higuys... i`m a freshmen trumpet in highschool, and we have a bunch of really good screaming trumpets, and then one day we were sitting there screaming and this sophmore crazy (as in freaking good) altosax guy walks up and screams at us like higher and better than our best trumpet, laughs amd walks off. this dude is crazy, you can see his abs flexing when he blows, and thats not all the muscle he has... How is this possible?!?!?

it`s called altissimo playing... haha it`s possible on trumpet. you`ll find that once you get above double g all the notes are close together and it`s not hard to get much higher. once you get up there you can play any note with any fingering. on alto you just press a few buttons tighten your cheeks and blow. it`s not hard.

Well, as a sax player I can say that it takes several years to develop the emboucher and skills to play altissimo. Initially, it is not easy. Once you get the general idea, it becomes a lot easier. For example, the common range for sax is high F#. The altissimo G above that is a pain to hit. Oddly enough, it isn`t that hard to hit a G# all the way up to a D, then it gets harder. Thats where i`m at. I`m fairly new at it, but have been playing for awile and am pretty good (though i`m no ubber pro or anything) However, hitting the correct altissimo notes is somewhat akin to trumpets, because it`s not all buttons, you have to have a feel for the notes and be able to hit the right one, somewhat like partials on a trumpet. I guess this should be on the sax forum, but i figured i`d throw out my scoop.

yeah that`s what i meant... it`s easy to get up there on sax... not necessarily easy to control it.

granted i`m NOT saying it`s east for trumpets!