Updated July 2026
Background
When I first got my first bass saxophone in October 2000, things were A LOT different in the saxophone landscape:
- The bass saxophone renaissance we are currently experiencing had not begun—at all.
- The bass sax was still seen very much as an outlier in the saxophone world.
- If you wanted to play a bass saxophone, your choices were basically limited to a:
- Vintage American horn like Buescher or Conn.
- Vintage American style like Keilwerth.
- Vintage French style like Beaugnier or Selmer.
- New Keilwerth or Selmer.
- Julius Keilwerth and Selmer were the only real sources of new, modern, quality-made pro-model bass saxophones.
- Cheap, new bass saxophones made by Chinese companies were not even on the horizon yet.
- The Internet was still a toddler.
- Social media was still in its infancy.
When I flew to New Orleans to pick up my bass from Paul, Wayne, and Steve, they all gave me great tips, and passed on information on how to tame the great beast that would be my cabinmate back to Fredericton, NB. They taught me the simple alternate fingerings to use to work around my Buescher’s tuning and venting quirks.
How bass players used to learn stuff
Prior to the Internet age, that is how bass saxophone players learned about the instrument: in real life. Sure, they might have spoken on the phone, written letters, or used whatever other means of communications existed at the time, but at the end of the day, musicians of all stripes shared their knowledge in person.
Shortly after I got my bass I thought it would be handy to develop a bass sax resource site, and the first incarnation of Bassic Sax was born. At the same time, Paul Coats and Steve Weinart founded the Bass Sax Co-op.
Over the [now past 26] years we have seen more and more bass sax resources pop up as the instrument has once again made its way into the mainstream of the saxophone world. (More on current bass sax resources below.)
In the earliest stages of my foray into the online bass saxophone world, I received a number of emails and communications from other bass saxophone players who shared their knowledge and experience with me. Those early communications were very helpful, since they added to the foundation of my bass sax education.
Two, yes 2, fingering charts for vintage American bass saxophones
# 1
When I first wrote this article, May 2023, I spent the better part of a week pouring through 20+ years of electronic communications and my hard copy bass sax resources. This was all in an attempt to compile a fingering chart specific to vintage American-made bass saxophones—this task was made infinitely more difficult since I no longer own my Buescher. 
Although the Couf-branded Keilwerth I now play is an American-style horn, it does play and respond very differently to the antique Buescher.
Given the Couf/Buescher differences, I just chose to put together all the fingerings I did use, as well as the others I didn’t necessarily use, into a PDF chart and get you—as players of vintage American bass saxophones—to test them out and see what you think.
Which fingerings work? Which don’t? Leave a comment below and let me know what horn/MP/reed combo you’re using. Also, if you use others that aren’t listed, please let me know as well. Thanks!
# 2
The second fingering chart comes from the man who spent his academic career studying the bass saxophones: Lucas Hopkins. His 2021 dissertation is titled: The Bass Saxophone: A Historical Account and Performer’s Guide.
On pages 69-83, Lucas discusses tuning considerations, and provides fingering charts for both long and short wrap bass saxophones. The altissimo for long wrap bass saxophones can be found on pages 79-83.
Current bass saxophone resources
Although the Bass Sax Co-op is now just a fond, distant memory, 
there are many other bass saxophones resources that have appeared on the Net. Just Googling bass saxophone results in a dizzying amount of results. Quite different from back in the day when my site was only one of about three or four that would appear in search engine results.
However, how many of these estimated 32,000,000 bass saxophone results are actually quality resources? That’s a good question. I would argue that most of them are mostly irrelevant, and thanks to AI, many of them are either completely fake, or completely wrong.
Like most of the time when searching for stuff on the Net, we now get so inundated with search results that we often forget what we were looking for to begin with. But I digress.
It all depends on what you’re looking for of course, but if I had to narrow it down for you, here are the places on the Net I suggest you check out. These are the places were the actual bass sax players from around the world can be found:
- The Bass Saxophone group on Facebook. With over 4,300 members it really became the go-to site for bass saxophone players when the Bass Sax Co-op’s platform was no longer supported by Yahoo.
- Bass Saxophone Players Only is another Facebook group with a smaller, but sometimes more active member-group.
- A bass saxophone group on reddit where the conversation comes in dribs and drabs. Most is rather meh, but sometimes you can find what you’re looking for.
- On Sax on the Web’s Forum you have the following:
- Bass Saxophone sub forum
- Mouthpiece discussion area
- And please, remember SOTW has a search feature. Enter whatever bass sax parameters you want. For this example, I just entered bass sax.
If you have other bass saxophone resources that you frequent and you believe would be helpful for others to know about, please leave a comment. Thank you!
