12 Moons Solo Saxophone Project Day 350
Date: 12/16/2013
Instrument: Tenor saxophone
Location: Home studio in Clinton, WA (Whidbey Island)
Notes:
This morning I worked with consonant, B Major chord textures while singing the fixed pitch B into the horn. I used a series of 4 fingerings, each of which contained pitches found in the chord, or tonicized the chord through a dominant function. These fingerings were as follows:
Fingering 1:
(Left Hand) 1-2-3, Octave, Low B // (Right Hand) 1-2-3, Low C
Fingering 2:
(Left Hand) 1-2-3, Octave, Low B // (Right Hand) 1-2-3, Side F, Low C
Fingering 3:
(Left Hand) 1-2-3, Octave, Low B // (Right Hand) 1-3, Low C
Fingering 4:
(Left Hand) 1-2-3, Octave, Low B // (Right Hand) 1-3, Side F Low C
I approached these fingerings freely during the improvisation, exploring their inner parts and trying to maintain a road map of my harmonic discoveries along the way. There are subtler, more tender moments when voice exchange can clearly be herd between the fingerings. At other times the my embouchure shape and the shear force of air briefly pulled tones from outside the established B Major tonality. A good example of this is Fingering 2, which functioned as an F# dominant chord. It enters for the first time at about half way into the piece, but because this was a pliable chord shape as far as the physical execution was concerned, it seemed to bend to its own will at times and pull away from this dominant function.
-Neil
The image “Three Mounds and Skyladders” accompanying today’s post by Yoko Ono (1999-2008).