12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 115

Date: 04/25/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

Location: Practice room C at South Whidbey High School. Langley, WA (Whidbey Island)

Notes:

I felt in me a brooding, quiet panic this afternoon. Facing this I was compelled to explore a piece that did not overtly take advantage of it but tried to cut to the heart of this strange feeling within me. I wanted to express in the music the mood itself and not my selfish interpretation of it. It was not a deep for-boding feeling, but more a myopic layer in my mind. The improvisation therefore explores the constancy of this mood and a small degree of evolution within it.

The improvisation oscillates between two fingering actions, both using the altissimo F as a common drone in the extreme upper register. The two finger systems create very similar chord shapes in the lower register, centering around a Concert B and a Concert G# respectively. I worked to capture a balance between the high altissimo F and these pitches. At times I omitted the high pitch to instead explore the lower, and at the conclusion of the piece I then abandon the lower register to capture the high octave drone. The two fingering systems are:

Fingering 1. (Left Hand) Bb Bis key, Octave, Low B // (Right Hand) High F# key. Trill the high F# key quickly (Right Hand), and the B key medium-fast (Left Hand).

Fingering 2. (Left Hand) B-A keys, Octave, Low B // (Right Hand) High F# key. Trill the high F# key quickly (Right Hand), the B and A keys medium-fast (Left Hand).

-Neil

The image “Man in Constant Sorrow” by painter William Kentridge (1998-99).