04/20/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 110)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 110

Date: 04/20/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

I’ve recently become interested in studying the technique of rhythmic abandonment.  With this idea, an exploration of non-sequirter rhythmic cycles became a theme in my practice session today.  I would immediately chart a path of exploration on a single rhythm and then abruptly abandon it for something new.  It then become a great challenge to find a way to stitch a current idea with the one to come, particularly when they might be so fundamentally different from one another.  Using a common melodic statement became a center-point for the  stitching of ideas.  In this improvisation I worked with the two pitches Concert Bb and Concert G.

Partially to create the variety of rhythms and melodies, I used false fingerings against the Concert Bb and G, and combined them with different articulation styles.  I used the absence of sound more as an element for articulation than for silence.  

-Neil 

04/19/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 109)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 109

Date: 04/19/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

In my improvisation today I worked with the technique of “floating” specific keys.  I used the following fingering: (Left Hand) B-A-G keys, Palm Eb // (Right Hand) F-E keys, Low C.  With this root fingering, I slowly open and close the Palm Eb and Low C keys, never fully closing them against the body of the horn.  This sonic approach to this improvisation is very similar to many of the piece I explore, but the “floating” technique allows for a wide variety of colors and harmony with a single root fingering.  When the Palm Eb and Low C become very close to the key cup, the air resistance increases, resulting in a great deal of back pressure.  By creating tension and release in the back-pressure itself, I’ve found that this seems to contribute a great deal towards a variety of color.

In the structure of the piece, I tried to leave myself open to exploring the sound color versus trying to create any kind of harmonic or melodic road map.  I used variations in my air stream to push some clusters out more than others, to to see what new clusters might emerge by simply pushing and then releasing the air flow in tempo.  By lowering my embouchure a straight tone or chord might emerge, which would then evolve into a new color by then putting pressure back on the reed.  During the improvisation I also focused a bit on the pinched, buzzing lip sounds that wanted to come out with this “floating” technique.  

-Neil

The image “Floating City Sculpture” accompanying today’s post by artist Katsumi HayaKawa.

04/18/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 108)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 108

Date: 04/18/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

I captured this improvisation moments after closing out a long, productive, and incredibly tiring day of teaching.  Throughout this project I often find myself pre-planing when I’ll record.  If I know the next day will be a busy one, the night before I take a mental survey of the day to come and I generally try to carve out a bit of time where I know I’ll be productive and full of energy.  Today I took a different approach, and I recorded at a point of mass transitional and exhaustion to see if it could warrant a new perspective.  I recorded moments after finishing my last lesson, my mind preparing to go home after a 12 hour day.  I decided to bludgeon my exhaustion and draw my focus towards a single pitch as a central point of action.  The result was an improvisation that culled the image of a hive.

This improvisation uses a low Bb fingering.  My initial intent was to perform a drone piece with a steady, full tone, but once the tape began to role I was drawn into a different head space.  I decided to use a sub-tone embouchure uncomfortably close to the tip of the mouthpiece.  I used a great deal of air to explore a region that bordered the tone of the horn, but also the amazing sonic possibilities of pinched, choked air flow.  As the piece progressed I worked to transition in and out of pitch into pure air sound.

Mid way through the piece I also tried a new technique.  I have stubbled upon this in the past but only in fleeting moments.  At about the 2 minute mark, I balanced my lip pressure at the tip of the mouthpiece, allowing my top teeth to barely make contact with it.  Because of the extreme back pressure, my top teeth rattled against the mouthpiece, causing the entire aperture to vibrate and pull out beautiful sounds. 

-Neil

The image accompanying today’s post is a cluster of fish struggling for air in an ice hole.  

04/17/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 107)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 107

Date: 04/17/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

Today is a beautiful day on the island–clear, cool and bright.  While my wife was watering the garden this morning the scent in the air reminded me distinctly of my childhood walking in the grass outside my grandparents house in Brewster, WA.  They lived hours from even a modest sized city, in a dusty town close to the Methow Valley in Eastern Washington, their house a quarter mile from the great Columbia River.  Amazingly, when I checked my email this morning my mom had sent me an areal picture of Brewster, with the orchards, brown fields and the river that held close their little town.  This was an extraordinary coincidence, and I felt it warranted an improvisation.  In this piece I aimed to capture the clear newness of an early morning, and the quiet framiliarity of a old place.

This improvisation is based on a single melodic/harmonic phrase.  But to create the full phrase the fingering system is broken down into three parts (notated below in the tenor key).  As the piece progressed I added a chord resolution to B major after Part 3.  This was done by adding the D key in the right hand. 

Part 1. Pitches C#, E, F#

(Left Hand) B-A keys, Octave, Low Bb, Palm Eb // (Right Hand) F-E-D keys, Low C

Part 2.  Piches G#, A# 

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

Part 3.  Pitches E, F# (Middle Octave) F# (upper octave) is also occasionally added.

(Left Hand) Fork F, A-G Keys, Octave // (Right Hand) F-E  keys, Low C

-Neil

The image “Erased De Kooning Drawing” by Robert Rauschenberg (1953)