08/28/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 240)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 240

Date: 08/28/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

Location: Orchestra room at Chief Sealth High School.  Seattle, WA 

Notes:

*I recommend using headphones when listening to this piece in order to clearly hear the sustain in the piano strings.*

I had a limited amount of uninterrupted time before teaching this morning.  In these situations I find that my artistic output can be very creative and fluid or at an absolute standstill.  Fortunately this morning I found tremendous influence in the use of the Steinway baby grad that sits inside the orchestra room at Chief Sealth High School.  Like just about every instrumentalist I know, I’m fascinated by the idea of continuous resonance, overtones and harmony possible by using the sustain pedal on a piano.  I decided to tackle a small spectrum of this technique and improvise a piece that used selected sound environments, which when performed acoustically still have an amazing amount of resonance with just the saxophone and myself alone.  The finger cycles used in this piece are very familiar to me and are often used when I perform because of the amazing resonance they create out of the instrument, and the natural harmony that results.  By playing this into the piano and keeping the sustain pedal on, the sounds take on a new life and seem to overwhelm both instruments with a tremendous torrent of sound.

The core fingering used during this piece was as follows:

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

This fingering produces a very slight pitch differentiation that includes a chord cluster of two pitches only a semi-tone apart, most closely linked to a Concert G and Ab.  The Ab is about a quarter step sharp and the G is so sharp is lies slightly below an Ab.  Each of these tones are possible independently with this fingering, or in the two note grouping together.  By opening and closing the Side C and Middle C keys, I created cycles of sound that explored this possibility by sliding between the notes, or allowing the two to collide together momentarily.  

There are other more resonant sounds possible by playing into the piano in this fashion, such as playing the Low Bb in subtone, which dramatically fills the piano’s soundboard.  However, in this improvisation I wanted to retain more of the core sound of the saxophone in the piano strings, and allow more subtle overtones to resonate in the strings alongside the pure tone of the horn.

-Neil

The image “Two over Halley’s Comet” accompanying today’s post by Terence Koh (2003).

08/27/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 239)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 239

Date: 08/27/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

I developed this piece over the course of several hours today.  I wanted to capture joy in this improvisation.  Open, willful, intense joy.  For me these moments contain a depth to them that almost sets me apart from myself. It’s as though I’m able to step outside my body and watch myself experiencing something in its purest state of being.  To try and capture this experience musically, I wanted to work with mystical sounds today, sounds that are profoundly moving but are rarely heard unless their subtly is given a magnifying glass.  The mystical sounds I explored in this improvisation include sounds only capable by putting my instrument, my focus and my body into the right space at the right time.  The improvisation is based off of two fingerings, which are separate in execution but complimentary in scope.

By singing into the horn against a fingering pitch, rich overtones can enter into the sound field that are so easily glossed over if they aren’t given focus.  During this piece I wanted to feature this reality.    The first fingering, and main body of the piece, used my voice to pull out these tones and was as follows: 

(Left Hand) B-A-G keys, Low Bb // (Right Hand) F key, Low C. 

This fingering creates a Concert D#, and below it sang a Concert B.  When paired with this Major Third interval, I brought out many overtones and quiet whistle tones by slowly trilling the Low C key.

Following this section, I introduced a sound world which I had explored for about an hour while practicing today.   This is a pitch cluster, and just a micro second it’s possible to put 3 whole steps together.  There are other far denser, more complex multiphonics possible, but to have 3 pitches so close together is something truly special.  This section can be heard at 1:43.  The pitches were: B, C#, D# (each about a quarter step high).  To create this, I used the following fingering:

(Left Hand) B-A-G keys, Octave, Low Bb // (Right Hand) F key, Low C, High F.

-Neil

The image “Mont Blanc” accompanying today’s post by Louis-Auguste Bisson with Auguste Rosalie Bisson (1860 or 1861).

08/26/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 238)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 238

Date: 08/26/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

In my improvisation today, I explored clear melodic and harmonic ideas that were stated plainly–directly.  They then morphed to become part of a broader, thicker texture and took on an indirect role.  This could be akin to the experience of being a single individual amidst a crowd of people.  To outline this concept, I used two fingerings to create 2 direct sound environments, and then adjusted my embouchure and air flow to include these same sounds indirectly into the larger web of action.  

I began the improvisation with a single pitch which becomes a kind of touchstone throughout the piece.   The other chords contain it in the bottom of their voicing as well.  This first tone, and subsequently the note above it, used the first fingering to achieve the first chord.  This included the notes D and F (quarter step sharp), with the following fingering:

(Left Hand) B-A-G keys, Fork F, Octave, Low B // (Right Hand) F-E keys, Side F# key.

The second chord, comprised of the pitches D and F natural, used same fingering above but added the Low C key.  I alternated between these two chords to create the first direct statement of sound. From here I added the second melodic idea, again stated as directly as possible.  This idea was a simple folk-like melody built off the first fingering alone, played by adjusting my embouchure and air flow.  This melody used the pitches Eb, F, G, F, Eb and can be heard for the first time at 1:10

I then alternated between the two fingerings, slowly adding and taking away the Low C key to bring out a full color spectrum inherent in these fingerings.  The transition into and beginning of this section can be heard at 1:53.  As stated above, I then tried to fold in the two ideas above in a more indirect manner, changing the focus towards a more sound-texture environment, and only rarely played them in their original or “direct” state.

-Neil

The image “Lady in Woods” accompanying today’s post by Paul L. Anderson (1915).

08/25/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 237)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 237

Date: 08/25/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

After a few days of working with very finite textures in both my practice and recording, I decided to develop an improvisation that balanced loose, gritty melodies amidst more controlled ones.  This is a challenge for me.  It’s often the case that I improvise more freely when doing either a very controlled piece, or one with much more reckless abandon.  The combining of the two is a technique I love to work with, and as stated, requires a very different kind of focus for a piece to come out successfully for me.  During my recording process, I improvised a series of pieces.  Some were much stronger than others in execution.  In each piece I improvised melodic cycles and some kind of more stable harmonic chord.  

This recording uses a sound world that balances two areas of pitch material.  Area 1 had an abstract, improvised series of fingerings that tended to center around the pitches (in the tenor key of Bb): 

C-Ab-Bb—-

I then continued the fingering cycle but adjusted my embouchure pressure to bring out new pitch cycles in the upper register:

F-Eb-Bb—-

The held chord occupied the sound Area 2, with the following fingering and pitches:

Pitches (in ascending order): G#, F#, C#

(Left Hand) B-A-G keys, Octave, Low B // (Right Hand) E-D keys

-Neil

The image “Untitled from the series ‘Ten Thousand Things That Breathe” accompanying today’s post by Renato Orara (2003).

08/24/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 236)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 236

Date: 08/24/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

The current political conflict and civil war in Syria have been on my mind this past week.  The alleged Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons against rebel fighters outside Damascus is a horrifying prospect.  The reports, images and videos show a terrifying reality for the people of Syria.   Men, women and children, experiencing “convulsions, pinpoint pupils, blurred vision and respiratory distress.  3,600 patients displaying symptoms consistent with exposure to a neurotoxic agent.  Of those, 355 reportedly died.” (NRP.org). My improvisation today was inspired by this conflict and the current, alleged revelation of the use of this weapon by a government against it’s own people.

In this piece I used double and single tonging to create a palette of ambient sound with overtones that encompassed a wide backdrop of white noise air flow.  I wanted to bring into this piece a focus of air.  I found the use of this tonging technique to be a very direct method of achieving this.  There is limited pitch use in this piece, but what little there is, I tried to carefully introduce it.  This included slight fade in and fade outs, abrupt tiny dots of high pitches, and slight shifts from one pitch center to another.  I based the improvisation around the following fingering:

(Left Hand) B-A-G keys, Octave, Low B // (Right Hand) F-E-D keys.  I would also occasionally slightly open the Side C key or add the Low C in the right hand.

Though a grim concept, I wanted to impart a feeling of rotten-air in this piece, a sound world where we can experience through our imagination that air, the most fundamental of human rights is being taken away.

-Neil

The image “Q. And babies? A. And babies.” accompanying today’s post by the Art Workers’ Coalition.  Photograph by R.L. Haeberle (1970).