12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 324

Date: 11/20/2013

Instrument: Tenor saxophone

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

Notes:

Yesterday Bad Luck ended out Fall tour by driving from Kettleville, CA (about 3 hours North of LA) back up to Seattle. After staying the night in the city, I made it back home to the island this morning. Doing chores around the house and practicing, I found myself filled with a duel feeling, both of the joy of being home and a desire to be back on the road meeting new people and exploring new places. I decided to embrace dualism in my improvisation today.

During this improvisation I used a primary melodic figure in medium tempo. The fingerings contained inside this melody then became the source material for faster, more indeterminate figures that I explored freely. The melody opens the improvisation and is played 4 times, the 4th being a springboard for the improvised material. The second and eight pitches in the melodies were the roots of larger chords, the former being a minor chord and the latter a major. I used the dichotomy of minor to parallel major as a means to bring about my dual state of mind. These two chords also became a point of reference during the piece to bind the improvised material to the full melody. The fingerings used for the primary melody were as follows (written below in the order they were played):

Pitch G: (Left Hand) 1-2, Low B // (Right Hand) 2-3

Pitch Bb: (Left Hand) 1-2, Palm Eb key only, Low B // (Right Hand) 2-3 *This was a tight, clustered minor chord*

Pitch C: (Left Hand) 1-2, Low B // (Right Hand) 2-3, Side C

Pitch D: (Left Hand) 1-2, Fork F, Low B // (Right Hand) 2-3, Side C

Pitch C: Same as C fingering above

Pitch Bb: Same as Bb fingering/clustered minor chord above

Pitch G: Same as G fingering above

Pitch B: (Left Hand) 1-2, Low B, Palm Eb only, Low B // (Right Hand) 1-2-3

-Neil

The image accompanying today’s post by Barthelemy Toguo.