Dr. Wife and I had some errands to run last week, and while she was tending to a few things I jotted down today’s piece. I will sometimes keep little bits of staff paper open in my music journals for short musical sketches, and I had three glorious staves waiting for an opportune moment to do some hasty composing.
The result is this set of three chorales. I posted polls on Substack and Telegram asking for feedback about the instrumentation, but results were limited. I initially arranged it for a string trio—violin, viola, and cello—but changed to a woodwind trio of flute, oboe, and bassoon. I think that captured the sound I wanted better.
I imported the WAV from Noteflight into Audacity and applied a “Small Bright Room” reverb effect; an “Wide Synth Pad” chorus effect; and a “Tape” master effect. I then took the audio and pictures of the score and track artwork and imported them all into iMovie. From there, I imported the resulting video into YouTube Create, where I added my favorite filter, “Vaporwave,” and added one bit of text that reads “<–“(C# Locrian)” to indicate that the “A major” section in the handwritten score is, actually, in that highly unusual key signature.
Today marks the 250th birthday of our great nation, the United States of America! On this hot day 250 years ago, delegates to the Second Continental Congress pledged “to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” Their foresight and courage bore the fruit that is America.
Sure, our nation has problems, but today we celebrate 250 years of liberty. Where else in the world can someone worship God as he sees fit and get a pizza at 2 AM while saying spicy things on the Internet without fear of arrest? Even our beloved brothers in Great Britain—our cousins, our mom!—can’t speak the Truth without fear of the bobbies arresting them while they bleed out in the streets.
To commemorate this day, here’s a rendition of “Stars and Stripes Forever” from our old group Brass to the Future, including a special guest on the second tuba. From left to right, there’s Joey on trumpet; yours portly on tenor sax (not a brass instrument, but oh, well!); Ricky on tuba; Davis (special guest) on tuba; Shrimp St. Thomas (my brother) on trombone; and David on euphonium/baritone. Stick around for the “piccolo” solo, which Shrimp whistles!
Yours portly doesn’t have any new music or covers this week, although I have arranged a delightful rendition of the theme from Agatha Christie’s Poirot and hope to record that soon (thanks to Ponty for that recommendation). Here’s the theme song itself, which is a killer sax solo:
The one thing that has forestalled my practicing and recording of my arrangement of the piece is my printer. I purchased an Epson printer some years ago because I’ve had good experience with other Epson products (we use their projectors frequently at school). The printer was, as most printers are, always a bit finicky, but it worked well enough for my needs, and it’s typically rare for me to need to print anything at home.
Then one fateful day I made the mistake of updating the firmware. Suddenly, the perfectly serviceable third-party ink cartridges I used weren’t good enough for my printer, which demanded only the finest (and overpriced) Epson ink. That took me down a rabbit hole of cheapskatery in an attempt to locate an earlier version of the firmware online.
Yours portly hasn’t had a chance to noodle out any more new saxophone compositions or to tinker with new digital compositions, so I’m digging up a little something I put together last year and waited until Sunday—the first day of summer—to upload.
I recorded this little cover of the jazz standard “Summertime” from the opera Porgy and Bess last summer when I was driving up to see then-Dr. Fiancée. On those long, boring drives, I would usually entertain myself by sending her goofy voice messages. These usually hit in the third and final hour of the drive, when I’d be dying to get out of the car and see my girl.
Such is the provenance of this cover, my own little rendition with some altered lyrics.
Yours portly has been noodling away on his alto saxophone and putting together some experimental recordings, which I’ll eventually compile and release as Säx II: Noodling. These aren’t great masterworks, but I’ve enjoyed putting them together, especially taking a more DIY and improvisational approach to composing and creating music.
Of course, in case you missed it a few Sundays back, here’s what I’m referencing in the the title for today’s post:
With that silliness out of the way, here’s three posts about recent sax recordings:
“New Music Tuesday XIV: ‘Sumatran Snake Charmer’” – I really love this piece; it’s my favorite of the three I’ve done so far. The scuttling of Nugget’s feet and the chirping of birds bleeding into the drum part really lends it that mystical, Far Eastern quality (along with the slithery sax part).
“New Music Tuesday XVI: ‘Old Boy’” – Such a weird piece (and accompanying video); I really love how strange this one is, and it’s based off a “vocal stim” I sometimes chant/mutter/recite around the house, ha!
Last summer I served as the fill-in pianist for the local United Methodist Church in what became our new town. You can read about that here. Two Sundays ago I was invited to play for the local Presbyterian Church for their annual camp service.
What is a “hedge pianist”? Essentially, it’s a term I’ve coined for a freelance/unaffiliated pianist-for-hire. The “hedge” comes from the concept of a “hedge knight“; the hedge knight is a landless, traveling knight who takes work where he can, hoping his skills will land him in the retinue of some great lord, with all the benefits that come with it. With just his horse, armor, and arms, the hedge knight seeks to prove his skill in tournaments and small conflicts.
Similarly, a “hedge pianist” is a masterless pianist traveling about, taking gigs where they come, with a possible interest in gaining enough renown to land a cushy weekly church gig, or playing Friday nights at an upscale eatery. It’s also just a nerdy (or cool?) way of making playing as a fill-in pianist at local churches sound like I’m some kind of musical ronin roaming about the countryside looking for a piano to play.
Regardless, I had the opportunity to play that role two Sundays back for the local Presbyterian Church. The church has a “camp” service every year in preparation for their Vacation Bible School, and the pastor asked if I could play some hymns and all the usual pieces for High Church Protestant services, namely “Doxology” and the “Gloria Patri.” Naturally, I agreed.
The ChapelA Gazebo with a Bent CrossThe Campground and Buildings
The service was held at a campsite owned and maintained by the Southern Baptist church that Dr. Wife and I attend. It’s a beautiful little spot about twenty minutes outside of town, tucked away among the pine trees. The grounds and buildings are very well-maintained. I had some trepidation that the service would take place outdoors, which would present two inconveniences: the intense South Carolina summer heat, and the wind blowing my music everywhere.
Fortunately, the camp has a commodious (and air-conditioned) chapel, where a responsive Yamaha digital piano waited for me. There was also a delectable fried chicken lunch on the other side of the service.
Like last week’s piece, I’ve got another experiment in multitrack recording recording using Audacity and my Logitech Blue Yeti USB microphone (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link at no additional cost to you). My workflow was a bit different. I did start with a Voice Memo recording while driving to play at a Sunday morning camp service for the local Presbyterian Church (the summer is always a good time to be a sellsword hedge pianist), and I used that as the template for building today’s piece.
I tend to walk around the house singing and/or chanting weird little phrases or songs I make up. Dr. Wife calls these my “vocal stims“; she claims (correctly) that I do them the most right before bed, as I get the “zoomies” before crashing out for the night. One I do frequently is saying, “Old Boy” in a slight British accent in a very low register.
To illustrate, here’s the track I recorded on the way to play that morning (converted to a lossless WAV):
I used that track as the base for recording other parts. I used the count-in to assure that I came in with the vocal harmonies correctly. I did a major third, a fifth, and a major seventh, then re-recorded the root note so I could ditch the above track, as I didn’t want the road noise in the mix. I also re-recorded the beatboxing as part of the root track.
To keep effects consistent, I mixed the four fresh vocal tracks down to a single track, and applied a 1980s chorus effect, as well as a “large room” reverb preset and some kind of mastering preset. The only downside was that, for some reason, my mic did not pick up the new beatboxing well at all, even though I was “performing” directly into the microphone, with my generous, pouty lips touching the mic’s grill. Maybe I screwed something up when I was playing with noise reduction, which I tried initially to avoid re-recording the (admittedly) short base/bass/beatboxing track.
Next came the saxophone parts. I wasn’t sure what key I was in, I just knew it was major. It turned out to be something approximating B major, with the vocal parts forming a Bmaj7 chord (B, D#, F#, and A#). That works out to an Ab major on the alto sax, but due to some intonation (and possibly the slight tonal ambiguity introduced by the major seventh A#), it didn’t sound quite right until I started recording. It felt like I brute-forced the song back into major—the vocal parts were taking a minor flavor—with the punchy, vibrant saxophone part. Regardless, I riffed out parts that, to me, sounded like a celebration, which really changes the entire mood of the piece (although it probably does capture something of the chaotic joy of vocal stimulation).
I was recording the sax part yesterday morning in the waning minutes before I had to head out for an afternoon of tasks. That said, I managed to squeeze in four quick sax parts, with the result being today’s track, “Old Boy”:
Like last week’s piece, I’ve got another experiment in multitrack recording recording using Audacity and my Logitech Blue Yeti USB microphone (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link at no additional cost to you). I followed a similar workflow, this time using the Voice Memo app on my iPhone to record a percussion part on one of Dr. Wife’s mixing bowls. The blow in question is made from some kind of lightweight metal and has a rubber bottom, so it made for a pretty good drums.
The four sax parts are a bit chaotic. My timing does not always align perfectly, but there is a driving sense of forward motion in the piece. The melody is built on an improvised F major (concert Ab major) arpeggio, then I had a great deal of fun bleeding in different harmonies that sometimes work beautifully, and other times add strange (but, I think, still pleasing) colors, like major seconds and such.
Yours portly has been noodlin’ on the old sax a good bit over the past couple of weeks, so for lack of a better topic—and, uh, to catch you up on my latest adventures in noodling!—here are some recent posts featuring a total of six saxy jams.
The title for today’s Lazy Sunday comes from this classic scene from The Simpsons, which I probably think about every time I pick up the saxophone:
I had a gig a couple weeks back, and it’s gotten me practicing my sax a lot more. It’s also been an opportunity to churn out some sweet, sweet YouTube content. Indeed, last week I featured three quick sax pieces; check them out if you missed them.
This week, here are three more videos of my saxophonic noodling, curated for your listening pleasure:
“Moon River” by Henry Mancini
Just a quick rendition of the classic tune from the classic film.
“The Way of the Ghost” from Ghost of Tsushima
A sax arrangement of “The Way of the Ghost” from the classic Ghost of Tsushima; I play it a bit faster than the original. Good old Ponty requested this cover, so I took the opportunity to arrange it for solo alto sax.
Indeed, you can purchase my solo sax arrangement at the following online retailers:
