Hey Lauren. I read your post and quickly remembered how frustrating and confusing it was when I started my sax journey less than two years ago. It will come just stick with it. I now comfortably understand the relationship between instruments and have most scales and their notes imbedded in my brain and most under my fingers without thinking. I got all my theory knowledge off the internet and by scrolling through forums like this. Hope this helps….

Original Key ____________Key for Alto Sax (Eb)

G ————————– E (4 sharps)
G# (Ab) ——————- F (1 flat)
A ————————– F# (6 sharps)
A# (Bb) ——————- G (1 sharp)
B ————————– Ab (3 flats)
C ————————– A (3 sharps)
C# (Db) ——————- Bb (2 flats)
D ————————– B (5 sharps)
D# (Eb) ——————- C (nothing)
E ————————– C# (7 sharps)
F ————————– D (2 sharps)
F# (Gb) ——————- Eb (3 flats)

Hi Lauren

http://www.saxontheweb.net/Transposition
this shows you the transpositions.
i use my own simple way to transpose say you wanted to play along on your alto with some one on guitar or piano and they were in the key of eb always count 4 down including the first note of that key so Eb D Db C so now when you play C Scale your both in tune. also to use this form you must be familiar with the chromatic scale if you look at them 4 notes there Db is also The same C .sharp hope this helps
paddy

Hi Lauren

Download this table as a handy reference. Music table

You will see that instruments in C are in the 1st column, Tenor sax Bb 2nd column and Alto sax Eb in 6th column.
See how many sharps or flats the music has and lookup the key in the first column.

Then to transpose to Eb you just use the corresponding notes in the 6th column.
The alto sax plays 9 notes lower, and the Tenor sax plays 14 notes lower when we play a C on the Sax.
Therefore all our music has to be moved up so we play the same note as instruments in other keys.
I have transposed quite a bit of Tenor sax music for my Alto and use a handy free program from
http://www.nch.com.au/notation/index.html which makes the task much easier.