Neil Welch, Continuous Resonance Project
Date: 02/10/2015
Location: The orchestra room at Chief Sealth High School. Seattle, WA
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Notes:
I recorded this improvisation in the middle of a sea of steel drums, maybe 25 or so, which I found waiting for me in the orchestra room between students today.
The image “Hour House is My World” (2011) accompanying today’s post by Markus Linnenbrink.
Neil Welch, Continuous Resonance Project
Date: 02/08/2015
Location: The bathroom at my home in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Notes:
The image “Sysmorphophilia VIII” accompanying today’s post by Filip D. Jensen
Neil Welch, Continuous Resonance Project
Date: 02/06/2015
Location: Home studio in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Notes:
The image “Eskimo Nebula” accompanying today’s post by NASA, courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Neil Welch, Continuous Resonance Project
Date: 02/03/2015
Location: Performance Hall at Chief Sealth High School. Seattle, WA
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Notes:
This morning I searched for an approach to the instrument I have not yet taken. I worked in vain for some time, reflecting on my current improvisatory interests and thinking about the directions I would like to explore further. I decided to enter into this goal through the modus of singing into the horn, a technique that seems to occupy a lot of my artistic effort these days. As I’ve worked primarily on creating harmonic texture with two or more total tones, I decided to focus instead on single pitches. I often sing unison pitches into the horn, but rarely do I ever simply sing into the instrument without actually sounding a played pitch. I decided to focus during this improvisation on singing with my voice alone into the horn while exploring fingerings against the flow of my air. I then incorporated slap tonguing into the sound spectrum. I found that the room became an absolute essential part of the resultant sounds explored here.
The image accompanying today’s post by Andre Gilbert Schmucki.
Neil Welch, Continuous Resonance Project
Date: 02/02/2015
Location: The bathroom at my home studio in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Notes:
During this improvisation I worked with the illusion of higher pitch, “whistle” tones. Though I am singing into the horn, the extremely high pitches captured in this piece are actually altissimo notes that I worked to balance dynamically. This created the allusion of upper register whistle tones within a chord, such as those heard in Tuvan throat singing.
The image accompanying today’s post by Jessica Rimondi.