12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 315

Date: 11/11/2013

Instrument: Soprano saxophone

Location: The art studio on my wife’s family property. Burien, WA

Notes:

This morning my wife and I drove back from Portland, OR and stopped off at her families house in Burien on our way home. Her parents have a small house on their property which her father uses as an art studio. The studio is a small, cabin-like environment with wood carvings, old radios, paintings and old family fixtures. We lived in this studio during a few points in our early marriage to save money, and I came to enjoy the simplicity of the room. It’s comfortable size made for easy practicing. This afternoon I snuck off to the art studio for a half hour or so and recorded today’s improvisation.

This piece used a very similar sound and textural approach to another 12 Moons improvisation recorded last summer in Anacortes, though this piece was far more aggressive. I played with a full-mouthed embouchure shape with my lips against the ligature. I centered the piece around a single fingering with some slight momentary key flicking with the High G altissimo side key, Side F, and G key in the left hand. This single fingering was as follows:

(Left Hand) 1-2-3, Low Bb // (Right Hand) 1-2-3, Low Eb, Low C

I wanted to pull out a series of honking multiphonics with a natural grittiness that really only wanted to speak with a full flood of air, and the improper embouchure shape. During the improvisation my reed began to fracture on the upper left corner, and by the end a good chunk of the tip had been lost. This is very unusual, but was a result of the massive force of air being put into the instrument along with the slap tonguing. The fracturing of the reed happened slowly and I hadn’t noticed it until near the end of the piece. This opened up new sound territories in my air flow, which I explored with the full, open air column sounds that close the improvisation.

-Neil

The image accompanying today’s post by Michael Rodriguez, on view at the Vertical Art Gallery, Chicago in May of 2013.