12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 31
Date: 01/31/2013
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Location: South Whidbey High School large practice room in Langley, WA (Whidbey Island)
Notes:
In many of my improvisations I identify a particular location for activity and gravitate my improvisatory choices around this location. This could include: a harmonic area, a rhythmic cycle, sound color, particular range, cluster of sound, etc. Bearing this in mind, today I chose to focus my attention towards a cluster of pitches spanning a small range of about a minor third in the upper register of the horn.
Inside this small intervalic range I worked with about five to six pitches of complimentary sound color. That is, each pitch carried approximately the same clarity as the pitches surrounding them. I played this cluster of notes in rapid succession at will. My use of articulation included no tongue at all, but instead used the surround microtones (the six or so pitches) to help create small rhythm cycles, and slight differentiation from note to note. By occasionally removing the octave key, or carefully playing traditional pitches, I would occasionally break this mold by introducing lower and higher octave dots of sound.
Over the span of two teaching days I spend about 12 hours inside this practice space each week. Because it’s located in a high school music department, there are instruments, chairs, stands, etc. coming and going from week to week. Today there were two large bass drums in the corner. The first had no heads at all and the second had two large plastic heads. The combination of these two drums side by side created a very nice, ambient warmth to the room today.
-Neil
01/30/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 30)
12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 30
Date: 01/30/2013
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Location: Home studio in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)
Notes:
Yesterday I had a rehearsal with my musical comrades Ivan Arteaga and Greg Sinibaldi. Part of our time was spent with a discussion and exploration of “difference tones.” A difference tone is a pitch that is created in the brain and occurs when two tones are played simultaneously. The listener can hear a third pitch whose frequency is the difference between the frequency of the two pitches being played. This third pitch is heard as a low, buzzing tone in the ear that actually has a very quantifiable pitch center. This mysterious, third tone is a creation of the mind, and is the most easily heard when two high pitches are played with one another. My improvisation today explores a multiphonic figering with a difference tone that can easily be heard.
Difference tones are pliable, meaning as you bend the two fundamental pitches up and down the difference tone will also move up and down. This tone, in my head, is perceived as a low buzzing sound. During this improvisation I used a wide dynamic range, from whisper soft to extremely loud to explore my own experience with this pitch buzzing in my ears. The fingering used in this piece has a very clear whole-step interval, and was while exploring this interval that the difference tone become the most clear to me. During this piece I also explored extremely high octave pitches in quiet sections, and bouts of screaming in louder sections to hear what other sounds I could create. The fingering for this multiphonic/tone cluster is: (In the left hand) Fork F and G, Low Bb and Palm Key D // (In the right hand) F, E, Low C and Side Bb.
-Neil
01/29/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 29)
12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 29
Date: 01/29/2013
Instrument: Alto saxophone
Location: Small Theatre at Chief Sealth High School in Seattle, WA
Notes:
I rarely perform on alto, despite the fact that I teach this instrument about five days a week. It has been a slow process for me in my professional life developing a sound that I feel is my own on alto. In the past several months I feel I’m coming close and I hope to begin playing this instrument more frequently in public. This past Sunday at Seattle’s Racer Sessions, of which I’m a contributor, I performed a short solo piece on alto. My improvisation today was inspired by the sounds I explored on that piece.
I performed this improvisation in the stage-right corner of a small theater. I was fortunate to find an assortment of marching bass drums laying around, and I picked one with drum heads that I would estimate to be at least 40 inches long. This vintage drum was by far the largest one I’ve ever seen, and I thought I would work with it today. This theatre is designed to stifle sound, not project it. By placing the mic setup in front of the bass drum and my body between the drum and the corner, I was able to capture a warm sound despite this fact.
My improvisation last Sunday was an energy piece that used three mid octave pitches, a single extreme upper register pitch and screaming through the horn. In my piece today I used a high overall level of volume, grunts and screams as well. There are some small themes and selected pitches I gravitated towards in this improvisation. This was particularly so in the mid octave concert Ab’s where I constantly play fast downward bends. There is also a heavy use of fast single tonging and melodic lines that lead up to a variety of high octave pitches. It’s also noteworthy to say that there was a spelling bee going on in the room next door while I was tearing the paint off the ceiling with this one.
-Neil
01/28/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 28)
12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 28
Date: 01/28/2013
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Location: Home studio in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)
Notes:
The bulk of my improvisation thus far have centered around repetitive, minimalist shapes. Though I’ve known that this concept is one that I favor I actually was a bit unaware that I am so constantly drawn to this model. On reflecting this fact during my practice session today, I decided to embrace the concept instead of doing an abrupt about face.
During this improvisation I use a simple rhythmic pattern: 1 e and a 2—, with occasional single pitch interruptions. The fingering sequence used on this piece is very complicated, and keeping it steady was a great challenge for me. While practicing I often choose a sequence of some kind, be it rhythmic, harmonic or melodic and repeat it for some time as an exercise. As is the case with speaking a single word in fast repetition, after several passes it becomes difficult to retain the original quality of sound and feel. This particular fingering sequence uses a multiphonic with a very present upper octave Db. This Db became the single pitches you hear throughout this piece. I use these single pitches as audible markers, or something to create expectation for the listener. My aim was to establish the original melody and rhythm as its own sound world, and then interrupt this with the altissimo (extreme upper register) concert Db and high octave Db. The original 1 e and a 2— rhythm then seems to all of a sudden become secondary to the expectation of continued single pitches to come.
-Neil
01/27/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 27)
12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project
Date: 01/27/2013
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Location: Home studio in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)
Notes:
Due to a very busy schedule today I performed a series of improvisations this morning in the 6am hour. Though I live in a very rural area tucked away in the woods, my neighborhood is a working class area on the south end of Whidbey Island . Each morning beginning around 4:00am, a few cars begin their commute to various points on the island and mainland beyond. This morning, perhaps due to the fact that it is Sunday, I was able to perform completely uninterrupted by car noise for nearly an hour. This woods in winter can be astonishingly quite in the morning, and I was greeted with a warm silence to quite my mind before improvising. My piece today is accompanied by a second, complimentary improvisation that seemed an inevitable response to the first. Both were recorded at extremely low volumes with the gain turned high.
Due to the very quite atmosphere in my home, my mind naturally gravitated towards the polar opposite scenario. This morning I considered the unique feeling of walking against a crowd of people walking in the opposing direction. Though you bump shoulders with many people the experience is far from random. There are a variety of circumstances leading towards the physical encounter and I believe the contact to be more indeterminate than random. In this piece I explored this concept by using a single multiphonic fingering and indeterminately, or rather “at will” choosing to adjust my articulation and slowly begin to introduce an upper register pitch. In my second improvisation in this series, I chose to instead articulate a single pitch, and then sustain a multiphonic.
-Neil