Preface
"Given the nature and purpose of an expressive art form, 'proof' of any hypothesis is inappropriate and inapplicable."
- Benjamin Boretz "[to Robert Gross on O]" from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020
Texts
Streaming
Wayward in Limbo
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 https://www.waywardmusic.org/.
July 10, 2021
Ben McAllister
Call
Index Study – Pulses
Bach BMV 358
Index Study – Respiration
Carmina Chromatico (Orlando DiLasso, from Prophetiae Sibyllarum)
Index Study – What happens when the beat drops
Land Bridge Approach
Piano Smells Ok
The Rock
Ascending Injected
Mandala Drafts
chorale tune
(I've done some work in that field too.)
investigating
keeping eyes peeled
(this dude's into polyphony)
nothing hangs out for long
theme and variations style
from that standpoint
they seem to run
(so far)
in an affectual double sequence:
one sequence is of spaced out legato chorale type
the other of a more motoric figuration oriented typed
the motoric figurational type is more exploratory
in and through its moments
than globally structured from outside its moments
loopish without being structured as loops
as a principal
this one sounds like the opening of some poppish prog song
but instead of proceeding to song
as dictated by sales team
confines composing
to the emerging figures
within its own proto-urgencies
the sequence of types alluded to above
has vanished
apparently an ephemera
this sound almost sounds like a Crumar
Lu Evers Trio - Lu Evers, Amy Denio, Matty Noble
Red Leaf
Crawdad Pool
Eve 6
1 a tonal rhythmic image
is constructed / emerges / floats in / dawns
(none right none wrong)
is inhabited
how does it feel
try the furniture
any usefulness is entirely personal
to each
and to their shared living
2 let's all get in the van and see where it goes
3 why isn't the sky moving with us
are we on this side or that
what was the birth
of this will be
examine intently
discuss cryptically
Recorded
July 11, 2021
LWS Selections - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [December 1967]
starts with that dona nobis pacem round
in the hymnal
but in a fancier arrangement
a political statement?
this was 67 after all
of course since it's in Latin
it can be ignored
another Latin selection
a setting of Veni creator spiritus
ah and This Little Babe
it was either a "serious" themed concert
or Mom picked the serious numbers out of it
there's one with a violin duet
I don't think that it would have been Mom,
she hadn't played violin for a while at that point
(picked it up again later)
this is recorded/transferred more successfully than many of those tapes were
July 11-12, 2021
Momente Europa Version 1972 - Karlheinz Stockhausen - Chorus and Members of Symphony Orchestra of Radio Cologne, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Martina Arroyo, Aloys Kontarsky, Alfons Kontarsky
a most unwelcoming welcome mat
piles it on
one thing after another
the sonic and structural imagination is impressive
the theatricality has a certain Partchian concreteness to it
I'm just not convinced by the music
or the drama
he composes the sounds as harshly as possible
unfriendly
the declamation is flat and shouty as a rule
::
spliced together tape piece
produced live
German De-expressionist
OR:
an attempt to imbue the structures discovered as possible
in tape music
with the urgency of a live performance
there's the applause part that opens the other version
each performer acts as a synthesizer
to be activated at the will of the interpreter of the score
:
old skeleton key to this piece for me:
the sounds are the trace of an observer
exploring an event
completely independent
as to time and location such
as a microphone at a cocktail party
flitting freely
through the whole of the event
place to place
time to time
still works for me
except "exploring" is the wrong word
music conceived asocially
treating each moment as a state of things
a position on a dial
("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...") - Benjamin Boretz - Keith Eisenbrey [October 13, 2007, University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle]
the tempo is a delicate negotiation
the piece lives well at several
here
I am trying to get close to the originally marked indications
(as marked in the Lingua Press edition)
which brings out some of the more spaced out continuities and
disentangles some strands
but I sound a bit rushed
and play lots of wrong notes
sloppier than I would like
TV Party - Black Flag
collected from a time in my life when I was engulfing huge new swaths of all sorts of things
and also just about the last period in my life when I watched much TV
Gradus 1 (San Diego Series) - Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 1987]
where it all started
ground zero
that lowest A natural
down South
the recording has a strange flange to it
its presence wavers in and out
near and far
I don't know what he used to record it with
he hadn't gotten into
the long long spaces of nothing
yet
{from my journal entry of February 23, 1991:
How 5 Movements [a 1983 piece of mine] and Gradus are completely different:
Trajectory ---> 5 Movements 'progress'ively deconstructs into an atomic movement, while Gradus progressively constructs all possible universes starting with these few
State of Love and Trust - Pearl Jam [from Rearviewmirror]
harsher version of REM?
lots of high squeal like tires on pavement
Worm - John E [November 2004]
John's report on worms (the critters) with sound effects, for a school project
Verdichtung - Eric Flesher - Ryan Hare [from Intrada]
some of these extended techniques work as alternative sounds
for what is
or was
or will just be
happening
others as interjections
intrusions from an outer place
or extrusions through an inner
Consider the Birds 18 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 2007]
a gentle path
of paired syllable sized bursts
in a timepoint rhythm
gently skewed
by the internal rhythmic details
of what is included
in the burst
stepping through past time to proof it
ethereal tide - John Teske - John Teske, Maria Scherer Wilson [from Wheel]
boxes finding their resonant join
Ghosting Doubles (third sighting) - Keith Eisenbrey [April 2018, University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle]
interesting how Amy Denio's tune, Ghosting, upon which these doubles are based, is almost more obvious when it isn't there than when it is there
a neat trick if I do say so myself
July 14, 2021
Pavane, Variatio, Galiarde, Variatio, FVB 27-30 - Ferdinando Richardson - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
comprehensibility theory:
provide a graspable redundancy
change everything around it
each thing as it comes along
is related as it comes along
to that redundancy
Symphoniae Sacrae II, "Hütet euch, dass eure Herzen nicht beschweret werden", Op. 10 #11 - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana
lovely bass voice!
elaborate music in the service of textual elaboration
clarification
expression
a rhetoric
designed to give the illusion of a certain determinate coherence
you will understand this text in this way and no other
Suite in C Major, BuxWV 228 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
these clothes are very stiff
not good for tennis
for daily wear
this fine outfit
allows some arm motion
this one seems to float on gossamer
secret: yards and yards of whale bones
note the detailed stitching on these seams
Fughetta super "Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ", BWV 697 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Michael Chapuis
fragment for liturgical use
that worked well
I'll write it down
Dix-Septieme Ordre (mi) - François Couperin - Michael Gilbert
the delicate science of balancing sequence and cadence
marking boundaries and going on
glittering lights
all within its proper bounds
Sonata in G Major, Kk. 124 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
don't be shy to clarify what you are about
repetition partial and transformed
overlapped and sequential and recalled
or spilled
the arbitrariness of the larger structural repeats
is a strength
it frees the tonal schema from drama time
Variations on "Ich schlief, da träumtet mir", Wq. 118/1 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi
he must have liked this theme
as he varied it on two occasions
this one jumps right into figurational weirdness - played here on fortepiano
Variations on "Gott erhalt den Kaiser" - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim
dere's da bood
how very flatteringly respectful
where are those pig castrators when you need them
not where his bread was buttered I guess
Sonata in D Major, K. 311 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Mitsuko Uchida
nothing is in the way
full of devious mischiefs
had he met Haydn yet?
Romance in G Major, Op. 40 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Concertgebouworkest, Amsterdam, Bernard Haitink, Henryk Szeryng
study in double stops
very proper
something light easy and quick to write
goes down easy
July 16, 2021
Etude in E-flat minor, Op. 10 #7 - Frédéric Chopin - Cecile Licad
the chromatic left hand line
is pulled into the key
against its inclination
the bond will hold only so long
before those inclinations emerge into the right hand
a brave face held
Selection 6 from Selections from The Nutcracker - Piotr Ilyich Tchakovsky - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy
an exotic from sultry lands
so mysterious
2 Gesänge, Op. 34 - Richard Strauss - Kühn Mixed Chorus, Pavel Kühn
1 it may know where ground is
we mostly don't
sometimes
for a moment or two
but is it the same ground as before
or later
where we must be going
I think he had peeked at Bruckner's notes
to float free
oh to float free
each yearning back to ground
answered by a further floating free
2 among the keys implied within any segment
might there be an emergent relationship
of that segment
engaging in intimate tonal relations
with its fellows
there is
in short
some fascinating voice leading going on in there
suspensi
Amen
like ringing bells into the hills
In Session at the Tintinabulary
July 12, 2021
Gradus 368 - Neal Kosály-Meyer
thresholds: <one to two , two to ? , ? to ? . . .>
how many thresholds
of compositionality
of pitch quantity
are there?
where are they located
in quantity space?
a two to limited
but greater than two
to greater than
limited to ?
ample
?
threshold being that point
at which
the game changes
threshold between:
the particulars of this are clearly and (instantly) distinguished
from the particulars of that
(eventually)
(arguably)
(possibly)
(analyzably)
thresholds proliferate through quantity space
|||
pitch class as a stratum of pitch space
|
strata-nic thresholds?
Postscripts
::Consult the Oracle
infer that it never will here indeed
I am oak in which the king gentleman's
garden should attendants from which reference
Reality Check::
squadron
of fluorescent lights in the sky
the wanderer
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