e-flat [disquiet0042-naive melody]

More info: http://wp.me/p1Fv8a-cS

So this was good timing. My sister drove up to Philadelphia from Arkansas last week for my wedding, and carried my old alto saxophone with her. I got this sax in 1979 when I joined the middle-school band and played it until I finished high school in 1986. I haven't touched it since. I was a little surprised that I still knew most of the notes and how to play them. The pads are kind of shot, however, so some notes in some octaves are squeaky, honky, or impossible to play, and it's generally difficult to play in tune as well. This sax is easily the instrument I've had the longest. It is the furtive breathy cry in the background, recorded in two parts. This is somewhere where my lack of practiced embouchure works in my favor.

For the second part of this assignment, I chose two instruments. One is an old baritone ukulele that a friend gave me as a wedding present. It's quite a bit older than the sax, but I've had it the shortest time of any music gear. It's strung incorrectly with the wrong strings, so it's also nearly impossible to play any actual chords in any kind of tune. The new new I'm using here is the Harvestman Tyme Sefari mk2. This is a low-fi sampler/looper for Eurorack modular synthesizers. It was just released and I got mine a week ago. The combination of the ukulele and the Tyme Sefari create the plucky "melody" in this piece.

The sax was recorded directly into Ableton, and then I played the second part as the first played along. The ukulele was also recorded to Ableton, then the uke was passed to the Tyme Sefari, masticated, and spit back into Ableton.

Here's the assignment as Disquiet sent it out:

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Disquiet Junto Project 0042: Naive Melody

You will employ just two instruments in the production of this week’s track: (1) the instrument you have used for the longest period of time and (2) the instrument in your possession that is newest to you. You’ll record a backing track with the oldest instrument, and overlay on it a simple melody of your choosing performed on the newest instrument.

Definition: The term “instrument” can be interpreted as broadly as you’d like; ultimately this is a project about the restraints inherent in the gadgets, tools, and software that you have obtained or created.

Background: The inspiration for this project is the song “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” by the band Talking Heads off the album Speaking in Tongues. For that song, the band members traded instruments, each playing something they were significantly less familiar with than the instrument they normally performed on.

Restrictions: You can use any source material, any instrumentation, except the human voice.