12/06/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 340)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 340

Date: 12/06/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

This morning I spent my practice session preparing, of all things, for a presentation of selections from the 12 Moons project thus far.  By last night I was physically exhausted after several day of heavy practicing, and many hours of the day spent on the horn while teaching.  It was extremely taxing to blow just about anything into the horn, but his morning I picked it up feeling renewed and physically strong.  I was immediately drawn to the textures used in today’s improvisation right as the horn entered my hands for the day.  

In this piece I worked with the shaping of clean, crisp articulations with a constant repetition of figures, as well as more gritty shapes incorporated within the continuous lines.  I wanted to maintain a dogged persistence of the Concert E throughout, and I used this as my primary focal point during the piece.  About 2/3 into the improvisation, I began slowing down the figures while maintaining the puckish, pointillist approach.  I maintained a static dynamic level throughout the piece, with the more spacious dots following suit with this approach.  The Concert E was rooted within two fingerings, which are notated below:

(Left Hand) 1-2-3, Octave, Low Bb // (Right Hand) 2-3, Low C.  During rapid articulation, take away the Low C in the right hand to created a second fingering that pulls out more hollow-sounding pitches of a similar sound profile.

-Neil

The image “A diary of flowers” accompanying today’s post by Jim Hodges (1993).

12/05/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 339)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 339

Date: 12/05/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

This morning I reached for new and less trodden textures during my practice session.  This did not however manifest itself in an inspired idea for recording today until the end of my practice session, when I re-visited an older technique of fingering a pitch while singing with my voice into the horn.  In the past, while using this technique in recording I have stuck primarily to singing a fixed pitch while alternating fingerings around it.  Today I decided to use more fixed fingerings, and allow myself the flexibility to sing a wider range, all the while returning very frequently to established pitch centers.  

While recording this piece today I was amazed at the variety of overtones that the combination of my voice and the horn could cull up.  Around the 2:00 minute mark, and incredible array of pitches in block chords moved up and down the horn along with my voice.  These moments of rich harmonic spectrums offset the otherwise constant motion of the single pitches.  During this improvisation I tried to use as many mouth shapes and syllabic sounds as possible, but I limited my tongue articulations to only single tonging.  Interestingly, while tonging the end result created the phonetic sound “do do do” extremely often whether I was using this sound shape or not.  Other techniques included vibrato made with the back of my mouth and the upward–downward motion of the back side of my tongue.  

I primarily used the traditional Low Bb fingering during this piece, but would also occasionally lift my second finger the right hand (E key), or add the octave key in the left hand.

-Neil

The image accompanying today’s post by Roman Opalka.

12/04/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 338)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 338

Date: 12/04/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

During my practice session this morning I worked with tiny texture fragments, weaving them into brief compositions.  I was particularly struck by the solum beauty of two chords I paired together, and I then worked to find a fingering system that would allow for more complex voice leading to compliment them.  The end result became the introductory figured played in today’s improvisation.  In keeping with my practice theme today, I used this simple figure as the platform to sculpt a small improvisation around.  This is the shortest piece yet during the project.

After improvising for some time and intuitively developing a piece, I transcribed the finished product into a fully notated composition, be it a small one, complete with multiphonic fingerings, pitch notations, and phrasing and dynamic markings.  The two primary chords that opened the piece were interpreted twice, written below as Fingering System 1.   I then moved into a brief “Intermediary Chord”, written as such below.  To begin Fingering System 2, I removed the octave key, dropping the chords into the lower register and altering the internal pitch content of the chords.  I then moved back to the “Intermediary Chord,” and finally into a series of dissonant chords labeled as Fingering System 3, which concluded the piece.  These are written below:

-Fingering System 1.  

Fingering a.) Pitches: D (quarter step sharp) and D (quarter step flat)

(Left Hand) 1-2-3, Octave, Palm D, Low Bb // (Right Hand) 1-2, Low C

Fingering b.)  Pitches: F (quarter step sharp) and C (quarter step flat)

(Left Hand) 1-2-3, Octave, Low Bb // (Right Hand) 1-2, Low C

-Intermediary Chord.  Pitches: F (quarter step flat) and D (quarter step sharp)

(Left Hand) 1-2, Octave, Low B, Palm Eb only // (Right Hand) 1, Low C

-Fingering System 2.

Fingering a.) Pitches: C (quarter step sharp) and D

(Left Hand) 1-2-3, Octave, Palm D, Low Bb // (Right Hand) 1-2, Low C

Fingering b.) Pitches: E and F#

(Left Hand) 1-2-3, Octave, Low Bb // (Right Hand) 1-2, Low C

-Fingering System 3.

Fingering a.) Pitches: G (quarter step flat) and F#

(Left Hand) 1-2, Octave, Low B, Palm Eb only // (Right Hand) 2, Low C, High F#

Fingering b.) Pitches: G (quarter step flat) and G (quarter step flat).  

(Left Hand 1-2, Octave, Low B, Palm Eb only // (Right Hand) 1, Low C, High F#

The terms “Fingering Systems 1-3 and "Intermediary Chord” are purely for descriptive purposes only, and were notated in actual manuscript notation on my page at home.

-Neil

The image “The Executed” accompanying today’s post by Valdemar H. Elenbaas (1950).

12/03/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 337)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 337

Date: 12/03/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone (and with harmon mute, concert chimes)

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

Notes:

With the project now in its final weeks, I’ve thought quite a bit about the tools at my disposal I have yet to take advantage of.  In the orchestra room at Chief Sealth a set of concert chimes was precariously set up in the center of the room, and this provided as good a time as any to get to work.  I decided to explore resonating tones inside of the pipes, and eventually became curious to see how that instrument would respond to the additional use of a harmon mute in my bell.  I’ve used the harmon two other times during the project, but I had yet to incorporate the saxophone/mute combination along with another instrument.  

During this piece I primarily used the standard Low Bb fingering, which responds extraordinarily well with the harmon mute, and also seemed resonate more freely inside the chime pipes.  I explored upper register overtones, thick and thin clusters and extreme dynamics during this Improvisation.  The harmon vibrated in the bell of my horn during many of the tighter clusters, causing an almost snare-drum like texture which I explored in two previous saxophone/harmon pieces.  I placed my microphone mid way up the pipes, setting it up on a piece of wood in the center of the two pipe rows.  I kneeled down on the floor and blew into the base of the pipes while being careful not to dump the harmon mute onto the ground.

-Neil

The image “Untitled” accompanying today’s post by Gyula Pap (1928).

12/02/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 336)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 336

Date: 12/02/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

For the past several days I’ve felt an immense joyousness in me, and I believe that much of this is due to an experience I had two nights ago.  I woke up every few hours feeling remarkably well rested.  At 2am, 4am, 6am I would wake up and feel ready to begin the day.  Sometime in the 2 o'clock hour I sat up, got out of bed, walked into my practice room and wrote down the following phrase:

“Love is the practice of patience, and the product of empathy." 

The next morning I remembered feeling compelled by something in that moment, and I remember being in a half awake, half sleeping state while writing it.  This phrase has stayed with me constantly the past two days.  I am a happy, fulfilled person, but I am not intrinsically a joyous person.  I have to fight to have a light heart, and the fact that this naturally emerged from me is a fascinating thing, and today I wanted to explore this in my improvisation.

In this piece I tried to capture the transient nature of joyousness in me.  I created a loose, dreamlike atmosphere with melodies darting in and out of a harmonic palette.  By adjusting my embouchure mid-phrase I was able to shift the harmony while still executing the same fingering cycle.  These fingerings resonated parallel Major and Dominant chords.  Dominant is a transient, transitional chord, where the Major is solidly joyful.  The challenge for me was to sculpt a piece that used both "life states” simultaneously, and to allow the individualism of both states influence the improvisation in equal measure.  

The fingering motions would be impossible to fully notate below, but suffice it to say that that there were 3 primary fingering ares I used during this piece.  They employed key flicking, as well as embouchure motions to fully realize the sounds.  They could vaguely be written as follows:

-B Major/B Dominant Chord (Descending shapes).  This shape opens the piece:

Flick high F# key, and move immediately into: (Left Hand) Palm Eb, Palm D, 1-2, Octave, Low Bb // (Right Hand) 1-2-3, Low C.  Then move into: (Left Hand) 1-2, Octave, Low Bb // (Right Hand) 1-2-3, Low C.

-B Major/B Dominant Chord (Ascending shapes).  This shape was played faster, and enters at :22

Same as above, but begin by flicking High F key instead of the high F#.

-B Dominant sue chord.  This shape enters at 1:43.  It is distinct in that it has a much simpler sound profile.

(Left Hand) 1-2, Low Bb // (Right Hand) 1-2-3, Low C.  Then move into: (Left Hand) Palm D, 1-2, Octave, Low Bb // (Right Hand) 1-2-3, Low C.

-Neil

The image “The Woods, In Winter”–plate 9 from the suite, “Aspects of Nature” accompanying today’s post by Henri Riviere (1898).