12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 175

Date: 06/24/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

Today I found myself at the end of my working day feeling physically low, sapped of energy and with a general feeling of malaise. I fashioned this improvisation as a wounded battle cry for myself and tried to purge these feelings from my body. Like a bugle, I used a single fingering to create simple melodic shapes with overtones. I used the following fingering to do so:

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

The initial upper register two-note figure with the pitches Bb to Db became my melodic refrain. When descending below this figure in pitch, I also descended in volume. The two pitches below the main melodic shape were Gb and C, which became points of rest between the clarion call of the two upper pitches. At two points I also introduced a bluesy figure with the altissimo pitches Gb and E. The large, ominous multiphonic chord played only once near the mid point of the improvisation was again derived from the same fingering, and therefore was a collection of all the pitches played. In ascending order of range they were: C, Gb, Bb, Db, E, Gb.

-Neil

The image “Outlet” accompanying today’s post by Ernestine White (2010)