Preface
"Maybe you eschew competitions, residencies, and calls entirely. Perhaps you - perhaps we - can envision a world where music is not centered around competition at all, and is simultaneously an expression of deep community and a vehicle for self-examination. Where “composition” means “creation” and is more deeply embedded in the art of being and collaborating. The interplay between these possibilities speak to a vision of a more empathic musical ecosystem that can exist both within and outside of the harmful structures of capitalism."
- Kaley Lane Eaton "Things I Wish I had Known When I Thought I Couldn't Be A Composer" from "Practice Magazine"
Texts
"With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series now moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is curating and commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of exclusive material. Many of these will be essentially 'live' performances recorded at home for this occasion. Others may create a mix of pre-recorded material that has not been previously released elsewhere."
- from the Wayward Music Series website at waywardmusic.org.
[NB: these lovely sessions are all available for listening at the website above]
May 23, 2020
Gretchen Yanover
creating chord changes as accumulations of cycles
ripples breaking as dawn intimates itself behind the forest
lyrically believable
cyclicity built into their building, stabilizing
comfortable friendly platform
from here I can
a man named Beezoo (spelling?) who drives a beeping vehicle
his vehicle beeps in B
(for the record, the piece did not require the explanation, but the explanation is a lovely story that needed to be heard)
Its mechanism of building itself applies a determinate durational sequence. Since each duration is identical except as to pitch and sequence of pitch adjacency, it becomes content determinate, as to that adjacency
May 25, 2020
Neil Welch
mouthpiece and beercan
alto
tenor
bass
(promised) soprano
each instrument recalibrates the ground of that negotiation
3 saxophone necks (includes soprano) and C Melody
the effort required to support a vibrating column of air, or any sequential set of them, also shapes breath's sustaining
removing the mouthpiece to play on the pipe alone removes a barrier to a more direct experience of mouth cavity shape and tongue activity
Recorded
May 23, 2020
Hedges - Yuni in Taxco [from Slow Charade]
empty can overlay
Daisy Bell - Bicycle Face [from The Wonders of Female Strength]
an old favorite from the age of sentimentality sung with smiles
(the bicycle connection, of course.)
Love Song to Make Us Millions (B Side) - Koko and the Sweetmeats [from Sacrifice]
more empty can
The effect is to forward the sound's particular pitch constants of, or acoustic print of, the space it was recorded in, or which the mechanism synthesizes - like a few iterations into I Am Sitting In A Room
Chitta Ve - Udta Punjab - Amit Travedi, Babu Haabi, Shahid Mallya [from Bollygood Volume 1]
first demonstrate: vocal flexibility
then: put on the autotune girdle
(so fashionable!)
but always a mistake
May 24, 2020
Times In Between - Smokestack and the Foothill Fury [from America's Freedom Death March]
negotiating the guitar as a strummer to:
negotiating the guitar as a picker
and from the picker guitar to:
as a singer
singing all in one with his hands
Material Soundscapes Collide - Joshua Banks Mailman - Joshua Banks Mailman, Arthur Kampela, Rhonda Taylor
imputed (limited) sound sources - only so many instruments
or are there? perhaps only so many similar manners of behavior
if so, what are the similarities?
but that's just me trying to figure it out
easily crossing the membrane between apparently live and apparently altered, or immediately proximate and reverberant distant
or does the fact that they are all coming through the same system, that is, all equally altered, skew our perception?
a kaleidoscope with an extra dimensional twist of several
Movement Exercise #1 for Blindfolded Musicians (Take 4) - Beth Fleenor [from Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble Volume 1]
inhabituating a collective
rejoice in filling space
I Love NY/You and I - Dead Bars [from Split w/ Kimberly Steak]
a mini mini musical 2 songs
with a modulation no less
how old fashioned! like a church anthem or broadway dance number
The Songbird Flies Unhindered Through Storm and Violence (underlying electronic track) - S. Eric Scribner [from The Storm Sound Cycle]
rather than ordinal sequence type
not being a sound being altered
but an altered sound
a question of tense
the pitter patter is right here with us
on the tarp that shields us
the thunder is further off
now the sound is being sound after it has been altered
another tense
Tephra 2 for Orchestra - Ryan Hare - Moravia Philharmonic Orchestra, Petr Vronsky
giant warrior robot pulls itself together
sniffs the wind
distracted for a moment
then on a quick march
a tale, violent and dire
May 25, 2020
Pacific Love - Shelby Earl [from Burn The Boats]
when this you see remember me
greeting card keepsake
file under poignant, fond
1911 - Paul Kikuchi - Paul Kikuchi, Stuart Dempster, Bill Horist, Alex Vittum [from Portable Sanctuary Volume 2 Live in the Great Hall]
this music is a place in a large space in an ample time
open to what passes through
evensong gentle
Frightened Explorer - Operation ID [from Legs]
3 fours alike but not identical then a break
repeat but lengthen the break
make a thing about that
switches gears like a video game does
very Mario
Stranger Peaks - Prom Queen
not like a soundtrack bit - too clearly structural
might be usable for a montage, where its structure wouldn't get in the way of the narrative
Hey Fahkah - Eddie Vedder [from Ukulele Songs]
an error left in
an artifact of listening to albums one track at a time
a few seconds of EV making a mistake and making a comment about it
see title
Dangal - Daler Mehndi Pritam [from Bollygood Volume 2]
spice flavored drum
big screen production
can't really be about anybody or by anybody
escapistry
False Transom - Triptet [from Imaginary Perspective]
like a union suit
who's that knocking on my hull?
Regrade - Paul Kikuchi - Paul Kikuchi, Stuart Dempster, Bill Horist, Alex Vittum [from Portable Sanctuary Volume 2 Live in the Great Hall]
the wolves howl in the waters' pasts
do not be transfixed
Don't Go Yet - Star Anna and The Laughing Dogs [from Alone In This Together]
unfinished (or I was in such another headspace after Regrade)
and such a promising start too
Krab - Three Fingers [from Go Deep]
for the band to show off
so they do
14xxooxoxoxxooxo - Paul Rubenstein [from Solo Trios]
How does my knowing there are a collection of these affect my perception of each one? What each one does that isn't what all of each of them does is more and more difficult to pry out the more of them I hear.
Banned Rehearsal 924 Remixed - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt [December 2016]
I remixed this from the original Telepaths, looping Aaron's Anchorage part and pulling it forward into the mix. Aaron had played toy piano, so in the first mix I was balancing that track as though it were an actual toy piano in session. It may have worked too well. the final didn't sound that different than just our Seattle telepath along. In this version it is clearly a factor in how everything is heard. The repetition by means of the looping does not become apparent as such.
May 27, 2020
Hill Justice - Goat Rodeo [from The Goat Rodeo Sessions]
the focus is sloshed from one soloist to another
be sure to rinse thoroughly
Union Pacific - Paul Kikuchi - Paul Kikuchi, Stuart Dempster, Bill Horist, Alex Vittum [from Portable Sanctuary Volume 2 Live in the Great Hall]
In a tunnel with no train? more likely in a train station. Could the fundamental pitch be calculated? I presume so, but I'm not an acoustician.
What I Don't Want - Full Toilet [from Full Toilet 7"]
mercifully short is their speciality
all in-jokes presumed
Hold the Bacon - Three Fingers [from Go Deep]
theme song for a shit job
but NO!
a performer of self invention
secret life
getting over his stage fright
Canals of Amsterdam - Courtney Marie Andrews [from No One's Slate Is Clean]
fragments slip out of the groove
while it goes on revealing sound parts as song parts drifting free of song
The Invisible Language - Dorota Czerner, Steve Layton
stop
shapes imagined
a rabbit hole
stop
punch
jump stop
in blue languages
(jump)
Oh, Light - Whitney Ballen [from White Feathers, White Linen]
an obscure cosmology
where the light burns in the beat
Groundhog Day - Three Fingers [from Go Deep]
dream more than your dad
the dreary life
There is about 7 minutes of hiss in the middle
at the end another song with ukulele and free reed and tambourine
cute
Psychic Sister - Yuni in Taxco [from Sanpaku]
song and production are at odds and the production has the clear edge
neither does the other favors
Banned Rehearsal 925 Remixed - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt [December 2016]
An instrument's manner of articulation co-articulates the joint space with the other instruments' various manners of articulation. Proximity in the mix matters. Here we are listing from Aaron's Anchorage location.
In Session at the Tintinabulary and Outposts
May 25, 2020
Banned Quarantiniad 200517-18 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer
This was assembled from the various recordings we made on May 17 and 18, 2020. Aaron's part was played along to Steve's part, and Aaron suggested that I take some care to synchronize those, as it made some fun phasing effects. I agreed so much I put that combination of tracks in twice, overlapping for much of the middle part of the session.
May 30, 2020
Maple Leaf 200530 (Thunder) - Keith Eisenbrey
This morning surprised us with a thunderstorm. I recorded some of it for your enjoyment.
Postscripts
sir upon the soil of his compliments
i never saw him looking the old lady
was glancing at me for a as much from
a small road in the nether regions
an edge more or less complicated
by the motions of the whole distance between
