Preface
"Unlike you, I'm not personally frustrated by the current abasement and commoditization of the culture of music performance or that of art exhibition.
Because, some time ago, I decided to detach myself from the 'evils' of 'the culture' to find alternative psychic spaces where life choices and environmental effects are ontologized with a perspective that dis-reifies the irrelevant and renders it ineffective, while proactively reifying the qualities that are abundantly available to nurture the lifestyle which is desired. There's a confusion: 'art' ('music', 'concerts', 'museums', etc.) have symbolized an 'enlightened' ('elevated') lifestyle - they don't, anymore, as a general cultural phenomenon; but this doesn't mean that there isn't abundant stuff in our world which is nurturing to such a lifestyle; consider that at an earlier time, there were massive cultural phenomena which were non-nurturing (brothels and gambling palaces in Havana, Broadway musicals, bullfights in Madrid, bloated gourmands in Paris, mass-produced horse and dog races, charlatans doing magic and selling nostrums - & on & on) - but the presence of these phenomena did not appear to threaten the lifestyle of people who read books, listen to music, etc."
- Benjamin Boretz "outside out" from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020
Texts
Recorded
August 7, 2021
Trombone Slide - Roy Palmer, Bob Hudson [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
Playing within a style involves inventing a plausible style that it is played
in,
an agreement among two
a collaborative invention.
Even
if it is purported to be in a recognizable style
it is difficult
to tweeze out which parts
we as listeners
are buying into
as
signaling that style
without critique
even if such style can be
named, there will be arguments.
That is,
these styles may not be
as recognizable as you think,
except in extremely broad
(and thus
next to useless)
terms.
So where does that leave us with Art Tatum?
Held together less by style
than by personality
like spring in Seattle
if you don't like
it
wait a few beats
All I Need Is You - Peggy Lee [from The Complete Recordings 1941-1947]
Benny Goodman and crew
provide the aural equivalent of her sparkly gown
and spotlight
high end
style and class
Sonata #1 - Pierre Boulez - Klara Komendi
this,
however,
was not yet a style at the time
a collection
of qualities of gestures
figures persisting for arbitrary durations
resolving into gesture set regions
coherence involves us
convincing ourselves
that we have perceived an individual thing
out there in our experience
it doesn't involve figuring it out
in any more technical sense
at least not necessarily
Better Late Than Never - Buster Pack and His Lonesome Pine Boys [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
scribble fiddle
banjo twiddle
up tempo
hoe down dance
Don't Forbid Me - Pat Boone [a Rescued Record]
too many more verses
and this could get adult
good time to switch gears and sing a chorus
ramp it up
bluff and
switch
Veni Jesu - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [April 10, 1962]
the style of this one soft sells itself
Baby I Love You - Aretha Franklin [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
her band supplies the hip english
style solidly built
Lolly Too Dum - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [from Betty's Picks]
threat to never get married
a girl in my position
don't wait too
long
fancy show tune type
all light show precious little else
sample ready
August 9, 2021
Book of Windows, Side B (820804) - Keith Eisenbrey - Jill Borner, Keith Eisenbrey, Bruce Huber [recorded in a common area at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, August 4, 1982]
Crumar is the ground
upon which is etched
the electric guitar
the text
wafts through like smoke
the Crumar's slowly
shifting patterns
terrain bouldery
piled moraine
earth
air and soft water
light and prying ice
footing not secure
a
field of ankle breakers
This was an important work for me to have done (for me), not exactly a dead end.
Sound Examples for "A Tonal Model of an 'Atonal' Piece - Steve Larson
voice
singing solfeggio
(fixed do?) I think
and piano
and fine examples they are too
they like fa
a Schoenberg
song
Banned Rehearsal 293 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [May 29, 1992]
flutes and wooden thumps
the crows outside this evening are heading home
John is near speech
pot lids make quite a racket
so there is
singing and hominine chatter
tambourine rhythm
brief
partly
regular
regular enough
so that irregularity shows
speaking
as an activity
is prefatory to the lexicon
patterns of expressing
expression
are there in babble
sounds like the Big Red Bag of Fun
piano
must mean Toad Hall
sail boats pound
pout
tap tap tap tap
shake
bong goes the bell
elsewise we
have become quiet
with lots of shifting around
tins and lids
a
whistle is heard
more fipple flute than ocarina
John sits hard on
a microphone
we bong more bells
and rub lids
John is a
helpful little dude
coda of doom
we wandered off somewhere
{{ from my journal entry of December 27, 1994 }} ::
revolvular metal scrape
HOO!
Dance Dramatic peering up onto a
tabletop of sound
sibilant bells
clicking like water dripping
like elemental sounds heard prior to cognition
preverbal
just like John
or at the turning point
just verbal
struggling articulation
revolving back to where the potlids began
the Potlidiad
August 10, 2021
Dig Me Out - Sleater-Kinney [from Dig Me Out]
XXA XXB CDEFGH . . .
schematic lyric structure
a switch
ends
as it begins
guitar
Work / Architecture / Unity / And / The - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded on April 7, 2021]
performed as a continuity
but could be finessed (the gaps)
weighing the balance of time as experience
each segment has its
internal tempo
and the gaps could be listening more carefully
to
those tempi
there may be no right way to play it
cool!
The Friend - Low Hums [from Sounds of Speakers]
lives up to the name of the band
a vibe for a mood
for an image
some cymbals
a synth
hand drums
below it all
the
sea floor bass
crows are on the move
wordless
Many A-nats
both slats
this piece lives in this room
its
resonance occupies this space
autopedagogic
teaching one's feet
to climb the steps
agogically
clock time
history
nor time line
history
are granular
enough
or round enough
to accommodate
(a) musical event(s)
nor any
pitch space image is not location space image
an effort might be made to
mitigate their interference
so that where an event is
or emanates
from
doesn't obscure where it lands
in the image of pitch space
{{ from my journal entry of February 6, 2012 }} ::
hints of Bs 7th
[NB presumably I was hearing the upper harmonic of one
of the low A nats]
odd it should take so long
Alleluia - Margie Palmer [from Make a Joyful Noise]
[NB - Margie is a cousin on my Mom's side of the family, this is from a private recording]
McAbee voice similar to my Mom's but as a Soprano
August 11, 2021
Saint Thomas Wake, Fvb 36 - John Bull - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
Did they ornament their vocal music too
when then sang?
In
practice if not in notation?
It may sound like aimless noodling to our
ears,
but their aims were not ours
those are precise and
individual noodlings
Symphony Sacrae II, Op. 10 14 "Verlieh uns Frieden genädlich" - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana
surface continuity is not his bag
there is a thread
but the
terrain it winds through is tricky
there are gaps
Suite in G Major, BuxWV 240 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
the voices stop
hold up
to be sure
their fellow voices can
be clearly heard
sometimes
hurry to catch up
everybody gets
to the end of the trail
"Lobt Gott, ihr Christen, allzugleich", BWV 732 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Michael Chapuis
played first plain
but with cadential ornamentation
then played
plain
then played full fancy
with more of that cadential
ornamentation
Sonata in A-flat Major, Kk. 127 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
threads aplenty
but they are abandoned with abandon
picked up
later
get stuck in loops
L'Ernestine, Wq. 117/38 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi
in a lyrical 3 meter
songlike
a teaching piece?
Sonata in A Major, Hob. XVI: 12 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim
also (like the CPEB above) performed on clavichord
phraseological head
rhymes keep us from wandering too far
Rondo in A Major, K. 386 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardner, Malcolm Bilson
call it a rondo and everyone will know it starts at home base
(attend
the immediately repeated notes in each figure)
(and where within each
figure they sit)
(another thread to tie it)
(you may applaud now)
(hire me if you like)
Theme and Variations in F Major, Op. 34 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Artur Schnabel
spacious theme with room to breathe
lovely lines
interesting Feng
Shui
loosely limbed
tightly sinewed
good bones : gracious
in a way that neither the Eroica nor Diabelli sets are
declines to process
accepts to enjoy
returns the theme burnished but unsullied
doubled
bow put on
among his more civilized compositions
Sonata in D Major, Op. 106 - Johann Nepomuk Hummel
Romantic or proto-so
in the sense that it is modeled on Romantic opera
someone is singing
but they aren't fighting their own means
like Beethoven did
or subverting it
like Chopin does
one would enjoy this
as one would one's favorite number
from
the show last night
here's the ingenue's boudoir scene
brushing
her hair
somebody put florid in the water
scene with the
chambermaid
somebody is hiding behind the arras
shenanigans
transpire
Mazurka in C minor, Op. 30 #1 - Frédéric Chopin - Vladimir Ashkenazy
each register has its own ideas
about how the figuration understands the
key
nearest analog: Scarlatti?
Klavierstücke, Op. 118 - Johannes Brahms - Julius Katchen
1
a strong step
then a stumble
meter play in long lines
2
Aaron's Intermezzo
shorter lines
that build and
fold inward
bivalent meter
complex in several dimensions
3
let's get muscular and manly
but with tender hearts
after
all we once were sentimental
4
anxiety and abruptness
5
peace
and tranquil thoughts
happy memories
be gone
dark corners
6
darkening skies
in the night
has it come to this
pathetic end
Manfred?
Soir de fete, Op. 32 - Ernest Chausson - Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Michel Plasson
buildup upon buildup
hype
excitement
the fete-ands now in
their own places
preparing
such pretty gowns
celebration of
fashion and society
(just wait
the Sacre is right around
the corner)
pious dreamer
heart pittapat though it mittamat
back to the ballroom
such a lovely evening out here in the
moonlight
August 13, 2021
Bill Bailey - Arthur Collins [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
blackface as desire
desire to be what
black?
goes to great
lengths
to make laughable
the image
of black
that they
share for us
but desire
is desire
even when disguised or denied
like 10 year-old boys pulling girls'
pigtails
Poeme-Nocture, Op. 61 - Alexander Scriabin - Michael Ponti
huge registral range for both the bass and treble
any part of the
harmony
nearly
can be in any part of the registral space
uses the whole keyboard freely
sensitively
inner part voice
leading
slippery as wind puffs
Postscripts
::Consult the Oracle
league stacks along with all the bigs he was
probably offed he wasn't rubbed right likes
Stalin chances of age surviving that
Reality Check::
through matrix
trace result
sand paper
No comments:
Post a Comment