 |
| Mt. Adams in the distance |
"But the spine. For that, the best way we can consider it is, with a crane, to
pile its bones high up on end. No speedy enterprise. But now it's done, it
looks much like Pompey's Pillar.
There are forty and odd vertebræ in all,
which in the skeleton are not locked together. They mostly lie like the great
knobbed blocks on a Gothic spire, forming solid courses of heavy masonry. The
largest, a middle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in
depth more than four. The smallest, where the spine tapers away into the tail,
is only two inches in width, and looks something like a white billiard-ball. I
was told that there were still smaller ones, but they had been lost by some
little cannibal urchins, the priest's children, who had stolen them to play
marbles with. Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living
things tapers off at last into simple child's play."
Herman Melville, from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale.
Texts
Recorded
December 14, 2025
Madrigals, Book IX: Di far sempre gioire - Claudio Monteverdi - Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini
individual plea
corporate judgment
Nun bitten wir den heiligen Geist, BuxWV 209 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
composition strategy
proceed far enough
that stepping back
and out of trouble
is not an option
Wachet! betet! betet! wachet!, BWV 70 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Gächinger Kantorei, Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, Helmut Rilling
for ones spiritual alert function
the final cadences of these numbers
are not goals to which the music
strives heroically
they are
where the lines happen to resolve
together
the orchestra pounds the podium
for the recitativing baritone
Sonata in G Major, Kk. 304 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
changing directions so smoothly
we don't notice the trick
Ouverture du Roi Lear (Berlioz), S47 - Franz Liszt - Leslie Howard
this overture
so far
doesn't believe in transitions
and of
course
one passed by
as I was writing
the overture
is seeking
to render
the play
unnecessary
Kinderszenen: Hasche-Mann Op. 15 #3 - Robert Schumann - Florian Uhlig
scurries past
so fast
Etude in D-flat Major, Op. 42 #6 - Alexander Scriabin - Dmitri Alexeev
the energy that moves the melody
surges up
through the
figurational body beneath
to the point
where the simultaneity
of bass to melody
is pulled free
 |
| Mt. Rainier |
West End Blues - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives and Sevens]
leisurely ooze
from bar to bar
Send Me Some Lovin' - Buddy Holly and The Crickets [from The 'Chirping' Crickets]
Mr. Aw Shucks
boyfriend material
sends a letter
to be read
over and over
If Ever I Would Leave You - Aretha Franklin [from Laughing On The Outside]
back when Broadway musicals
still provided a significant portion of
songs
to the recording industry
outside of their direct
purview
for vocalists
to show off their pipes
Easy Street - Sun Ra [from Monorails & Satellites]
full of distractions
and rough patches
and gentle slopes
Just One More Day - Etta James [from Etta James]
this letter's
for the guy
to read over and over
its performance
is that reading over
made flesh
 |
| Sourdough Ridge Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
doing my best
to crib equally
from Shostakovich and Bartok
wanders about in an adolescent gloom
mired in viscous thoughts
creditable performance
Blest Be The God of Israel - Hal H. Hopson - University Temple Chancel Choir, Chris Vincent, Howard Wolvington [recorded December 8, 2019]
now I'm in the choir
December 16, 2025
Banned Rehearsal 155 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [September 29, 1988]
we engage with music
for reasons
many reasons
many musics
that those reasons
can be difficult to express
or clarify
may indicate
that the premise
is in error
that
the impulses to engage with music
are not reasons
but
some other urgencies
expressible
only
directly within
those engagements
with the music in question
not that
a music
might be
without reason
but that
it might be
aside from reasons
and their ramifications
entirely
besides
my musical urgencies
aren't yours
they can't
be
but:
like language
music is a social act
predicated on our
need
to be social
even when one is alone
with oneself
one
is present
to oneself
social
with
oneself
for instance
Banned Rehearsal
among other things
is a
particular slice
of social activity
which I could
and often
do
regard
as experimental
(one of the explicit corollaries
of the session tapes
at the Bard scene in the 80s)
making
that reasoning explicit
might serve
as a stimulus
to
continue
should experimental social music making
be stimulating
to one
more of a score
than a reason
I'm less suspicious
of music
without reason
than of music
without urgency
many musics
many urgencies
the more particular the music
the more particular
must have been
its urgencies
urgencies
are specific
to their moments
reasons pull music
from its moments
toward
the reductivist land
of
explanations and answers
 |
| Cowlitz Chimneys (Mt. Adams in distance) |
humming forth the song
preparing the voice
for song's occupation
of it
enacting an epistle
If I Told You That - Whitney Houston [from My Love Is Your Love]
dry piano figures
a drum kit with 88 keys
large combo arrangement
The D-Song (A Zombie Showtune) - Scurvy Bastards [from Piranthology]
camp skit shtick
spawn of Thriller
Zither Film 33 - Keith Eisenbrey [November 30, 2008]
pulsed music
just will syllabolize
complexity of pulse
is not a barrier
syllabolization deals with that
all the time
a pulse
a syllable of sound
a tongue wag
sometimes
a
thumb bite
Super8Dream - Lori Goldston [from Film Scores]
deep at night
Anvik - Aaron Keyt - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded December 11, 2025]
my draft from last week
I hope to get another this week
{NB: yes!
see below}
a poem that turns many corners
 |
| Karen on Sourdough Ridge |
fully realized
perfect
already
no need
to produce
Shim Me Shaw Wobble - Ted Lewis [from That Devilin' Tune]
all the craze
back in 28
sounds like it was fun
Running Scared - Roy Orbison [from For The Lonely]
how high can you go Roy?
Bolero in miniature
I guess that's
how high
A Taste of Honey - The Beatles [from Please Please Me]
tdootndoo
thaan wiine
maybe a bit heavy on the echo there George
Baubles, Bangles, and Beads - Bill Evans [from Some Other Time / The Lost Session from the Black Forest]
and a scintillatrix as well
spectacular manual independence
suddenly we're back at the beginning of a verse
Maple Leaf Rag - Scott Joplin - E. Power Biggs [from Scott Joplin Super Hits]
the pedal harpsichord
imparts a character
a polite piano can't
pull off
it sounds
like wool is being pulled over our eyes
this really is
a wooden puppet of a music
Fire - Bruce Springsteen [from Live at The Roxy]
the contrast verse is thrown away
5 Movements: November 22, 1983 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded February 7, 1984]
a fishtank to explore
getting to feel each position in our dorsals
until it is ours
Hot Monkey Love - Girl Trouble [from Hit It Or Quit It]
swagger bragger
Can It Be All That Simple - Wu-Tang Clan [from Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)]
about the good old days
Everybody - Goodness [from Goodness 1995-1998]
personal struggle confession
All These Days Are Gone - Keith Eisenbrey [from Summer Songs/Winter Mix]
tricky to get a conga line going
with this groove
 |
Sourdough Ridge Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
Wish - Goat [from Special Agent]
to be noted:
there is pleasure
associated
with engagements
with music
(a geography of pleasures)
some such pleasures
have roles associated with them:
performer/audient
bandfolk/dancers
the enjoyment of chamber music
involves a certain amount of voyeurism
pleasure of the audient
in the pleasure of the musicians
with each other
Fool's Gold - No Man's String Band [from Let Truth Be Told]
squeeze box
to fill out the sound
on the chorus
a structural
marker
is the stanza structure over-determined?
successive fooled-you endings
as a bridge stanza
back to the
chorus
as a coda
Apollon - Steve Layton [from Virtual Composition]
the instruments being evoked by the synthesizer
behave like keys being
pressed
(an energy with which
I have some intimacy)
this behaves more like organ music
than orchestral
including
its attendant architectural abode
(synthesized
on
the spot)
 |
| hoary marmot |
that the playing of notes
not interrupt
the model of silence
expressed by John Cage's 4'33"
but how could they?
which
for brevity's sake
we will refer to
as silence
for the duration
of its use
in that manner
if silence is regarded
as being interrupted by sound
then
any sound
would interrupt
if silence can include sound
then
any sound
might not
interrupt it
if silence can exclude sounds
then who chooses?
perhaps
that the playing of notes
not distract
from silence?
OK
a meditative practice
holding the mind in stasis
within a koan
I have a wiggly mind
a new note emerges
from the shadows in back
interrupting a
continuity
a flow
a thread of modal experience
Alabama Strut - Cow Cow Davenport [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
piano solo
with running encouragement
from a
quasi-made-up-on-the-spot vocal
Plus Je Tembrasse - Blossom Dearie [from Give Him The Ooh-La-La]
not knowing French
the rhyme play sticks out
 |
| Sourdough Ridge Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
must be high-toned
the use of dynamics in blocks
Angola - Wayne Shorter [from The Classic Blue Note Recordings]
(An American in)
street rhythm
modern urban
at hurried-along tempo
ant people
from above
Brain Damage - Pink Floyd [from The Dark Side of The Moon]
the emotional high point
of a repressed album
Promises - Eric Clapton [from My Songs {a private collection}]
soft roots
more aw shucks
You Can Never Capture It Again - Daniel Warner [from Inter/Play]
big begets little
and echoes of big
and more big
a net is
thrown
its remnants subsumed
the realm rarifies
as we
proceed
Banned Rehearsal 156 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [October 20, 1988]
an overtly composed moment to open
strung upon the piano plunks
but it isn't done yet
an overtly composed set of moments
for scribbly violin and undampered
piano plunks
we're being very serious here
very
with ukulele and cat and song
perhaps a rubbed balloon
the piano string plunks along
though it clearly needs tuning
to be effective
a resolution only needs
to seem
to resolve
matters
an articulation
in the flow of matters
the balloon has returned
as has violin
and even the ukulele
and now
one of the toms
we continue
in the overtness
of our compositional
improvisation
back when CD players
allowed fast forward
with sound
dives into the overt-weirdness end of the pool
The Man Who Sold The World - Nirvana [from Unplugged in New York]
a translation into Cobain
Secrets of the Big Sky - Tingstad & Rumbel [from American Acoustic]
its gentle pace of living
urban freneticism kept far away
off our
loop
I'm So Stupid - Madonna [from American Life]
magazine glossy fantasy
Zither Film Mix 00 - Keith Eisenbrey [November 30, 2008]
 |
| Sourdough Ridge Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
as though scanning through
an array of signals
the thinning is thickened
and slowed
but unmistakable
Persons Unknown - The Botherations [from The Botherations]
an urgency
for a particular music
dive-bar-band rock for example
stems from a desire
for a public space
to feel comfortably
social in
as dive-bars are
for some
and
to forward ones own idea
of what that social structure's soundtrack
might ought to be
trying to make this space sound like us
where we are comfortable
Gradus 339 - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [September 17, 2018]
another
one-pitch-rung-followed-by-a-two-pitch-rung session
\herein
one is not tempted
to check the metronomic regularity
of the time
it is in/
a time of attentively played single tones
in long spaces
of equal
attentivity
this music's attentivity density
is quite high
a new note
rings a bell
Ding Bong!
Dng Bng!
 |
| Sourdough Ridge Trial, Mt. Rainier National Park |
pinned heavily
on the pegs
of one and three
and two and four
Buddy Won't You Roll Down The Line - Uncle Dave Macon [from Anthology of American Folk Music]
this poetry concerns itself
with coal mine work place life solidarity
The Sphinx - Ornette Coleman [from Something Else!!]
based on the structure of dance music
and
as a music
certainly dancing
but
I imagine
it might be tricky
for casual social dancing
to be accomplished
to it
Waters Ripple and Flow - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, Joanne Deacon [April 16, 1963]
sounds like a late 19th Century sentimental parlor song
Nice Work If You Can Get It - Thelonious Monk [from The Complete Columbia Studio Solo Recordings]
gastromancers gastrodancing
gastrodancers gastromancing
Welfare Symphony - Carole King [from Fantasy]
aside:
one might say that
if the term "symphony"
applied to
an instrumental music
as opposed to something with singers
that
the Choral Symphony
of Beethoven
wasn't a symphony
anymore
or
it rendered the term meaningless
or
its particular usage pertinent
in a most peculiar way
this album
is composed
as one damned thing after another
 |
| Sourdough Ridge Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
this music is giving notice
that you're in a technophilic place
take heed
5 Movements: December 1, 1983 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded April 22, 2010]
this one is all about articulation
long/short
\ connected/separated
a study in basic patterns
of object delineation
the score is tri-lobed
or
|long/connected|short
oh
and there is a tune
because each lobe
has six pitches
F-sharp D-flat E-flat G C A
concentrically about the F-sharps in
the middle
clockwise
each note
gets each articulation
so balanced!
so
completist!
from bottom to top though:
F-sharp G A C D-flat E-flat
a ripe field
for discovered moments
points on the lobes
connect
according to their position
within their lobe
to each other point
according to
theirs
a closed system?
perhaps
but can that be grasped
from within
the experience of its exploration?
moving into Gradus territory again
which way lies what?
madness?
dragons?
or just not my path?
More Zajeni Se Ghiouto - Bulgarian State Radio & TV Female Vocal Choir [from Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares Volume Two]
another aside:
in general
inclusion within a category
does
not connote its personal value
which is to say
a list of features
doth not a masterwork make
Cold Mountain Songs: A White-Haired Man - Robert Morris [from Open Space 30]
the voice and the piano
are two bodies dancing
Track 8 - Richard Rorex, Reid Merryman [from Mood for Richelle]
perfectly fine
just generic
appropriate for family slide-show
productions
Don't Know - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [from Summer Songs/Winter Mix]
literalizing the churchiness
with faux organ chorale
Alien Pop (Tom) - Sacajawea Students [from Digital Dreams]
making music
with parts provided
by the industry
to teach
that music
is industrial
and
only industrially
produced music
is music
 |
| Sourdough Ridge, Mt. Rainier National Park |
the band is there
to fill the space with
sound
to enclose the clientele
and staff
within a loud
cocoon
Dance Elena - Tim Root [from Constance and The Waiting]
a string of continuities
within a string of continuities
punctuated
but unwritten
a groove can be exited
but never disrupted
or corrupted
or
twisted
or questioned
these grooves
are love 'em or leave' em type grooves
Ellenthorpe - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey
marches forthrightly on
through thick and thin
In Session at The Tintinabulary
December 14, 2025
Lydia - Keith Eisenbrey
December 15, 2025
Banned Rehearsal 1140 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt
we raised a din
for Carol Levin
December 17, 2025
Anvik - Aaron Keyt
I think I got it this time
Seedlings 1, 3, 5, and 6 - Peter Nelson-King
December 19, 2025
Seedlings 2 and 4 - Peter Nelson-King
I think I'll be revisiting that 4th one
which is a bear of a
polyrhythmic knot
Postscripts
Drops
Keith Eisenbrey 29:
Figure Studies 2015-2018
Autoheterophony
2016
In this volume is collected the latest in a series of solo piano improvisations made between 2015 and 2018, as well as a 2016 hymnody project in which I engaged with four hymns that have been familiar to my ear before I knew what music was.
recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream
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