,,or a picccolo trumpet to a trumpet in Bflat without re-learning the fingerings . The natural position on a saxophone all keys closed ( except the pedal notes ) will yield a so called C on every horn . You can now play any sax by just changing the music. This is not true of trombones since they learn a ficticious fingering their natural ( closed slide ) position should be called C (as in every other brass instrument) but the trombonist calls this a Bflat ( the concert pitch ). When he changes his instrument to say an alto trombone his home position is now Eflat so he now has to re-learn all his positions . So the question now becomes-- then why do they not make all instruments in C this way we can still play all the instruments without changing fingerings while we could also benefit from having standardized music? Make sense right? the answer to this is simple if instruments would be in C their range would either be in continuous fashion say thye last note on a tenor would be the first note on an alto or they would have to share exactly one octave where they would overlap each other. By choosing different pitches the manufacturer could choose whatever overlap he would like so that now the tenor and alto have a huge overlap the alto's highest note is a concert A above the staff and the tenor's highest note is a a concert E fourth space . The two horns can now play harmony since they are close enough to each other while different. By the way a baritone sax in Eflat is one octave below the Alto as is the bass sax one octave below the tenor and the tenor one octave below the soprano. here is an interesting observation . When in an ensemble the bass sax is trying to be in pitch with the bari --and the sopranino with the soprano ----what pitch variation will there be between sopranino and bass??? can anyone answer???

2 octaves????

No No I didn't say their tessiture( range of notes ) I asked how far off pitch can they be without anyone noticing ???? and believe me they will be off pitch

Hey nobody took up the challenge !!!!!!! Surely it isn't that difficult Come on west .....

Well, the Sopranino is in Eb. It would be 2 octaves above a bari, or an octave above an alto. The higher the pitch, the more vibrations per second. The bass would be vibrating at a much lower rate. I'm not exactly sure what answer you're looking for Martin. There is 2 1/2 octaves between the sopranino and the bass. Because there is a considerable difference in pitch, the two saxophones could be out of pitch quite a bit, and still sound pretty close. They could be about twice as out of tune as a bass and an alto, or a tenor and a sopranino and not be noticed. close enough?

2 1/2 octaves Sopranino=Eb Bass=Bb Bass to tenor=1 Tenor to soprano=1 Soprano to Sopranino=1/2 1+1+1/2=2 1/2 Sopranino's low Bb would be the bass' high Eb

No that is not what I meant ----If you were to compare the tuning between the two extremities sopraniono to bass HOW FAR OFF PITCH ( OUT OF TUNE ) WILL THEY BE and still be tolerable to listen to ?

My guess is that they could be off by as much as 30Hz and still sound resonably in tune.

Nope Jim First of all 30Hz is actually a full semitone at 440 and is about 25 full tones at the bottom end No the difference is actually 1/4 tone The difference between a D and E is 9 commas ( 1 full tone ) to sharpen D you move up 5 commas( semitone ) or to flatten E you move down 5 commas ( again one semitone ) So that D# is actually sharper than E flat by one comma ( that's right ) 1/4 tone then is about 21/2 commas that is how far the two extremities could be at any one time . Seems like not much but could we imagine if one's alto or tenor had this much flaw from low Bb to high F# This is also true of the harmonics within a piano note

Very interesting Martin. Thanks for the information

Does that mean that a C melody Tenor would have slightly less of a difference?

oh i don't know, I never even saw them, I just know stuff...