I have a Selmer flute and I have no idea if it will tune to A=442. I'll have to try it.

My Selmer saxophones (Modele 26, Mark VI and Mark VII) have always played sharp so that my mouthpiece is at the very end of the cork. I've had other saxophones from Conn, Couf, King, Grassi, MacSax (boutique custom job), and Yamaha that tune with the mouthpiece in the middle of the cork or pushed in further. On the Sax On The Web Forum I found others have this Selmer 'problem' and people who don't have this problem can't understand it. And yes, I tried different mouthpieces.

Playing with guitarists keeps my ears in practice. As the guitar cools off it goes sharp, as the sax cools off it goes flat. So when I was in a guitar band, and we played where the temperature varied, I had to constantly adjust to be able to play in tune with them. After all they tune 6 strings and I have only one adjustment so that's the way it should be.

This confused me for a long time. Why? I can see the guitars because metal contracts when it's cold. Just look at the amount of sag on power or telephone lines between a summer and winter day to illustrate that. So cold weather makes the string tighter, and conversely warm makes it looser.

But the sax?

After much googling I found that the speed of sound is slower when the air is cold. This makes the horn seem longer to the sound waves, and thus it is lower in pitch. The opposite is true for warm air.

Another thing about intonation. Synths use equal temperament and our ears like just intonation. There is a difference in the blending of notes. Also a good piano uses 'stretch tuning' making the high notes a little sharper and the low ones flatter.

When doing backing tracks for my duo, I often separate the notes in say a horn section and de-tune them from equal temperament to make them sound more like just intonation. I figure horn players like myself do this automatically, so if I do this, it will sound better. Since I don't have a formula, it takes a lot of tweaking, listening, tweaking and listening but it's worth it. After all if I'm lucky I'll play that song a zillion times.

I hope I haven't drifted off thread too much.

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