(05/13/2013) 12 Moons Solo Project Day 133

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 133

Date: 05/13/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

Location: Above a ravine at the base of Mt. Shasta.  Mt. Shasta, California

 Notes:

Now on the final day of our tour, Chris and I woke up in Mt. Shasta, an hour or so South of the Oregon border.  We drove up an access road about 5 miles to get a better view of the mountain, and found ourselves at a vista point near the base of the.  After doing some recording together on a trail, I headed farther up the service road by foot.  I climbed up a hillside to get a birds-eye view of a deep ravine that had an open meadow beyond it.  I was inspired by the reverberant space beyond me, and I responded to the acoustics by working with the naturally occurring delay.

The forest was alive with bird songs, ants scattering their energy on the ground and the ever-present wind.  During moments of inaction from my instrument, I tried to listen equally to the delay, as well as the environment I was interrupting.  In this improvisation I decided to use a single fingering, played with embouchure adjustments in order to pull out two main pitches and various overblown sound clusters.  The two fundamental pitches were Concert Db, and Eb (quarter tone sharp).  The fingering was as follows: (Left Hand) Fork F, A-G keys // F-E-D keys, Low C, Side Bb.

-Neil

 The image accompanying today’s it Mount Shasta.

(05/12/2013) 12 Moons Solo Project Day 132

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 132

Date: 05/12/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

Location: Oroville Dam in Oroville, California.

Notes:

Now on day 7 of our tour, Bad Luck plays tonight in Chico, California.  On our drive up from Sacramento, we decided to burn some time exploring the Oroville Dam.  After a bit of searching we eventually arrived at the massive vista point we were searching for.  We set up camp to do some playing on the South facing side of a massive man made river that flowed hundreds of feet from the top of the dam.  The platform for the river appeared to be of concrete, with six or so enormous cubes breaking up the water’s flow before it pounded into the river below it.  We shot a few music videos, one of which was a solo improvisation that accompanies this post. 

During this improvisation I approached the piece more from a place of energy than any pre-scripted model.  I focused on the massive torrent of water in front of me, and from the outset of the improvisation I gravitated towards a sound gesture with medium intervals that was created using a multiphonic fingering with a trill key set against it.  Later in the improvisation I used an alternation of trill keys in the right and left hands to create the quick, cyclical cycles heard throughout.  Near the end of the piece I began watching the water flow from the top of the river shoot towards the bottom where it slammed against the man-made, massive blocks of concrete.  This helped to inspire the fluctuation in range towards the upper register squeals. 

-Neil

The image accompanying today’s post is a man-made river descending from the Oroville Dam.  

05/11/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 131)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 131

Date: 05/11/2013
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Location: A hallway in my brotherâs apartment. San Francisco, California

Notes:

This afternoon I spent a bit of time practicing in my brother’s apartment. The unit is in the top floor of a building constructed in 1904, and as I practiced throughout the space I found that the hallway wall was playing back at me. In the top center of the wall I discovered what I assume must be old doorbells that reverberated as I played. The bells responded with full resonance on the concert pitches F and C. Perhaps because this is a perfect fifth interval, they seemed to hold the resonance of any pitch, though far more diminished in not the F or C. 

In this improvisation I explored tight, puckish pitches, and multiphonics, and intermittently zoning in on the F and C. I found that these two pitches would respond far better if I was very accurate with my pitch, and this was particularly true of the top altissimo concert C. As the piece moved forward I began to create focus areas, including multiple repetitions of specific pitches, and eventually at the piece’s conclusion, a melody with some regularity in shape. 

-Neil

The image “Saturn’s Small Moons” accompanying today’s post courtesy of NASA.

05/10/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 130)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 130

Date: 05/10/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

Location: Dead end of a service road off I-5 between Los Banos and Merced, CA.

Notes:

Now on day five of our Bad Luck tour, this morning Chris flew back to Seattle to play a show and I drove the car from San Diego up to San Francisco.  I struck out by myself at 4:45am.  There’s nothing like waking up early and driving away. 

I recorded this improvisation about 9 hours into my 11 hour solo trip, between Fresno and the turn off onto the highway towards San Francisco.   The landscape is consistent, marked by almond and citrus tree groves, dusty fields with brown and tan hills in the distance.  At one point the Freeway began cutting through the hills, and I found a good spot to exit off.  I followed a service road until it stopped well into a cattle grazing area.  To the East the highway was clearly audible, but to the West the hills seemed to go on infinitely in their independent environment.  I decided to record an improvisation inspired by the urban promise of the freeway and the stark natural beauty of the hills.

I explored a two-fold shape, the first being an ascending sound that quickly worked up from a concert E into the altissimo range, exploring a combination of tempered pitch and noisy embouchure flutters.  The second shape was the sustaining of an indeterminate chord, where I would balance the low register with altissimo pitches. During both shapes I growled or hummed into the horn against the low E fundamental.  It’s also of note to say that I was plagued by tiny black sand flies that bit my face and arms as I recorded.

-Neil

The image accompanying today’s post by Peter Brotzmann.

05/09/2013 (12 Moons Solo Project Day 129)

12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 129

Date: 05/09/2013
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Location: Small bedroom in an acquaintanceâs house. Los Angeles, California

Notes:

This morning I found myself with an hour of time to practice while out on the road. This is a rarity made all the better by a quiet room to focus in. During this improvisation I explored two altissimo pitches: Concert Bb and Concert B, using atypical fingerings to produce a quiet, muted tone quality. By gently closing particular keys against the body, I was able to arch the airflow to create evenly descending pitches while maintaining the upper tones. This particular descending motion is an area Iâm exploring with pretty novice ability, and the descending shape is much more audible from behind the drivers seat. However, the gesture was captured during the recording process.

In this piece there is an imbalance of sound. The upper register tones carry about 99% of the sound space, with the breathy descending shapes and other dots of sound take up the remainder. I anchored my sound on the two upper tones, being careful to maintain them the bulk of the time. As the improvisation progressed I began pulling other overtones and chord clusters out of these fingerings to momentarily break off from the high tones. The fingerings used were as follows:

Concert Bb:
(Left Hand) B-A keys, Octave, Palm Eb // (Left Hand) E-D keys

Concert B
(Left Hand) B-A keys, Octave, Palm Eb // (Left Hand) E-D keys, Side F

To create the downward bending arches of sound beneath these sustained tones, as well as to explore other chord sounds, I would slowly bend side keys closed, most often in the following order: Low C, Low B, Low Bb, slightly close the Palm Eb.

-Neil

The image “New York 1912” accompanying todayâs post by. Max Weber