04/11/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 101)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 101

Date: 04/11/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

This improvisation is a celebration in sound.  I had the day off today, the first day completely free of any obligations I’ve had in a very long time.  I planed for this day well in advance, as many of my students are on spring break.  Along the way many temptations came up, including my record label Spring fundraiser and several students that asked to take lessons over their break.  The only person that seemed to give me any grief was myself.  

I woke early and decided that today was dedicated to my garden.  I spent 8 hours in the front yard digging up grass, pounding out the moist earth from dirt clods, reburying earth worms, building planter boxes, raking soil and hauling dirt.  The air was cool and mild.  I talked with my neighbors and was kept company by my dog.  It was a joyous day.

I recorded this improvisation in the mid point of the day when I couldn’t resist the temptation to practice any longer.  This piece, like so many others, translated very differently to recording than my own perception of it in the room.  I feel the recording lacks the breadth of sound and resonance of the chords as the cycles undulate.  However, for the purposes of this project I take it as it lays. The cycles created in this improvisation move around a central fingering: (Left Hand) B-A-G keys, Low B, Octave // (Right Hand) F key, Low C.  At the outset of the piece I improvise a cyclic pattern and sustain the root fingering, allowing to to wobble.  Going forward I began to explore various elements of the chords produced, including upper resigner sustained single tones and split tones. I intentionally tried to produce a variation between more of a free-blowing, wild sound, and a more controlled and subdued sound.  This naturally made me feel inclined to explore wide variations in dynamics.  

-Neil

04/10/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 100)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 100

Date: 04/10/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

Today I decided to explore cells of sound created within a single fingering cycle.  In mental preparation for a clinic later in the day at Cornish College of the Arts, I started my practice session trying to create as many sound colors as possible, using volume as the catalyst to let the sounds resonate of their own accord.  With many multiphonics and overtones, the range of color is often depended on volume.  Mouth pressure and direction of air flow play critical roles, but lately I’ve been curious to explore the dependency of sound in dynamics.

The fingering system used is as follows: (Left Hand) B-A-G keys // (Right Hand) F-E-D keys, Low C and Low B.  This is the common Low B fingering, but in this piece I created a 4-beat cycle:

1.  Create the above root Low B fingering.

2.  Open the side Bb key

3.  Back to the above root Low B fingering

4.  Open the G key

I approached the piece with a quiet “drone,” which became the base level action from which the colors of sound would emerge.  The drone sound included a balance of sound between pitches, key clacking and tones from the key cups.  I then allowed each sound cluster to resonate fuller in volume.  I worked with this degree of indeterminacy and tried to shape the immediacy of sound that emerged.

-Neil

The image accompanying today’s post of filmmaker Maya Deren

That’s right, my saxes are the cool kids.

I present to you…the Denny International Middle School 6th/7th grade beginning saxes.  Thrift Shop, featuring:

Hannah Hernandez

Ginny Sunde

Sydney Larang

04/09/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 99)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 99

Date: 04/09/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

Location: Performance hall at Chief Sealth High School.  Seattle, WA

Notes:

I decided to work with a ghostly figure today.  Singing into the horn is a technique I’ve practice quite a bit, but I’ve barely scratched the surface as to the breadth of what is possible.  In this improvisation I sing into the horn while matching the pitch being played.  In the first month of this project I performed a similar improvisation, and in that piece I stuck much more stringently to singing single note melodies that moved evenly.  Today I approached it similarly, though I worked to bend in and out of the pitches, sometimes with the use of my voice and at other times using bendable fingerings.  

The overall range of this piece is just shy of two octaves.  Though I can sing from the lowest note on the horn–the low Bb, up to the highest traditional pitch–the high F, I decided to maintain a smaller range that was more comfortable. No matter what the level of volume, I tried to maintain a steady balance between the voice and horn.  The natural balance seems to be about 60% saxophone and 40% voice.  I explored pitches freely, attempting to anticipate where I was moving next to accurately hear the note in my mind before playing and singing it.  This was a particular challenge not only during wide leaps, but also during the slow upward and downward bends.  

Also of note in today’s piece, a custodian entered the hall swinging his keys and turning on the lights for me.  This is audible during the recording but was not very distracting during my performance.

-Neil