"This is much; yet Ahab's larger, darker, deeper part remains unhinted. But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound. Winding far down from within the very heart of this spiked Hotel de Cluny where we stand - however grand and wonderful, now quit it; - and take your way, ye nobler, sadder souls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes; where far beneath the fantastic towers of man's upper earth, his root of grandeur, his whole awful essence sits in bearded state; an antique buried beneath antiquities, and throned on torsoes! So with a broken throne, the great gods mock that captive king; so like a Caryatid, he patient sits, upholding on his frozen brow the piled entablatures of ages. Wind ye down there, ye prouder, sadder souls! question that proud sad king! A family likeness! aye, he did beget ye, ye young exiled royalties; and from your grim sire only will the old State-secret come."
Herman Melville from "Moby-Dick; or, The Whale"
Texts
Recorded
December 21, 2024
Limehouse Blues - Joe Haymes [from That Devilin' Tune]
each new stanza resets the flow
I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me - Billie Holiday [from Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia]
a tempo to slink through
with a feather boa
Patch for Study No. 23 (mid 1930's) - Charles Ives - Charles Ives [from Charles Ives plays Charles Ives]
nothing murky
that can't be murkier
Composition for Twelve Instruments - Milton Babbitt [from Eric Carlson's Ever Expanding Milton Babbitt Album]
this music never loses touch
with
how the instruments
are
addressing their fellow instruments
and us
and
that
they are speaking pitches
notes
Prayers of Kierkegaard - Samuel Barber - Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Robert Shaw, Richard Clement, Nathan Gunn, Patricia Nealon, Pamela Elrod, Sean Mayer, William Borland
concerning the music that arose
in the gloomy guts of stone churches
across the land
recording tech
tends to shrink the sound
of a symphonic chorus
so many pounds of flesh
lost in translation
Solo for Piano - John Cage - Neal Kosály-Meyer [recorded live at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, May 4, 2013]
a state of mind
can be allowed
by an agent
but
can't
be forced
or coerced
the image
of rhetorical force
vs
cogent and effective rhetorical force
the image of rhetorical
force
arising from Beethoven
is one of insistence
on truth
and power
the image
of rhetorical force
in Cage
is absent
the long silence
with which Neal began this performance
is
yes
an opportunity to listen to the pretty birds
or the
barking dogs
but also
a substantial experience
of a long
protracted anacrusis
the clock will count for you
the heart requires a ritual of solitude
before it can speak in its
tongues
once the sounds enter
they move spritely along
at about a quarter
note = one
a counted out rhythm
is proportional
by virtue of its having been
counted out
not
by its relative steadiness
nor
by its
durations
naked sequence
as I recall
Neal played a single page of the score for this performance
which is lovely
by the way
scale-like sequences
are polemical here
a signifier
of
abstract musicality
otherwise not notably present
(concrete
musicality?)
young hominids' homonidical shouts
yips and calls
plus a few
dogs
we are released from its spell
an event
marked by applause
Abraham and Isaac - Igor Stravinsky - London Sinfonietta, Oliver Knussen, David Wilson-Johnson
Stravinksy emigrated
from pre-revolutionary Russia
to European
culture at large
relevant to all of it
Nurse's Song (Innocence) (William Blake) - Allen Ginsberg [from Holy Soul, Jelly Roll]
the voice of Blake
heard by Ginsberg
was a sing-song voice
three-part conversation
on
all the hills are echoing
the
higher
of the three voices
often pronounces the second syllable
of echoing
significantly more quickly
than the other voices
do
now we'll all yodel
and sing along
Images - Sun Ra [from Space Is The Place]
piano and bass
just having a little moment together
My Father - Nina Simone [from Baltimore]
a poem
can be
in the form
of a personal essay
memoir
chapter
Playalong 5 - Aaron Keyt [February 5, 1988]
piano tones
in wide intervals
with tape wobbles
stepwise
and small-interval skips
scattered at wide intervals
uniform textures
tax attention
a field to wander across
crows
in improvised formation
weave in the gloaming sky
an articulation
by means of resting
then
the same
but
re-registered
the new rises into the old
and they are joined
Soundscapes - Sun Ra [from Monorails and Satellites]
hands dance against each other
get physical
Banned Rehearsal 493 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 2, 1998]
we remove the coverings from sound
soon joined from other watersheds
the waters mingle
but claim distinction
the spider
is
on the move
the mass powers up
radio has been filtered out
but returns
in a can
{journal entry of March 28, 2006:
fun big tape
glitch 20 minutes in}
Dirty Money - Karin Blaine [from Dirty Money]
preacher testimony
Gradus 133 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [February 11, 2008]
we wonder at a discipline
it is a marvel
a feat
of will
power
or need
compulsion
is a free-agent will
outside consciousness
does consciousness
serve
what the muses sing
or
does
it impede?
what am I conscious of?
what is there
to be conscious of?
{we leave off between the rungs
interrupting the silence for
supper}
with good headphones
one can observe the signal
clearly
speakered into a room
one can hear it
as a sound
in the same
room
with you
rather than
in some room
within your
skull
the signal
is at a distance
and obscures the sound it
makes less
compulsion
is a form of will
or a mode thereof?
the devil made them do it
so sang the muses
Attractors - Bruce Hamilton - Iktus Piano & Percussion Duo
the social venue
within which a music
such as this
or any
occurs
surely
ought to include
the musicians
fully
beats attract grids
adherence
coercion
so much water under the bridge since then
these
are among a
handful of pieces
that I keep coming back to
because they never
cease teaching me
Puget Sounds - S. Eric Scribner [from Adjacencies]
waves grinding
gravel
blunting waves
a perpetual friction
Madrigals, Book IV: Ah, dolente partita! - Claudio Monteverdi - Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Allesandrini
a cooperate puppeteer
to the person
of the voice
of the poem
Geistliche Chor-Music, Op. 11, SWV 369-397 (1648), Volume 2: XXVIII. Auf dem Gebirge - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana
voices of lips and tongues
cords
in throats
lips
to
lengths of air
vibrations
where structural expression
is architectural
rather than directly
personal
Toccata in F Major, BuxWV 157 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
this is a stern sermon we are in receipt of
you will now remain seated
while the ushers collect the donation
Premier livre de clavecin: Cinquieme Ordre (la): Les Agremens. Gracieusement, sans lenteur - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert
elaborate means employed
to count out patterns
in the time-path
In Session at The Tintinabulary
December 23, 2024
Jordan - Keith Eisenbrey
I didn't have time
the morning I wrote this
(the 22nd)
to
record it,
and I typically use the recording process
to iron out
the last few details of the composition.
I recorded it the next day,
but in listening back
I think I need
to spend a few more minutes with it before I'm done.
I should have time for that later today.
Detritus 4 - Keith Eisenbrey
Gradus 407 - Neal Kosály-Meyer
1
what is the relation obtaining
among the sounds presented
as the representatives
of the list
of keys
within
the defined parameters
of the rung
and the words
in the
list?
if
ones purpose
were
to differentiate the rungs
compositionally
one could proceed
from ones manner of
playing
or
from ones manner of thinking
(or both of
course)
within a moment of sonority
we can
with some effort
trace
our own ordering of attention
through the pitches persisting
within that moment:
voluntary
or volitional
serial
improvisation
a pitch-class
in common
between two
or several sonorities
but
registrally differentiated
imparts leanings
against
the several sonorities
which leanings
can be analyzed
as
being due
to the in-common pitch-class
the relation
so obtaining
is not a simple vector
December 27, 2024
("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...") - Benjamin Boretz
I'm getting closer on this.
I need to control my tempos better as it
moves along.
Postscripts
Drops
recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream
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