12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 139

Date: 05/19/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

Location: Home studio in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)

Notes:

Today I explored an oscillation of pitches made by a slow finger cycle and humming into the horn. I worked to control the pitches being pulled out by focusing on specific pitches contained within the overtone series of the fingering. When using this technique I generally play much more aggressively than the recording captured here, but today I aimed to maintain an overall dynamic level spanning pp to mp, both to challenge myself and to try and discover new colors. The fingering used was as follows:

(Left Hand) B-A-G keys, Octave, Low B // (Right Hand) E-D keys.

While using the above fingering I would alternate opening and closing the Side Bb and Fork F keys, one at a time in a continuous, slow cycle. I sang into the horn a Concert B in the lowest octave of the tenor’s range, and would occasionally also move between this C and a Concert C above it. During the improvisation I would at times briefly pause the finger cycle and hold the root fingering while singing the Concert B. This would result in a beautiful, de-tuned major chord, which I used to pivot from one section into another.

-Neil

The image accompanying today’s post by American painter Norman Bluhm