12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 176

Date: 06/25/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

My wife and I spent the day up at our small, one room cabin in the cascade mountains. It’s located off Highway 2 on the West side of the pass. It rained most of the day, so we sat by the fire and kept it burning for several hours. I came home this afternoon with such a clearer mind than I left with this morning. Though I was tempted to record at the cabin, I decided to wait for my familiar practice space back at home. The result was a piece not directly inspired by mood or place, but more the state of my mind.

I practiced for about an hour before recording this improvisation. The current condition of my reed lent itself towards double-tonging, and I decided to sculpt a piece around this use of this technique. The improvisation covers a medium range on the tenor, from the low F# to the high F#. I used the initial figure as a springboard for chromatic and whole-step actions in lower register. This used the following fingering:

(Left Hand) B-A-G keys, Low B // (Right Hand) E-D keys. Trill open and close the low C in the right hand and the G key in the left hand.

In the mid point of the improvisation I departed from the chromatic action to play a scalar figure that ascended up two octaves and stopped on the high F#. I would also occasionally play the same scale and stop on the middle octave A, or I would combine this scale with the longer version and the lower octave chromatic action. During this improvisation I also explored the pacing of pitches. I would try to give the impression that melodies were speeding up or slowing down despite the fact that the articulation remained static.

-Neil

The image “Vlad Tcepec (Paper Mask) plate VII from the series Prints for the Counter Chronicle” accompanying today’s post by Gustav Kluge (1984)