12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 195

Date: 07/14/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

This morning I was interested in creating slight bends within pitches, and trying to combine these bends with the “walking” trill technique I’ve been developing. I used a fingering action that allows for a variety of sound colors, and worked to introduce sound choices at various points until they became intertwined together. The finger action was as follows:

(Left Hand) B key down, Octave. Slightly open and close the Palm F key with the pinky in the left hand, while slightly opening and closing the Fork F key with the right hand.

When depressing the Fork F key, the Palm F key naturally opens about 50%. By using the pinky in the left hand I’m able to then open it fully. When I close the Fork F key I’m able to reintroduce the sound with the Palm F instead, and create a panning-like effect on the instrument as the fingerings go back and forth. With this as a starting point, I then used the walking trill technique with my index and middle fingers rapidly trilling against the Fork F key. Other techniques included two interpretations of a drip-like sound, the first by momentarily allowing the F key to close against the key cup, and the second the momentary release and then immediate depression of the octave key.

-Neil

The image “Untitled (Red, Orange, Brown and Black Butterfly) #581” accompanying today’s post by Mark Grotjahn.