12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 96

Date: 04/06/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

Location: A private residence in Everett, WA

Today is the first day of the project that I’m recording and uploading while away from home for the weekend. I’ve had small amounts of time to practice spread throughout the day, and the inception for this piece grew out of a brief but productive bit of time on the horn. In this improvisation I aimed for a joyful quality, with centers of tonality that lay within two multiphonic chords. I set out during this piece expecting to explore these two chords with more a stable, unwavering quality. Quickly after beginning the piece I mistakenly trilled one of the chord shapes, which then became my center of interest.

The two multi phonics are major chords and complementary in tonality. The fingerings are as follows:

Multiphonic 1. (Left Hand) B-A-G keys, Octave // (Right Hand) E-D keys. The Low B, and/or octave key is trilled at will.

Multiphonic 2. (Left Hand) B-A-G keys, Octave // (Right Hand) F-D keys, Low C. The alternate F# is trilled at will.

While trilling and holding out the multiphonic chords there is melodic movement that takes place. In the tenor key, Multiphonic 1 moves between a high D and high C#, low A and G, and an F# is maintained as a drone. In Multiphonic 2, the high octave F moves to an F#, and the middle octave C# moves to a D. I approached these two chords as the main, consonant base of action. As the piece evolved I began to fracture out from the two chords to begin trilling shapes that stepped outside the established key centers.

-Neil