12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 78

Date: 03/19/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

Location: Performing Arts Hall at Chief Sealth High School. Seattle, WA

Notes:

My reserved mood was welcomed by an improvisation to match it today. The use of drones to elicit mood in music is a very powerful tool in my mind. I’m interested in exploring drones with melodic counterpoint, and this improvisation makes use of a very simple example of this. The physical nature of creating this particular sound requires a very breathy tone from the horn, which accounts for so much ambient sound captured in this recording.

I attempted to maintain a Concert Eb drone at all times while playing. The melody above this drone focuses on a repetitive motion from a Concert B to a Concert Bb. The Concert Eb and D pitches above the melody were played with a single fingering, though the sum total of sounds was created by using two. In the final 20 seconds or so of the piece there is a momentary shift in tonality up a half step. This was not intentional, and though the mistake is obvious I felt the overall spirit captured in this improvisation was stronger than other recorded attempts I made at it.

The Concert Eb drone can remain fully unbroken between the two fingerings below:

1.) Concert B, D and Eb pitches plus drone: (Left Hand) B-A Keys, Octave Low Bb // (Right Hand) F-E keys, Low C and Side F

2.) Concert Bb plus drone: Same fingering as above but add the D key in the Right Hand.

-Neil

The image “Le Nu Sombre” accompanying today’s post by Pierre Bonnard (1941)