12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 29
Date: 01/29/2013
Instrument: Alto saxophone
Location: Small Theatre at Chief Sealth High School in Seattle, WA
Notes:
I rarely perform on alto, despite the fact that I teach this instrument about five days a week. It has been a slow process for me in my professional life developing a sound that I feel is my own on alto. In the past several months I feel I’m coming close and I hope to begin playing this instrument more frequently in public. This past Sunday at Seattle’s Racer Sessions, of which I’m a contributor, I performed a short solo piece on alto. My improvisation today was inspired by the sounds I explored on that piece.
I performed this improvisation in the stage-right corner of a small theater. I was fortunate to find an assortment of marching bass drums laying around, and I picked one with drum heads that I would estimate to be at least 40 inches long. This vintage drum was by far the largest one I’ve ever seen, and I thought I would work with it today. This theatre is designed to stifle sound, not project it. By placing the mic setup in front of the bass drum and my body between the drum and the corner, I was able to capture a warm sound despite this fact.
My improvisation last Sunday was an energy piece that used three mid octave pitches, a single extreme upper register pitch and screaming through the horn. In my piece today I used a high overall level of volume, grunts and screams as well. There are some small themes and selected pitches I gravitated towards in this improvisation. This was particularly so in the mid octave concert Ab’s where I constantly play fast downward bends. There is also a heavy use of fast single tonging and melodic lines that lead up to a variety of high octave pitches. It’s also noteworthy to say that there was a spelling bee going on in the room next door while I was tearing the paint off the ceiling with this one.
-Neil
01/28/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 28)
12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 28
Date: 01/28/2013
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Location: Home studio in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)
Notes:
The bulk of my improvisation thus far have centered around repetitive, minimalist shapes. Though I’ve known that this concept is one that I favor I actually was a bit unaware that I am so constantly drawn to this model. On reflecting this fact during my practice session today, I decided to embrace the concept instead of doing an abrupt about face.
During this improvisation I use a simple rhythmic pattern: 1 e and a 2—, with occasional single pitch interruptions. The fingering sequence used on this piece is very complicated, and keeping it steady was a great challenge for me. While practicing I often choose a sequence of some kind, be it rhythmic, harmonic or melodic and repeat it for some time as an exercise. As is the case with speaking a single word in fast repetition, after several passes it becomes difficult to retain the original quality of sound and feel. This particular fingering sequence uses a multiphonic with a very present upper octave Db. This Db became the single pitches you hear throughout this piece. I use these single pitches as audible markers, or something to create expectation for the listener. My aim was to establish the original melody and rhythm as its own sound world, and then interrupt this with the altissimo (extreme upper register) concert Db and high octave Db. The original 1 e and a 2— rhythm then seems to all of a sudden become secondary to the expectation of continued single pitches to come.
-Neil
01/27/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 27)
12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project
Date: 01/27/2013
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Location: Home studio in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)
Notes:
Due to a very busy schedule today I performed a series of improvisations this morning in the 6am hour. Though I live in a very rural area tucked away in the woods, my neighborhood is a working class area on the south end of Whidbey Island . Each morning beginning around 4:00am, a few cars begin their commute to various points on the island and mainland beyond. This morning, perhaps due to the fact that it is Sunday, I was able to perform completely uninterrupted by car noise for nearly an hour. This woods in winter can be astonishingly quite in the morning, and I was greeted with a warm silence to quite my mind before improvising. My piece today is accompanied by a second, complimentary improvisation that seemed an inevitable response to the first. Both were recorded at extremely low volumes with the gain turned high.
Due to the very quite atmosphere in my home, my mind naturally gravitated towards the polar opposite scenario. This morning I considered the unique feeling of walking against a crowd of people walking in the opposing direction. Though you bump shoulders with many people the experience is far from random. There are a variety of circumstances leading towards the physical encounter and I believe the contact to be more indeterminate than random. In this piece I explored this concept by using a single multiphonic fingering and indeterminately, or rather “at will” choosing to adjust my articulation and slowly begin to introduce an upper register pitch. In my second improvisation in this series, I chose to instead articulate a single pitch, and then sustain a multiphonic.
-Neil
01/26/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 26)
12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 26
Date; 01/26/2013
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Location: Home studio in Clinton WA (Whidbey Island)
Notes:
The evolution of our life is a fascinating process, and we all share a desire to understand this process. We carry with us inevitable degrees of expectation, things accomplished, things forgotten and undone. I heard a study on NPR recently which asked the question “do you expect your life to change dramatically over the next ten years.” Study members ranging in age from their 20 to 70, across the board believed that answer to this question was “no.” But when asked to look at the circumstances of their lives from 10 years prior and to compare where they are today, nearly all members of the study recognized that their lives were now very different. However, again nearly all of the participants believed their dramatic shifts were coincidental and not likely to happen again in the next 10 years. The end result of this case study showed that we do change, in very, very fundamental ways with each year that passes, yet at every stage in our lives we believe we’ve stopped evolving. My improvisation today was inspired by this topic.
I chose two different chord sounds, each produced with different fingerings but common links. Both chords have the same upper register tones and both chords can only be produced by manually opening and closing a single key. This key is located directly above the F key, and is normally only depressed when playing either an F, E, or D. In order to close this key only you must use an unnatural hand position to manually close the key, and then allow an existing spring to open it back up. This is the light tapping sound you hear throughout this improvisation.
I considered a notion that the past is viewed only from a current perspective, and the past lacks the clarity and finite qualities of the living moment. This is represented in the muted tone in the first half of the piece, which uses slight overtones that are barely audible. The second half of the improvisation I view as the present, and is a blossoming of the “past” or first section. The tone is full, the chord is full, and there is a more equal balance in all the pitches. The first section finds a common link to the secondary or “present” section in the overtones, but the second seems more focused and resonant.
-Neil
01/25/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 25)
12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 25
Date: 01/25/2013
Instrument: Soprano saxophone
Location: Home studio in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)
Notes:
As a saxophonist there is no question that I identify most strongly with the tenor. However, each horn has its own personality and at times there are colors I can create on the soprano or alto that I can’t seem to capture on the tenor. My improvisation today captures of bit of this reality in a simple finger system that, when played on alto or tenor will not speak nearly as resonant.
During this improvisation I aimed to capture a melody and a system of chords simultaneously. Uncovering a system of polyphonic (multi-tone) possibilities has been my practice focus throughout the last half a decade. It it one thing to create a cluster of chords but quite another to try and link chords together in a seamless fashion. I’ve discovered that if you do successfully link chords together natural melodies seem to emerge. In this case, a melody on the scale degrees 1-b3-1-b7-8-b7 becomes quite clear when moving between two chords. The first chord is a mulitphonic and the second is an overtone fingering with the octave key on.
-Neil