03/21/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 80)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 80

Date: 03/21/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone 

Location: Practice Room A at South Whidbey High School.  Langley, WA (Whidbey Island)

Notes:

My improvisation today uses a sine wave sound concept that I often explore on my soprano.  I used a single fingering today, which when played on soprano can create a brightly toned two-octave unison chord.  My current reed on tenor seemed to allow this fingering to speak with some fascinating results.  I’ll practice and practice, but at the end of the day there are some variables that I only have limited control over, one of those being my reed.  The past few days I’ve used a much lighter reed that I’m accustomed too.  The end result was an sound exploration that utilized an x-factor variable inherent in the instrument itself.  

The fingering is as follows: 

(Left Hand) C key, Octave, Low Bb  

(Right Hand) F-E-D keys, Low C, Side F.  

I generally take in a bit more mouthpiece than most players, and to execute this improvisation I had to position my embouchure with a firm amount of pressure at the tip of both the mouthpiece and the reed.   I maintained a drone throughout the piece on a middle octave concert Db (a few cents flat).  To hold onto this drone requires a very specific kind of mouthpiece pressure in which I had to balance the volume of the drone with the pitches above it.  As is the case on soprano saxophone, the upper octave unison pitch (a few cents sharper than the drone below it) seemed to speak the most clearly.  Other pitches that spoke clearly included an altissimo Db, D and F, among others.  

-Neil

The image “Evening Melancholy” by painter Edvard Munch (1896)

03/20/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 79)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 79

Date: 03/20/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

Location: Home studio in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)

Notes:

Over the past three or four years, I’ve made the study of multiphonics my primary goal.  As part of this study, I transcribe my discoveries into traditional notation, writing out the particulars of each chord as best I can.  I’m fascinated by the reality that due to the finite nature of these chords, the tuning of particular notes defies traditional notation.  It’s easy to call a tone a “quarter step” off if it’s slightly out of tune, but in truth many tones lay between even a quarter step.  Semi tones are explored extensively in many musical cultures, but comparatively little in our own.  My improvisation today explores four pitches derived from a parent multiphonic chord with very close tuning to standard tempered notes.

The improvisation opens with two pitches, a Concert F and a Concert D, played with standard saxophone fingerings.  I then move into a multiphonic fingering which allows for two pitches relatively close to a Concert F and D to speak.  These notes can speak independently or as part of minor third chord.  As the improvisation moves forward, I introduce a Concert E into the lower register, then a multiphonic chord that allows for all three pitches to speak simultaneously in the same range–low octave E, middle octave F and D.  Finally, a Concert B is introduced in the upper register, and a multiphonic chord that speaks all four pitches is played–low octave E, middle octave F and D, high octave B.  I interpreted the playing of these multiphonic chords one at a time, but as the improvisation took shape I did not necessarily always play them in the same order.  

The multiphonic chords that produce the F,D // E, F, D //  and E, F, D,B combinations are actually derived from the same chord.  Adjustments in my embouchure allowed me to choose which one to play.

The fingering is as follows: (Left Hand) B-A-G keys, Octave // (Right Hand) E-D keys, Low C

-Neil

The image “Piet Vorkink” by artist Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita 

The image “Piet Vorkink” by artist Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita 

03/19/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 78)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 78

Date: 03/19/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

Location: Performing Arts Hall at Chief Sealth High School.  Seattle, WA

Notes:

My reserved mood was welcomed by an improvisation to match it today.  The use of drones to elicit mood in music is a very powerful tool in my mind.  I’m interested in exploring drones with melodic counterpoint, and this improvisation makes use of a very simple example of this.  The physical nature of creating this particular sound requires a very breathy tone from the horn, which accounts for so much ambient sound captured in this recording.

I attempted to maintain a Concert Eb drone at all times while playing.  The melody above this drone focuses on a repetitive motion from a Concert B to a Concert Bb.  The Concert Eb and D pitches above the melody were played with a single fingering, though the sum total of sounds was created by using two.  In the final 20 seconds or so of the piece there is a momentary shift in tonality up a half step.  This was not intentional, and though the mistake is obvious I felt the overall spirit captured in this improvisation was stronger than other recorded attempts I made at it.

The Concert Eb drone can remain fully unbroken between the two fingerings below:

1.)  Concert B, D and Eb pitches plus drone: (Left Hand) B-A Keys, Octave Low Bb // (Right Hand) F-E keys, Low C and Side F

2.)  Concert Bb plus drone: Same fingering as above but add the D key in the Right Hand.

-Neil

The image “Le Nu Sombre” accompanying today’s post by Pierre Bonnard (1941)

03/18/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 77)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 77

Date: 03/18/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone 

Location: Home studio in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)

Notes:

One of my continuing personal challenges is to discover news ways to play a repetitive melodic gesture with non-traditional fingerings.  I worked with four fixed pitches in my improvisation today.  The pitches, in concert key are: Ab, Bb, Db, Eb.  After briefly practicing the sequence of fingerings, I began with no particular shape or melody.  As is almost always the case, after the first few moments of the improvisation a great number of ideas sprang into my mind. 

The fingering sequenced I used creates a spoken note and a “false,” repeated note.  It’s false in the sense that I phrase the melodic figure as though the note produced would be completely separate.  In this way it sounds like a momentary hick-up in the phrase, though the tempo and spacing between notes actually remained even.  This can be heard in the concert Bb pitch, where I would often play the Bb, the “false” Bb, and then move to the Ab.

The are four pitches used in this improvisation, not counting the repeated false Bb.  To create these pitches I used fingerings which had deeper overtones in them.  This can be clearly heard every time I move back to the bottom most note, the concert Ab.  The tone seems to pop out because there are actually a number of separate notes that are capable of being played with that particular fingering.  The fingerings used are as follows:

Concert Ab: (Left Hand) B-A keys, Low Bb // (Right Hand) F-E-D keys, Low C

Concert Bb: (Left Hand) A keys, Low Bb // (Right Hand) F-E-D Keys, Low C

(False Bb add the Side C to the above Concert Bb fingering)

Concert Db: (Left Hand) Fork F, C key, Low Bb // (Right Hand) F-E-D Keys, Low C

Concert Eb: (Left Hand) Fork F, C-G keys, Low Bb // (Right Hand) F-E-D Keys, Low C

The photo accompanying this post is of artist Marina Abramovic, who I was fortunate to see perform live in her real-time installation “The Artist Is Present” at the MOMA in 2010. 

-Neil

03/17/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 76)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 76

Date: 03/17/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone 

Location: Home studio in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)

Notes:

After a long rehearsal a few days back with my comrade Chris Icasiano, I’ve had motivic development on my musical mind.  Chris recently performed a solo drum composition which has several pre-scripted rhythmic cycles that are repeated, then altered and repeated.  These rhythms were orchestrated to highlight specific areas of the drums.  We performed an improvised version of this composition later that night where I would create a solo gesture and repeat it at will until moving on to another gesture to be repeated.  Chris’ work was partially improvised but mostly composed, whereas mine was intended to be fully improvised.  One of the many challenges with this approach included finding ways to effectively interact with one another despite the limitation of not knowing each others cycles would sound like ahead of time.  

As Chris had certain compositional areas of the instrument determined ahead of time, in this improvisation I decided to select a specific multiphonic sound.  To ornament this sound I limited myself to only a few possible fingering moves and within these parameters I would create indeterminate cycles to be repeated.  These cycles had a variety of independent focal points in my mind, including rhythm, harmony, melody, or just raw pockets of energy.  I would try not to consider with too much thought what my next move would be, but would instead just allow it to come out, then repeat and explore the sound until the moment felt right to move forward.

-Neil