Sounds Like Now
A blog by saxophonist Brian Sacawa
Archive for Saxophone
June 1, 2005 at 10:36 am · Filed under Blog: Spring 05, New Music, Recordings, Saxophone
Recording session today at Solid Sound in Ann Arbor. Rob Martens is a master at capturing a sound exactly. And he’s got a great set of ears and an easy-going studio manner to boot, making it a pleasure to work with him each and every time. Rob calls the studio “a million dollar facility” but truth be told it’s probably worth much, much more. Simply a gem. We knocked out Chris Theofanidis’ Netherland and then I layed down Pre-Amnesia by Lee Hyla and Bacchanalia Skiapodorum by Derek Hurst, a piece that I swear sounds like Milton Babbitt’s funk band (if he had one). All that’s left to finish up on the American Voices album is Wuorinen’s daunting Divertimento and Keeril Makan’s Voice within Voice. Almost there.
May 28, 2005 at 10:39 pm · Filed under Blog: Spring 05, Saxophone
Everybody knows about Bill Clinton’s love affair with the saxophone. (I’ve written about it here.) However, beginning today the Clinton Presidential Library is mounting an exhibition to show that President Clinton has a wider range of musical interests and is not simply a sax maniac. From today’s Times via The Associated Press: “The “World of Music” display includes a reproduction of parts of a White House music room built for the president, samples from his eclectic CD collection, a wall devoted to Mr. Clinton’s childhood idol, Elvis Presley . . . and a video of Mr. Clinton as a teenager playing in the Arkansas All-State Band. Also on view are the recorder given to Mr. Clinton by Vaclav Havel, the former president of the Czech Republic; a lutelike instrument presented by the people of Eritrea; and, yes, some of the saxophones given by presidential guests.” Unfortunately, the letter I wrote to him offering saxophone lessons that got me the above response probably didn’t make the exhibition.
May 12, 2005 at 5:24 pm · Filed under Blog: Spring 05, Performances, Saxophone
With the 2004-2005 concert season coming to a close (there are a few concerts sprinkled throughout the summer) I’m finally able to spend some time getting back to the basics with my playing. As the season wears on and I get busier and busier and have to learn five new works to premiere on a single concert in only one week because the scores only arrived a week before the concert that had been scheduled nearly nine months in advance resulting in a situation that one could never have seen coming since it seemed to have been planned out so well so far in advance despite the best of intentions from both composer (I’m not naming names) and performer (can you tell I’ve been reading David Foster Wallace?), it becomes increasingly difficult to spend time on the things that I really should be spending time on with the horn. So it goes.
As I’ve realized that the situation described above is destined to happen more times that I’d like to believe it will, I’ve developed a more efficient and just as effective warm-up routine. But a 45-60 minute warm-up, no matter how efficient or effective, can never come close to spending a good quality 2 hours (or more) working on basic technique and other fundamental issues. But that’s what the summer’s for.
So if you happen to walk by my practice room and I’m not playing Theofanidis, Wuorinen, Bresnick, Hyla, or Hurst, you’ll probably hear me playing long tones, scales, thirds, and fourths very very slowly, an articulation exercise I adopted from a well-known clarinet study, arpeggios, palm key and low register exercises, palm-to-front exercises to help bridge the gap to the altissimo register, altissimo scales, and any number of simple melodic patterns in twelve keys (major and minor), that if you didn’t look in the window to see who was playing, you might mistake me for someone trying to get into college.
It’s all part of the process and I enjoy and even look forward to the summers because of it. My summers for saxophone playing are like my winters for cycling. As a cyclist, in the winter I build up my aerobic base so that I’ve got a big strong engine once the weather gets warmer (which seems to not be happening yet). And as a saxophonist, I re-establish (or reëstablish, in New Yorker-ese) my base/foundation for the long season ahead.
So besides getting back to the basics, what’s on the docket for this summer? A few projects to finish up:
Wrap up post-production on the whatWALL? DVD
Finish recording the American Voices album
Minor website redesigns with help from the boys at Fishbucket that will include a new Podcasting feature
The first two will be wrapped up by the end of the month. Stay tuned for more.
April 30, 2005 at 12:01 am · Filed under Blog: Spring 05, Saxophone
If you remember Bill Clinton’s 1992 
presidential campaign, the title of this post should come as no surprise. I recall vividly then-Governor Clinton appearing with his tenor saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show. Last summer I began reading his memoir, getting about half-way through it before being overtaken by other responsibilites. However, reading just half of the book, I was taken by how much music meant (and means) to him–especially the saxophone. Yet with all the book’s saxophone references, I was disappointed that saxophone wasn’t included in the index, so I started keeping track. Here they are, up to about half-way through: 9, 29, 40, 53, 55-6, 63, 156, 203, 262, 335-6, 342-3.
March 24, 2005 at 11:01 pm · Filed under Blog: Spring 05, Experimental, Musicology, New Music, Saxophone
An area of instrumental technique and history that interests me a great deal is extended techniques and Matt Burtner has a pretty good article on the topic over at NewMusicBox.
Extended techniques, as the name implies, requires the performer to play an instrument in a manner outside of what would be considered a traditionally established norm. These techniques include multiphonics, circular breathing, quarter-tones, slap-tonguing, key clicks, muting, playing with the mouthpiece alone, tapping on the instrument’s body, all manners of bowing, and playing on the inside of the piano, to name just a few. Extended techniques as we know them today first appeared in concert music in the early twentieth century–Henry Cowell’s Tides of Manaunaun (1915), Mosolov’s Iron Foundry (1928), Varese’s Ionisation(1929-31)–but experienced a true renaissance in the 1960s.
Because of the growing world of electronic music, composers were now confronted with the task of finding a way to bridge the gap between the seemingly disparate electronic and acoustic sound worlds. Extended techniques provided that link. While the exploration of extended techniques in new music was widespread, many people point to the publication of the Italian theorist/composer Bruno Bartolozzi’s New Sounds for Woodwind in the late 1960s as a codification of these efforts. For Burtner, composers’ exploration of extended techniques in the twentieth century built a foundation and prepared instrumental performance to face new musical challenges in the twenty-first century.
Among the many good points that Mr. Burtner makes in his article is that extended techniques provide a way for the performer to personalize their instrument and draw out its unique qualities, and in the process develop a very personal approach and sonic vocabulary. He also observes, quite correctly, that these techniques more or less ran their course in concert music in the 1960s and 1970s, with the most advances and interesting work with them being done in the 1990s not by composers, but free improvisers and electronic musicians. And finally, he makes an extremely important claim: extended techniques are no longer an “other” in instrumental technique, but rather are an integral part of each instrument’s identity today.
Although most of his article is stellar, I was a bit disappointed with his take on virtuosity. Burtner sees virtuosity as a barrier to the acceptance of extended techniques as a standard component of conservatory instrumental or vocal training. By virtuosity I’m assuming he means the traditional virtuosic model. However, in the late 1960s, in the wake of the explosion of new instrumental and vocal techniques, Eric Salzman coined the term “new virtuosity,” which is certainly alive and well today. I see evidence of this in new music being written for all instruments. And if extended techniques really are no longer an “other,” what’s getting in the way of them being taught? Certainly not traditional virtuoisty. I think it’s an issue of receptivity. The way I see it, some students are choosing a well-worn path and others are choosing to take the road less traveled.
Two errors in Mr. Burtner’s article: Bartolozzi’s New Sounds for Woodwind was originally published in 1967, not 1982; and Berio’s Sequenza VIIb is for soprano saxophone, not alto, something that Burtner, a saxophonist, should be embarrassed to have gotten wrong.
March 23, 2005 at 1:29 am · Filed under Blog: Spring 05, Saxophone
Let me explain this picture. I’m currently breaking in some new reeds. This is a process that continues in perpetuity. There are four empty reed boxes in the upper right. (A box contains ten reeds.) If you count, there are thirty-two reeds (the two in the cup of water are baritone reeds, not alto reeds). You should see forty reeds, but eight are already in the trash. They’re simply no good and won’t get any better. The two bottom rows are reeds that aren’t good, but might get better. The two on the upper right of the glass might be good. The three on the upper left of the glass are poised to be good reeds. The six in the reed case are older and were actually reeds that made the cut for my New York debut recital (one was the chosen one).
It’s hard to imagine–only three reeds that definitely play from four boxes? Yes, that is the plight of the saxophonist. It’s the bane of my existence, actually. As my mentor Donald Sinta says, “When you buy a box of Vandoren reeds, you’re buying an unfinished product.” He’s right, you know.
March 9, 2005 at 2:38 pm · Filed under Blog: Winter 04, Saxophone
Although Belgium switched its currency from Francs to Euros in 2002, they really knew how to treat their cultural heroes. Proud of one of their own whose invention is known and performed around the world, they gave Adolphe Sax the distinction of gracing the 200 Belgian franc note. How about a Leo Fender $100 bill?
March 2, 2005 at 2:09 pm · Filed under Blog: Winter 04, Saxophone, Transcription
Saxophonists like to borrow things. Especially music from other instruments. Case in point: two of the works on my recent Miller Theater recital were co-opted from woodwind colleagues—Michael Gordon’s The Low Quartet although originally for double bass, trombone, bari sax, and bass clarinet, had versions for four bassoons and four bass clarinets before I made the bari sax version; and Philip Glass’ Piece in the Shape of a Square is acutally for two flutes, not two alto saxophones.
These are just two recent examples, but saxophonists engage in this transcription process fiercely—sometimes, well hopefully most of the time, winning the composer’s approval. This is why the saxophone has in its repertoire two Berio Sequenzas (VIIb and IXb), Scelsi’s Tre Pezzi, David Lang’s Press Release, and the short and sweet A Tune from Childhood by Bright Sheng, just to name a few.
I often wonder why—yes, why, composers?—must we steal your wonderful music from other instruments?
January 26, 2005 at 2:23 pm · Filed under Blog: Winter 04, New Music, Performances, Saxophone
I mentioned in a previous post that I’ll be presenting American Voices, a New York debut recital on February 16 at Columbia University’s Miller Theater. As the date nears, I thought I’d give periodic updates on my progress and also provide some insights on the planning and thought process that went into the show.
First, why play a New York Debut? I’ve heard some people refer to the tradition as a dinosaur. Well, I think that for many of us, a New York debut is still an important rite of passage. It’s a way of saying, “Here I am and this is what I do.”
Even if the tradition is somewhat archaic, I’ve tried to choose a program that is fresh and adventurous. The music I play is the most important component of the recital. My choice of repertoire could mean the difference between piquing a critic’s interest or simply having them toss my letter of invitation, press release, and months of planning and work into an anonymous pile. There’s a lot of music that saxophonists like to perform and understand the difficulty of that probably wouldn’t attract anyone else’s attention but the saxophone cognoscenti. I didn’t want to fall into that trap.
So what am I playing? I picked music by American composers whose voices have helped define and shape America’s new music landscape. The composers are: Michael Gordon, Lee Hyla, Alvin Lucier, Charles Wuorinen, Philip Glass, Martin Bresnick, Chris Theofanidis, and Derek Hurst. In addition to being dynamic musical voices, a number of them have been featured in recent years as part of the Miller Theater’s “Composer Portrait” series. The music runs the sonic gamut from the traditional saxophone and piano duo to saxophone alone, with electronics, pre-recorded saxophones, and even amplified electric light. You can find more information about the program here.
My goal is for the recital to represent both the vibrancy and diversity of new American music for saxophone.
« Previous entries
