Preface
"Churchy La Femme: If you thinks of Nothin' it don't matter much what kind of nothin'.
Howland Owl: It does too.
C: Nothin' is allus plain nothin'.
H: My boy as you grow older you'll learn: nothin' can be fancy nothin' can be ugly.
C: Nothin' is nothin' . . . It ain't anything one way or 'nother.
H: But when I thinks of nothin' it can by shiny and speckled an' fascinatin'.
C: Well, I agrees, when you thinks, nothin' can be very fascinatin'.
H: ?"
- Walt Kelly "Pogo, Clean as a Weasel: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Volume 6 - daily strip of July 29, 1959" Okefenokee Glee & Perloo Inc. 2019
Texts
Recorded
August 21, 2021
Psalm - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey [April 10, 1962]
has that blockish Handel feel to it
punch everything
could be
Beethoven though
certainly more his style of chord changes
the cut
even has some riser stomping at the end
an artifact
Him or Me - What's It Gonna Be? - Paul Revere and the Raiders [from The Legend of Paul Revere]
false choice
rhyming couplets
an interestingly intermittent
backing vocal in the verses
still a false choice
Elijah - not Mendelssohn - Bellevue First United Methodist Church Children's Choirs, Betty Eisenbrey [April 14, 1972]
I'm in there somewhere, age 13
Movin' Out - Billy Joel [from The Essential Billy Joel]
tries to tell a group of stories tied together by a chorus
but that game
had long been won by Chuck Berry's supremely economical poetry
Book of Windows (sides 3 and 4) - Keith Eisenbrey - Jill Borner, Keith Eisenbrey, Bruce Huber [recorded in a common area at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, August 4, 1982]
It was salutary, at such an early age, to become acquainted with long expanses of time unsupervised. At some point the sheer duration of it becomes its own image, and an overbearing one at that. It threatens to obscure every other image. In the face of immensity, detail and experience fizzle.
A wilderness of sorts.
A meditation on time and crossing from here to
here.
A very long bridge.
Gertrude Stein was my Virgil
- not
that she was there,
but that she flipped the switch
that released
the trap door
out of business as usual
but also Stockhausen
(Hymnen)
and Schubert (Die Winterreise)
and of
course Stu Dempster.
A sort of quadrumvirate.
Sarah the Beatrice
and Anna
(not yet K, not yet Aunt, not yet Livia P)
actually
just a name that fell out of the cross lingual homophonic transliteration
thusly:
Wir können noch ein Dimension tiefer gehen
becomes
fear can Anna knock immense and deeper goings on
Bruce Huber was
magnificent
August 24, 2021
Beaten Paths - Milton Babbitt - Thomas Kolor [from Solo e Duettini]
the result of off-stage
out of frame
processes
surmised
or presumed
or assumed
or obvious
Banned Rehearsal 294 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [June 12, 1992]
 |
| my journal entry of August 24, 2021 |
{{from my journal entry of January 5, 1995}} ::
"Bruce the Pitch Matcher"
gentle reverberant elastic sound,
drum head bounce roll tapping lightly
HOO!
mbiru liquid drops:
two instruments in one mbiru:
an
- no, three:
a 'pitchless' click
- an impulse
and
a sustain
Anatomy of Drum Sound:
Bell Sound
stick
impulse
sonority
in experience a 3 peaked phenomenon
Just Intonation.
given a small enough unit interval
percussive
impact pitch impulse pitch [decay] carry.
continuation.
Sound of
1. mallet
2. head
3. body ?
OR a broad enough
definition of pitch matching
1 tongue
2 cylinder
3 room
and Bob the Unit Interval
plectrum
:
string
:
box
echoic/anechoic - Benjamin Boretz [from Open Space 33]
the distinction is not a property of the sound but rather of its context
a true anechoic chamber (or context)
would be without even the
listener's reflection of the experience.
In one ear out the other in
perfect transparence
neutrino sounds
application: aspects as well as wholes
Work / Architecture / Unity / And / The - Keith Eisenbrey [March 12, 2021, take 1]
perhaps the best performance would avoid playing any two of them within any
single moment
or on shuffle
with 99% nothing
The Sound of Speed - Ghidra [from The Sound of Speed]
dentist drill intensity for forty seconds
Banned Rehearsal 807 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [February 13, 2012]
The Otamatone matches some pitches in their general direction
possibly from the recording
- somebody has a synthesizer of sorts (the Yamaha perhaps)
Surely 'tis.
party time with preset rhythms
until it stops
yuggayuggayugga
knock on walls
yukyukyukyukyuk
persistent party showers throughout the evening
but intermittent. sudden bells.
rafter bells
a quiet strand emerges
piano piano
and sung tones
investigations
in every corner
gently scrape
tap
bong
rattle
wiggle wire
spring
woggle wiggle
Otamatone sticks with it
careful of that feedback
chimney rumble in the nearness
radioid crackle
bells
strummers
tap tap tap on rattles
and still the Otamatone hangs in there
quick fade before stop is pressed
Bump In the Night - Mud on My Bra [from Demo #1]
all sorts of together
fancy stumble rhythms.
bump.
 |
| barnacles being bats |
Fantasia, Fvb 38 - John Bull - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
It doesn't wait to go deep
already on its way by the 4th beat
no
less tricky to keep track of what it's up to
than Babbitt can be like
that it pulls the ear in
to its own world of immediate relations
like that
easy to dismiss as noodling
if you don't take the
first leap
Symphoniae Sacrae II, Op. 10 #16 "Es steh Gott auf" - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana
Buzzies! How fun!
the sense in which the disparate parts fit together
relies on holding the key very close.
Modulation can be so crass.
Suite in G minor, BuxWV 241 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
comments are as carefully worded as the poem
he loves the nearest most
distant harmony
The Water Music Suite - George Frideric Handel - Philadelphia Orchestra - Eugene Ormandy
so that:
any short stretch can be immediately grasped
without
reference outside of it
but not:
rocking any boats or barges
your conversation may continue
tune in as you wish one
presumes there were other entertainments between the pieces
or rather
these were the filler
Prelude and Fugue in E Major, BWV 854 (Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1) - Johann Sebastian Bach - Sviatoslav Richter
fugue keeps remembering what it was about
or being reminded with a quick
jab to the ribs
Sonata in C minor, Kk. 129 - Domenico Scarlatti - Jan-Pieter Belder
at the end of each repeat
no matter how small
you are landed in a
new place
aimed elsewhere
don't stand up right away
Sonata in C minor, W2q. 65/31 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi
timid visit to a spooky castle
perhaps we shouldn't go in
would
you like to visit the catacombs
why do the candle sticks look like
skeleton hands
did you hear something
Symphony in F Major, #58 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Austro-Hungarian Orchestra, Ádám Fischer
1
opens with a menuet tempo
with challenging bass lines to make
clear
in or with
a large space
or ensemble
2
somewhere among those lines
there are balanced phrases
but
the sharing among the lines
is differently balanced
than the
balance
of the phrases
3
a more vigorous menuet
with brass
must be a man in uniform
assembled from loose parts
4
quickly articulate
a corporate patter song
leaping into
the offbeats
Concerto in A Major, K. 414 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Moscow Virtuosi, Vladimir Spivakov, Evgeny Kissin
1
complications arise from a baseline calm
with exquisite timing
nothing is hurried
impersonation
every melody is in
character
if it goes duetish
it is clear who is singing what
soft-pedals the CPEB brand pregnant pause
2
middle movement is an interior scene
or at most a sheltered
garden
the outside world stays there
soliloquy from a tender
heart
2
time for some jolly farce and low stakes peril
Bagatelles, Op. 33 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Artur Schnabel
1
showy impatient clever
the ornaments and elaborations are either
way too much or instructively stupid
2
rude/polite:
questions what might be considered learned in
polite society
3
holding the key tightly leashed
4
ornaments stick out like sore thumbs
5
more circus moves
not happy with these clothes
6
gets lost
but won't leave us there?
7
figuration study
nobody leaves humming that!
Etude in E-flat minor, Op. 10 #6 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot [recorded 1942]
the chromatic accompanying figure
ostensibly refers to parts of triads
but its twists repercuss throughout the everything
Klavierstücke, Op. 119 - Johannes Brahms - Walter Gieseking
like a moth to the flame
and then back to Davidsbundler
August 27, 2021
Poor Mourner - Cousins and DeMoss [from Allen Lowe's Really The Blues]
tempo play ala Heroin
7 decades prior
Down On The Old Camp Ground - Dinwiddie Colored Quartet [from Goodbye, Babylon]
there's a Jubilee
but I thought I heard that chicken sneeze
?
yes it's in the book
Sonata in G, (#6) - Alexander Scriabin - Michael Ponti
a wind blows through a musical system
with intent and skill
we
hear what the wind works
but not the wind
intricate wind chimes
practiced wind
Cute Little Wigglin' Dance - Frisco Jass Band [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
explicitly corporal
proto Charleston
one wonders,
was there
a dance number
for the stage
that this just happened to be the
music to?
:
Vaudeville or Minstrels or the like?
Finnegans Wake, Chapter 1 (side 1) - James Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer [San Diego, March 26, 1988]
Neal begins with an essay.
This was performed and recorded by Neal &
Anna in San Diego, for a small audience. Later that year he performed this
version for interested family members at the Meyer family reunion at Flag
Ranch, WY, at which event Karen and I were in attendance. Soon, or already,
Yellowstone National Park (just to the North) suffered massive forest fires,
forcing us to alter our intended route home.
before he picked up the Irishy accent
and the more theatrical
(projected, declaimed)
reading style
(until he gets to the
birdcalls)
altitude of maltitude
his lute is all long
I hear
Aaron at this one
who must have attended from Berkeley
stiff but
steady
for all I know
Aaron and Anna
were the audience
entire
moundings mass and willing done.
Joyce: a spoken literature
||
Woolf: a read literature
|||
each has characters, but Joyce allows their speech to theatricalize the
character (in the manner of Dickens)
||
Woolf follows strands of
thought as they weave through her characters' internal languages - hers is the
language of thought as it arises from within. We recognize her characters not
by what they exhibit as speech but by what the effect of being within each of
their consciousnesses has upon the strands of thought we follow
|||
Joyce's internal consciousness streams are stagy
||
Woolf's
are pagy.
Hot Dog - Blind Lemon Jefferson [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
I love the balance between the strong chunk chunk of the drumming and the light feathery tune pluck of his guitar playing.
Sentimental Gentleman from Georgia - Isham Jones [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
drums and bass
and reeds and brass
somebody has a vibraphone back
there?
the singer is just one among several soloists
Glory in the Meeting House - Luther Strong [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
fiddling much like hardanger fiddling
I Threw a Kiss in the Ocean - Peggy Lee [from The Complete Recordings 1941-1947]
the arrangement describes the dance
among conversations
at the
tables
(conversations dancing)
ship ahoy
sailor boy
ship ahoy
witty and urbane
but a corporeal dance of such
In Session at the Tintinabulary
August 23, 2021
Gradus 369 - Neal Kosály-Meyer
Any sound has potentialities, says the composing ear. But it is only the composing ear that has them. Any sound is innocent of what is ascribed to it. Analysis, composition, creative acts about creative acts, all are discourse concerning the ear. The sound, the signal, is silent as to our experience of it. Signal is silence. Coherence isn't music's game, it's ours. It is only music's in the sense that music is us from the get go. Self-deafening thunderclap. But, notwithstanding all of that, music can clearly be experienced. A medium for self-examination :: expression, once expressed, can be examined.
Postscripts
::Consult the Oracle
amen nicht so und bittet um Gott ich
darf nicht leben ich keinen mehr den Tod
sollt lay lore hero's week up 24
Reality Check::
just sit there
be lost
the road is a map
