 |
| Comet Falls Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
"Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled, open-and-shut carpenter, was, after all, no mere machine of an automaton. If he did not have a common soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow anomalously did its duty. What that was, whether essence of quicksilver, or a few drops of hartshorn, there is no telling. But there it was; and there it had abided now for some sixty years or more. And this it was, this same unaccountable, cunning life-principle in him; this it was, that kept him a great part of the time soliloquizing; but only like an unreasoning wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes; or rather, his body was a sentry-box and this soliloquizer on guard there, and talking all the time to keep himself awake."
Herman Melville, from Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.
Texts
Recorded
 |
| Comet Falls Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
Adam Raised a Cain - Bruce Springsteen [from Live at The Roxy]
knight of the endless strut
(pelvis leads)
5 Movements: December 1, 1983 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded February 7, 1984]
in this case
making the score
was a way of organizing thoughts
graphically
the score
being one thing
and any performance
stemming from it
being quite other things
but also
a
way to organize thought
as an episode of experience
might they be
the same thoughts
but organized
through
distinct modalities?
the organizations
share the property
of being fixed in a location
either on the page
or along a timeflow
neither organization
as such
is uniquely determinable
from
the other
does the thought
that is so bimodally organized
lurk behind each?
ghostlike?
by what other modalities
might it be organized?
these tones appear
in three articulatory types:
poked(separated)
held(separated)
held(joined)
held notes
are either separated or joined
separated notes
are either poked or sustained
missing:
poked(joined)
adding in the missing articulatory mode
would change the sense of the
time's flow
(there would be notes
that follow others immediately
quickly
rather than
the slow contemplative steadiness
as performed here
it would also necessitate
a
reconceptualization of the score
and
I think
more
pitches)
another way to think on it
is that the thought
was about
quantities
ones twos and threes
(also
the intervals between
between pitches
of each registrally distinguished trichord
as
measured in half-steps)
it's a thought
about three
/a set of numbers
only divisible by X
and that number\
for any X
or by
X and 1
and
that number
if X=2
then the set of squares of primes
if X=Y
and if Y
is a
prime number
then the set of primes
to the power of Y
 |
| Comet Falls Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
Second Part - Electric Guitar - Derek Bailey, Cecil Taylor [from Pleistozaen mit Wasser]
this music doesn't go
it stays
digs in
entrenches
listening bunker
to hear it
one must enter willfully
the faster the notes fly
the less room to maneuver
gets a bit noodley in the latter third
Une m'avoit promis - The Baltimore Consort [from Le Rocque'N'Roll]
tavern music hasn't changed much over the centuries
Every Ghetto/Every City - Lauryn Hill [from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill]
a memoir
I Drank - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [from Summer Songs/Winter Mix]
cramming a machined pulse
into a mass of soft clay
Cruise Control (Feat. Damian Jr.) - Mariah Carey [from E-Mc2]
the pop artist
enacts industry's concept
of an acceptable sexual
persona
Rainier Weather - Peterman [form Red Vinyl]
the culture of bar bands
provides a set of frameworks
in which to
say things
while hiding behind a song
Realms of Memory and Voidness - Joey Largent [from Earth Drones]
hinting at subaudible pitch resonance
a roar from the basement
 |
| Comet Falls Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
Assembly Rechoired 62 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [September 11, 2023]
under the Anarchaedian sky
plied by planes
taut strings are
plucked
somebody's car alarms
at a distance
as we move from instrument to instrument
does the quantity of virtual
soundmakers increase?
do we read a new instrument
as a new person?
do the persons (re)coalesce?
Madrigals, Book IX: Non voglio amare - Claudio Monteverdi - Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini
each combination of voices
is a different character
lots of no no no emphatically no
in this one
Komm, heiliger Geist, Herre Gott, BuxWV 199 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
the explanation is thorough and lengthy
Ich habe meine Zuversicht, BWV 188 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Amsterdam Baroque Choir, Ton Koopman
fleet flute stops
tootle cheerfully
opens with a concerto
avuncular baritone
Sonata in E-flat Major, Kk. 306 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
a repeated figure
amended by a stepwise sequence
as it peels
off
the distance
the stepwise sequence has travelled
is embodied
in its relationship
to the repeating figure
atop it
Kinderszenen: Glückes genug, Op. 15 #5 - Robert Schumann - Florian Uhlig
this music is a comfy chair and delightful companion
Buch der Lieder I: Mignon's Lied, S531/3 - Franz Liszt - Alexandre Dossin
supporting figures
body and breath
the singer has been subsumed
into the music
language and all
a silent film
of a song
as a music
magic of the first order
 |
| Comet Falls Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
flinging petals
of pink pleasure
naiadly
a gloomy mood
approaches
naiadly pink
the petals
flinging
D'un soir triste - Lili Boulanger - BBC Philharmonic, Yan Pascal Tortelier
the stage is dimly lit
and misty
noir shadows rise
against
the backdrop
heart pounds
weary sorrow lingers
Sugar Foot Strut - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives and Sevens]
tap dance percussion
It's Only a Paper Moon - Morgana King [from Sings The Blues]
over the course of the stanza
she turns to whisper
in your ear
There's A Place - The Beatles [from Please Please Me]
they had practiced this
Alfie - Bill Evans [from Another Time: The Hilversam Concert]
held just aside from the key
Shapes of Things - David Bowie [from Pin-Ups]
song singer
as a clown type
circus barker
to the darker
tents
CF Anderson Memorial Service - William Meyer [September 17, 1978]
my father-in-law
speaking
for his father-in-law's
service
Ain't No Acid Burn Out - Nelson Bragg [from Bard Sampler 82-83]
early home studio sound (pre-digital)
Banned Rehearsal 157 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [October 27, 1988]
released from the hum
we wonder at the stillness
Aaron reads a statement
in Whitman
lists of sounds
ah
this indeed
is music
the committee comments
upon the effect
of Whitman's puzzle of
puzzles
piano guitar and dulcimer
we commit a music
before finding a way out
via a rubbed drum head
thumb piano
and toy piano
tine to tine
we collapse into a heap under the piano
alarm bells clang
Aaron sneezes
what kinds of partitioning
ought to be available
direct repetition
of an element
accelerando
anything conceivable
as a music
under scrutiny
can be an element
Aaron reads from notes
I had apparently made
to write an algorithm
to analyze musical meter
from inside
the experience of
listening
 |
| Comet Falls Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
Violin Concerto in F-sharp minor, Op. 14 - Henryk Wieniawski - Itzhak Perlman [from The Art of Itzhak Perlman]
1
{in my limited experience
Wieniawski only comes up
in the
context of violin soloing
when I was in school
accompanying fellow
students
who were violinists
he was a staple
elsewhere
never}
this opening orchestral introduction
functions like the symphony
or overture
to an opera
highlights of coming
attractions
and here's our hero
as the curtain rises
they recount their tale
of woe and struggle
against the forces arrayed around
wit and
decisiveness
to win friends
a brilliant star
among a throng
and kind to their mother to
boot
2
spends quiet time in prayer
a model human of their era
3
and can dance
en pointe
and can fence
admirably
such a romantic face
will tell you all about it
in case you forgot
 |
| Comet Falls Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
great imaginative care has been taken
to make an astoundingly powerful
context
for her poem
of short
slow
lines
of
portent
Three for solo clarinet: Breathe - Jesse Canterbury, Bradley Hawkins
there are sets of pieces
that can be thought of
as
of a kind
and sets of pieces
that can be thought of
as
intercooperative parts
of a whole
Zither Film Mix 01 - Keith Eisenbrey [November 30, 2008]
sequential collapse into equilibrium
mountain to plain
points
below a curve toward a zero point
Pretending I'm Well - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 6, 2013]
coping mechanism
 |
| Comet Falls Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
Gradus 340 - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 1, 2018]
quite the crowds of notes
for these two rungs
but widely separated
at the start
we take them individually
or in twos and threes
what makes them
part of anything rung-like?
assertion
a rung (or any piece)
is a creature of assertion
the second rung begins
in a new figuration scheme
but
is it
necessary
to change gears each rung
or
do we do that more
for our immediate amusement?
Snohomish Piece IV: A Small Mammal Forages Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Blues - Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer, S. Eric Scribner [from Four]
I remember this show
as being lots of fun
a bit long
and a
long drive
in the dark
my page is obscured
by a large orange cat
 |
| Comet Falls, Mt. Rainier National Park |
the vowels of solfeggio
when sung to their pitches
gives each
chord
a unique
combined vowel sound
a completely different thing
than when
they all
sing the same
words
together
A Brown Bird Singing - Peggy Lee [from Sea Shells]
her vocal technique is flawless
the demonstration of which
may be
the point of this album
Here We Come A-wassailing [from The Life Christmas Treasury]
happy new year
You Make Me Feel- Aretha Franklin [from Lady Soul]
there is a specific pressure of pitch inflection
on the O vowel of woman
and A vowel of woman
such that
they match not with nothin'
5:15 - The Who [from Quadrophenia]
the keyboard writing offends me
the waste of a perfectly fine instrument
The Who
is a brand of manliness
out of brain
on a train
I would eat them
Sam I am
Fix Me - Black Flag [from The First Four Years]
defiant manliness posture
middle finger forward
 |
| Comet Falls Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
the crux of the matter
two equidistant pitches
but only
equidistant
at a certain logical abstraction
or
but only so
with a culturally twisted perception
(but there is no other kind)
equidistant
if and only if
we assert a cyclic binding of
pitches
across spectrum space
as deduced
from our propensity
to match pitches
pitch matching
is not only a relation
it is an activity
we
do
it
when do it we not
it is not done
I believe I spelled it A-sharp on the top
and E-natural 18 semitones
below {Yes!}
the extra octave between
places each note
into a clearly
differentiated resonance space
room within which to explore
I have no one to blame for this
than myself
 |
| Comet Falls, Mt. Rainier National Park |
in 1984
it's on the tape
and yet
a note can be so composed
as to come as a surprise
by means
of clever sequencing
the shape of the score
is a diagram of separation
one note
on a staff-bit
in the top left corner
and
the note on the left
is slurred (joined)
to an empty space
on the right
and
the note on the right
is slurred (joined)
from an empty space
on the left
round and round
like a weighted orb
an attempt
to narrow the mind's focus
upon the problem
of
pitch
and what we mean by it
I remember Ben commenting
that the order of the movements
didn't
matter
as long as this one was the last
and
that it was
important
to end on the A-sharp
do I agree
and why?
1st point:
yes
if "final"
is a metaphor
for our
experienced end points
this movement
has eschewed all extranea
in order to hear
a
bare distinction
properly
2nd point:
undecided
too much like rock paper scissors
with
just two positions
a literal either-or
may as well toss a coin
as triple think it
and yet
I lean toward the A-sharp end
on the upside
to signify
potential resolution
further
upward
better to end on the sharp four
than the tonic
(so
tired)
the tape ran out
on E
When the 2 is on the Mic - Audio Two [from What More Can I Say]
smooth
rhymes
with silky
rhymes about rhyming
rhyme brag
 |
| Comet Falls Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park |
His Voice as the Sound - Robert Shaw Festival Singers [from Amazing Grace]
for a spiritual culture
that prides itself
on beauty
balance
and good taste
Christ for President - Billy Bragg & Wilco [from Mermaid Avenue]
I doubt he would accept the post
prosperity bound?
misguided theology
One Two Three - Keith Eisenbrey [from Summer Songs/Winter Mix]
calisthenical
Give it 2 Me - Madonna [from Hard Candy]
for dancing on a packed floor
industrially designed social tool
Track 1 - Peterman [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 6, 2013]
recounting a life episode
to explain something
to an absent person
Blatty - Bret Hart [from Double Thud]
an acoustic instrument space
and an amplified instrument space
noninterreverberant
if one plays
what one knows
one is limited
to playing
as one knows
Stonefield - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [September 17, 2023]
disguised key or disclosed key
In Session at The Tintinabulary
December 28, 2025
Honiton - Keith Eisenbrey
December 29, 2025
Banned Rehearsal 1141 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt
January 2, 2026
Seedlings 4 - Peter Nelson-King
I'm not sure I'll get it much closer
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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