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.