Playlist

Ecola State Park, Oregon

Preface

"And taking me by the right hand
she spoke to me thus:

'Oh Youth, linked with your mares to immortal charioteers
who have led you here to my home - Welcome.
Since it is by no means an inappropriate destiny that has sent you forth to travel this path
far from the wanderings of mortals
but a Right and Just one,
it is necessary for you to learn all things -
both the stable heart of well-rounded truth as well as the notions of mortals-
(and with these there is nothing at all to put your faith in)
nonetheless you shall study such matters also -
how the things that seem
(and these pervade everything)
                          must seem to be." 

Parmenides - from "The Poem of Parmenides" translated by Charles Stein in "Everything That Seems Must Seem To Be"

Texts

Recorded

July 1, 2023

Etude in A minor, Op. 10 #2 - Frédéric Chopin - Garrick Ohlsson

the staccato left hand
plays a hiding game
with its voice leading

Song 9 - Charles Ives - Kia Sams, Russ Warner

about a river
quite energetic

What Can A Poor Fellow Do? - Duke Ellington [from That Devilin' Tune]

composed to tickle your attention
events in regular places
and events in irregular places

Love For Sale - Erroll Garner [from Erroll Garner on Dial]

the steady beat
hits a patch
with some drag
but pulls out
never slows

Doodlin' - Ray Charles [from The Great Ray Charles]

a concertante arrangement
piano solo
set off
against the horns

Stairway to the Stars - Bill Evans Trio [from Moon Beams]

a chord can be voiced
with precise dynamics
and
a melody
with precise tones and weights

Blues for Mama - Nina Simone [from Sings The Blues]

one side of a conversation
questions and advice

Iceman - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]

a pretty nice song in the making
a bit woolly and slack as it finishes up

Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' - Michael Jackson [from Thriller]

lively beat
out of seats
onto feet
dance it up

Ecola Beach State Park, Oregon

July 2, 2023

Why I Oughta - The Young Fresh Fellows [from The Men Who Loved Music]

in their comic routine mode
because dudes just wanna have fun

Turkish Rondo - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - The Canadian Brass [from The Essential Canadian Brass]

the sort of piece Mozart wrote without thinking about it very hard
the fun here
is in hearing the brass tongue their way through the finger figures

Boundaries 4 - Jarrad Powell [from Natural Selection]

we pass by an object
approach another
the helicopter chop binds them

Cerebral Cortez - Ghidra [from The Sound of Speed]

what are
if there are
the atoms
of this musical experience
the set
of intentional gestures
intentional here
to explicitly include
any
pre- proto- sub- sur- ... (x-)
-conscious
gestures
there may be

Roses and Gold - Robin Jackson and the Caravan [from Dust Diaries]

a blues in conceit
but at a remove
I take that back
this is told
from within a we
a couple
bonfire
camp song
bring your own instrument
join in

Ecola Beach State Park, Oregon

Freaks Only - Red Ribbon [from Freaks Only]

hideously cruddy sound
crudely mixed
for perfection of image

Allez! Allez! - Steve Layton and Sound-In [from Miracles and Wonders]

layers of sound signals
each of which
presents its own generative intentions
to add to the intentions
of the layering

String Quartet in E minor, Op. 44 #2 - Felix Mendelssohn - The Emerson String Quartet]

1
plaint of yearning
idylling in daydream
best back to hard working
pull through in the end
for sure
diligent endeavor
a distinctly bourgeois virtue
here writ plain
I just now
idly
twisted my pen apart

2
games with the kiddos
a pity he softened that metrical modulation there
sanding what ought not to have been sanded
so
a feature of this music
is the care taken
to complete every thought
and move the ear
from one to the other
no non sequiturs for Felix

3
perturbations
in an ongoing pattern
measure out times into segments
a useful rhetorical tool
or
an insidious symptom
of received knowledge
thoroughly internalized

4
final preps underway
scurrying hands
has the guest list been completed
napkins all folded
plate all shiny
all the worries
the Mrs. Dalloway of composers
here they come! 

Ecola Beach State Park, Oregon

July 3, 2023

Lift Him Up That's All - Washington Phillips [from Goodbye Babylon]

gentle ragtime figures
on a dulcimer or zither of some kind

Never - Sarah Vaughan [from In A Romantic Mood]

arachnid torch song
as a warning

Baby You're A Rich Man - The Beatles [from Magical Mystery Tour]

the scribbly electric guitar interjections
are fun
(if that's electric guitar)

Twine - Elaine Barkin, Benjamin Boretz [from Open Space 12]

really pretty
almost sentimentally so
slow changing chords
a crumar
piano noodling
in the chords' corners
descend to a stranger room
found a bone to chew on
or knot to puzzle out
the volcano room has been reached
unsought
a lifeline thrown in the bass
transfer to treble hand
on tight narrow ledge
into the clear
chords transformed
all rejoice
having passed through
dance party at the roller rink
spinning twirls
colored lights

Ecola Beach State Park, Oregon

July 4, 2023

Nymphéa - Kaija Saariho - Cicada String Quartet

sliding through the woozy dream
of a vacant string quartet
the images spilled out on the floor
rediscorporate themselves
into a new sense entirely
of ghosts and gods
from the next room over
overheard 

||
making an orchestra
of a chamber ensemble
:
disindividualization

Rio De Tenampa - Los Lobos [from Kiko]

laid back
with horns
party song

English Rose - The Jam [from The Sound of The Jam]

there's a subtext or two
about imperialisms and jingoisms
this song came up diegetically
in a movie we saw recently 

Two-Part Invention - Gavin Borchert - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, October 13, 2007]

the parts are showing each other their places
(lovely piece Gavin
I had forgotten doing this)
their extensive grounds

Ecola Beach State Park, Oregon

Treacherous - Taylor Swift [from Red]

inflation of romanticized emotional meaning
of sexual surrender
soundtrack to a syrupy hot Hollywood kiss

Gradus 319 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 21, 2017]

Knight of the Lowest Bee
a noble bee the lowest bee
and all the bees between
a singly strung note
but
what is that sound
a bee?
(well, I'll be)
every bee is part Fis
(H)
Pauken in H
is classical tonality
(Bach Scarlatti Buxtehude)
merely a plausible pun
upon the image of ratio? 

if music can be understood mathematically
then mathematics can be understood musically 

there is a period of squeaky bench
among the playing of the bee
we pause
then we complicate the bee
with a distantly generative note
that lowest bee transformed
yet lower
partaking of the character
of a partial above
or
inaudibly
lower
generative note
and thus
partaking
of the unutterable lowness of it
in part

metaphor metaphor
what are you for
I pose this query
but I am a bore 

Bee and Cis
Cis and Bee
K I S S I N G

Ecola Beach State Park, Oregon

Scar (featuring Jessika Kenney) - Gamelan Pacifica [from Vessel]

two syllables
distinctly pronounced
phonemes
parts and spurts of a word
a word apart

Honky Tonk Train Blues - Meade 'Lux' Lewis [from Really The Blues]

Chattanooga choo choo rhythm
in its older suit of clothes
demonstration of cross rhythms
not for beginners

Seaside, Oregon

Body and Soul - Billie Holiday [from Songs for Distingué Lovers]

the title words come into the lyrics
throughout the side doors
sax solo must
and does
become completely itself
without messing with the mood
established
likewise
the trumpet piano duet

Respect - Aretha Franklin [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

just a just a just a just a little bit
taking another word apart
by the letters
literally literately

Guest - J. K. Randall, Mathew Rosenblum, Daniel Warner [from Inter/Play]

careful pitches watched over
crumar clarinet cymbals
music in c 

slippery around that stray beat
so  take care
lest you be seated suddenly 

how parts fit without plan
we hover
arrested
over a still point
then are elsewhere
might be
probably is
a sax
not a clarinet
oh well 

a clear bell out of the blue sky

Ecola Beach State Park, Oregon

July 5, 2023

The Gondoliers (selections) - Arthur Sullivan [from 100 Greatest Classics]

the musical portion of this
is for localizing color only
as though all the world
were a Victorian England
comedy of manners and patters

And We Hunted And We Hunted - Mike, Peggy, and Penny Seeger [from Animal Folk Songs for Children]

competitive leg pulls

Track 8 - The Humidiflyers [from The Humidiflyers 2002]

commentary
and Ian is happy to be alive
and flow downstream
live
at some party somewherewhen

Tax Lady - Smokestack and the Foothill Fury [from Kitchen Recordings]

more dynamic contrast
than the equipment can transparently handle

I Just Want To Be Alone - Prom Queen [from Covers]

introverts' doo-wop anthem

I Met A Girl - Alone in Dead Bars [recorded live at The Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 15, 2017]

a song reports a life episode

In The Dark - Star Anna [from Live at Rimbert Illustration]

the last syllable of the stanza
becomes a multisyllabic melodic extension
mostly on two alternating notes
but convincingly sung

Seaside, Oregon

Motherless Children - Blind Willie Johnson [from Really The Blues]

song to give information and advice
not far from
song for preaching

True Fine Momma (incomplete take) - Little Richard [from Here's Little Richard]

The Company You Keep - Dolly Parton [from Hello, Dolly]

social oppression
from within the family
lay on the guilt

Polovtsian Dances - Alexander Borodin [from 100 Greatest Classics]

high class entertainment
in the guise of a folk style
a sure sign of imperial ambitions
if not fact
folk art displayed
out of context
as a style
or stylistic elements
now in our collection

Race You Down The Mountain - Woody Guthrie and Friends [from Woody's 20 Grow Big Songs]

02 - Sleater-Kinney [from One Beat]

a sound
as a song might have
is a place to hide
armor to guard
war-paint
super-suit

Ecola Beach State Park, Oregon

July 6, 2023

("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...") - Benjamin Boretz - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, October 13, 2007]

scoping out the generating chart
is not musical understanding
it being merely the matrix
within which the composition unfolds
its only salient features
are those that emerge in the composing
as we hear it
in its listening
apparent continuity
interrupted at certain moments
by apparently aberrant
or
out-of-left-field moments
that push it
gently
elsewhereto

White Wolf Blood - Lovesick Empire

spirit quest
sending song

Banned Rehearsal 942 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 28, 2017]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 942 170828

breathing made audible
through the use of free reeds
breathing and bee
and butterfly
bumbling
steady state
in the way
a garden or meadow
is 

a meadow of
or from
or within
a collective
or collaborated mind

Aaronsbundlerish echoes

Of Now - Michael Bisio, Matthew Shipp [from The Flow of Everything]

moves along
as though in fast forward
frame rate
street scene
or several frame rates
interpolated
within yet another
come together

In Session at The Tintinabulary

July 3, 2023

Banned Rehearsal 1079 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1079 230703

We gathered on the patio called Anarcadia

Seaside, Oregon

July 4, 2023

2-Part Invention in A minor - Gavin Borchert

July 7, 2023

2-Part Invention in A minor (a different one) - Gavin Borchert

These make lovely little clavichord pieces
with which to find
just that tempo
and just that phrasing

Postscripts

Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery

listening journal doodles from 1999

Playlist

Preface

"'At it they went, tooth and nail. Such a precious loud hymn, Sammy, while the tea was a brewing; such a grace, such eatin' and drinkin'! I wish you would ha' seen the shepherd walking into the ham and muffins. I never see such a chap to eat and drink -- never. The red-nosed man warn't by no means the sort o' person you'd like to grub by contract, but he was nothin' to the shepherd. Well, arter the tea was over, they sang another hymn, and then the shepherd began to preach: and wery well he did it, considerin' how heavy them muffins must have lied on his chest. Presently he pulls up all of a sudden, and hollers out, "Where is the sinner; where is the mis'rable sinner?" upon which, all the women looked at me, and began to groan as if they was dying. I thought it was rather sing'ler, but hows'ever I says nothing. Presently he pulls up again, and looking wery hard at me, says "Where is the sinner; where is the mis'rable sinner?" and all the women groans again, ten times louder than afore. I got rather wild at this, so I takes a step or two for'ard and says, "My friend," says I, "did you apply that 'ere obserwation to me?" 'Stead of begging my pardon as any gen'lm'n would ha' done, he got more abusive than ever: called me a wessel, Sammy -- a wessel of wrath -- and all sorts o' names. So my blood being reg'larly up, I first gave him two or three for himself, and then two or three more to hand over to the man with the red nose, and walked off. I wish you could ha' heard how the women screamed, Sammy, ven they picked up the shepherd from under the table.'"

Charles Dickens - from "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club"

Texts

Recorded

April 15, 2023

Fantasia, Fvb. 261 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

a leap in the melody starts a new voice
modulations to a new pitch set by former means and their implications
diatonic degree functions overlap like scales

Médée, Act III - Luigi Cherubini - Opera Quotannis, Bart Folse, Phyllis Treigle, Carl Halvorson, D'Anna Fortunato, David Arnold, Thaïs St. Julien, Jayne West, Andrea Matthews, John Ostendorf, Brewer Chamber Orchestra, Chorus Quotannis

chorus with haranguer
baritone and soprano almost have a moment
but the haranguer bursts in
a dramatic music under the harangue
chorus returns all chipper and refreshed
gets harangued out
now it's dark
shadows take the stage
timpani is an important character
a melody can do nearly anything
so long as it comes to a cadence eventually

Mazurka in A-flat Major, Op. 7 #4 - Frédéric Chopin - Garrick Ohlsson

a comic tale told in dance

Herzlich tut mich verlangen, Op. 122 #9/B. 50 #4 - Johannes Brahms, Ferruccio Busoni - Wolf Harden

melodies clash like beasts in battle

Deep Elm - Willard Robison [from Turn Me Loose White Man]

radio-ready voice
witty piano playing
nice touch on the keys

Trio - Erroll Garner [from Erroll Garner on Dial]

only those notes that make it happen
no others
this is a live version
almost unhinged

Now It Can Be Told - Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan [from The Irving Berlin Songbook]

they each vibrato differently
Billy's is either on or off
Sarah feathers it in
when she likes

Kissin' By The Mistletoe - Aretha Franklin  [from The Electrifying Aretha Franklin]

hey Karen! it's our song!
hilarious back up singers
kiss! kiss! kiss! kiss! kiss!

Since I Fell For You - Nina Simone [from Sings The Blues]

a tale of woe in twisted lines

Judgment of the Moon and Stars - Joni Mitchell [from For The Roses]

her long lines turn corners
yikes
where did the band come from?
was that a synth?

I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (Live at The Roxy) - Ramones [from Leave Home]

this song is very nearly a bare structure
a schematic

Deep Purple - Screamin' Jay Hawkins [from Frenzy]

in command of his voice and the song
throughout

April 16, 2023

Horn Concerto #4, 3rd Movement, Rondo - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart [from 100 Greatest Classics]

for
if Schikeneder-Papageno played horn

I Wish I Were Blind - Bruce Springsteen [from Human Touch]

his melody wanders around some
could use some tightening up

V-2 Schneider (TAO Jones Index) - David Bowie [from Earthling]

carefully insinuating the beat into the mix
as though it was not predetermined and pre-existing
I'm guessing he was working with others on re-imagined version of his catalogue

Cubist Zirconium - Dubious Duo [from Children of Siberia]

pointed
a single focus then
||break||
release pressure
adjust switches
add parts
fasten securely enough
whistle while working
almost there
file this bit down
release pressure
apply heat
put away the tools
ratchet in the thingum
do the dance
chant the chant there

Anton and Louis - Tom Baker Quartet [from Look What I Found]

gets hot in the first mid stretch (Jesse)
peaces out in the next (Tom and Brian)
(Greg's always there)
(in several persons)
begins exploring
book end block

Flourish for Jim - Keith Eisenbrey [November 24, 2011]

Keith Eisenbrey · Flourish for Jim

Uncle Jim played horn
so I wrote a horn flourish in his memory

Always Bet on Clark - Dead Bars [from Dream Gig]

dreaming about how life
might
could
go
if it did
but
it only might have
did

Banned Telepath 95 Toad Hall - Aaron Keyt [December 20, 2022]

an electronically enhanced plunker
brilliantly synthesized compositionally
right on the money
for its social purpose
of being a telepath
to be combined with its fellow(s)
but
to also
always
still be its only self as well
playful
patient
goofy ma non troppo
each eruption wakes the gulls
who exit en masse stage deep
follow your thoughts
if you don't
no one else will
notes thrown out at the time drum
they scatter as they may
disciplined oversight

April 17, 2023

The Duchesse of Brunswicke's Toye, Fvb. 262 - John Bull - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

a period can be extended
from within
by any voice

Train 45 - Grayson and Whitter [from Really The Blues]

from Atlanta Georgie
wee hoo
she blows
she'll never blow no more

Out of Nowhere - Charlie Parker [from That Devilin' Tune]

in a slow meter
room to breathe all over the place

Rouge - Miles Davis [from Birth of the Cool]

tooling down the street
feeling good

First of all . . .I didn't do a thing here - The Beatles [from Anthology Volume 1]

seven seconds of Paul saying something about Tony Sheridan

Once I Loved (O Amor en Paz) - Morgana King [from Gemini Changes]

melody shapes underline the text's rhetorical structure
make it possible to sing it and say it
finishes with her high register floating around in the fade out

Key to the Highway - Neal Patman, Bill Giles [from The Art of Field Recording, Volume 1]

blues adjacent
blowing town (maybe)
not rounded off for commercial use

International Lover - Prince [from 1999]

start high
descend slowly by step
sweep back up by leap
a few stray turbulents
(one turbulent, many turbulents)
along the way

Banned Rehearsal 126 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [December 26, 1987]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 126 871226

improvisation is a means of composing what could be transcribed
but
of which the prior contrivance seems unlikely or unnecessary
a strict method of getting it right the first time
rehearsal is nugatory
discovery essential
a field
in which second guessing is dis-optioned
we have rigged up some sort of amplification
giant jaw harp
a monster has arisen from the deep tape world
attempting to back mask on the fly
succeeding only in awaking the monster
back when the reel to reel
had not been relegated to nightstand
I aver
out loud
that I will attempt to construct a tape loop
Aaron repeats
tape loop
we'll see how this might work
but might not
this loops back

tay ploo
ptay ploo 

the pen holds the looping end
no sound is heard
once again I have managed to vanquish sound by technological means
no seating once it starts
there is now some sound
but will it loop
our very first
you're hearing it now
isn't this amazing
no back masking for Banned Rehearsal
we'll try the Möbius tape loop strip 

does anybody really want to see Möbius strip 

Aaron is out of breath in the excitement of the moment
wrapping tape about his head
he jams up the tape machine
we have a margin of success 

Keith's rule:
the more splices the more fun 

Aaron provides play by play commentary
are we twisted
yes we are twisted
intersplicing
recombinant audio tape generation
the accordion unfolds
to make a flag of Switzerland
choppy little teeth
from the new bag of toys
the cat is thought to be in a bad place
racing against the clock
Keith attempts to master 1950s technology
yes folks
that's incredible
ably assisted by Amnehitabel
OK
it's a loop again
is it terminally twisted
multiply Möbiusized
for every tape loop
there is another side
the joys of a physical medium

Little Brown Dog - Mike, Peggy, and Penny Seeger [from Animal Folk Songs for Children]

a series of nonsense lies
sing tad-low-day

Primer Amor Interlude/Infatuation - Christina Aguilera [from Stripped]

post interlude we have achieved title
there it is again
ornate vocalisms
building its taut waves
up to the title
for the third time
interesting finish
like somebody pulled her plug

Lids Film Layer 5 - Keith Eisenbrey [July 1, 2007]

the pulses trip along too quickly to count
and even more
they move too quickly to organize into simultaneities
too fast to count the telephone poles
or hops rows
this music doesn't surveil like Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians"
it is a surface across which we travel
rattling our back teeth
a woody tapping sound has arisen out of the process
like a fretless xylophone
waves of bursts pass through
a constant texture that varies like snowflakes
the whopping of broken bus tire chains
this has
is rattling right along

April 18, 2023

Wir waren das flammenden Rad um ihn - Steve Layton, Roger Sundström, Günter Gläser, Peter Thörn [from Summer Mirages]

singing table saw tone
shop class choir
there may be elder spirits involved
approach carefully

'68 Chevelle - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 21, 2017]

pick this up
and live in someone else's vicarious past
I still don't figure how that '69 Chevelle got in there

Solo 2 - Sascia Pellegrini [from 7 Percussion Impossibilities]

marimba
and perhaps a more metallic sounding set of pitched bars

A Toye, Fvb. 263 - Traditional - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

is a simple enough device to amuse us

Leather Breeches - Earl Johnson & His Clodhoppers [from Turn Me Loose White Man]

it seems like I would have pronounced and spelled it britches
hard to tell what the vocalist sings
it goes by so fast
certainly not a long E
but second time around
more clearly
britches
fiddle banjo guitar

Let's Call The Whole Thing Off - Billie Holiday [from Songs for Distingué Lovers]

linguistic usage as social marker
who's who where
better call the calling off off

Lost Indian - Dallas Henderson [from The Art of Field Recording, Volume 1]

banjo picking figure
gentle and sweet on the high partials

In A Sentimental Mood - Bill Evans [from California Here I Come]

keeping the beat by playing everything but

It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) - Bob Dylan [from Before The Flood]

lines full of quick words
the end of each is accented
in the same rhythm
in the same descending
neener taunt interval

Symphony No. 9 in D minor "Coral" (sic) (Last Movement, Excerpt) - Ludwig van Beethoven [from 100 Greatest Classics]

just everybody's favorite coral tune
at least they're singing auf Deutsch
how do the little critters hold their bows?

Sospiri - Edward Elgar - English Symphony Orchestra, Brian Boughton [from Meditations for a Quiet Night]

peaceful in a secluded place

Boundaries 2 - Jarrad Powell [from Natural Selection]

believable as the sound of an object
electric vehicles should sound so good
but the suits would never go for it

über - An Auf [from An Auf]

a room of active but unchanging impulses

Hey Yesterday (Rough Mix) - Your Mother Should Know [December 2, 2012]

with added tam tam track
because there it hangs

On Comes The Night - The Maldives [from Mad Lives]

sound-track vibe to it

Banned Rehearsal 1066 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [December 20, 2022}

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1066 221219 - 20

we do our Christmas Tree
while Aaron marks our time
so that
we sound like we are getting game items
do virtual trees drop their needles?
the synth sounds occupy a similar space
in relation to the tree activity
as
the occasional guitar and tambourine sounds
but
not the same space as each other
quite

April 19, 2023

Corranto, Fvb. 264 - Traditional - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

ends with a rolled chord
that follows
what tracks
as the end of the piece
this may be
in the printed score
a calligraphic flourish
not so much intended to be played out loud
but
it does
effectively
if played
say
the end
I'm done

A Good Man Is Hard To Find - Eddie Green [from Really The Blues]

a statement is made
it is elaborated
then followed by a kicker line
to rinse repeat
do a hurry up when the man isn't looking

Happy New Year - Judy Garland [from Alone]

in the days of the studio choir and orchestra
sip a glass of lonely wine

One Saturday Night When I Come Home - Dr. David Rosenbaum [from The Art of Field Recording]

learned that in 1920 or '22 in Patterson, New Jersey

O Tannenbaum - The Philadelphia Brass Ensemble [from Festival of Carols in Brass]

or O Tom The Toad 
as middle school brass players know it

The Little Fish Devours The Big Fish - Allen Ginsberg [from Holy Soul Jelly Roll]

the beat poet takes on a beat of a different kind
it might make what he is doing marginally more audible
to a larger public
unaccustomed to listening to naked words

Banned Rehearsal 127 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [December 28, 1987]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 127 871228

pan pipe play
ocarina
recorder
to finish out the year past
momentous
we blow et al
enjoy straight tone interference

there is a theory afoot
(Hindemith promulgated it among others)
that straight tones (sin waves)
are not musical
this is a base falsehood
one could counter
that all sound
and hence all musical sound
arguing from Fourier
is straight sin tones
but
this is also false
in that
it does not necessarily imply
that all musical sounds
as musical sounds
are so generated
the more (stronger) proper counter-argument
is that music is not actually necessarily based on sounds
but
on the social use of the experience under consideration
such as:
my assertion
that the indigenous visual art of Australia
that once hung on the walls of the Seattle Art Museum
was the loudest music I had heard
in this city
to that date
straight tones are simply blatant
but not not musical

we finish the year with a blow out
across and through
we divvy our blowing across our fipples

side question
are synthesizers deficient
in that
there are no extended techniques that could be applied
or
only
in that
those techniques would not engage
the same sounding object (the electronic innards)
that standard techniques do
the sound
for example of a burning synthesizer
would be underwhelming
I presume
and smashing the synthesizer
like a Who Guitar
is just more amplified sound
the instrument
in this case
being
not really the synthesizer
as such
but the speaker it activates

and so we fipple out the last few days of 1987
for all and sundry
dissembled 

behind all of which
a gritty cassette tape hum substrate
the sound of our gloriously imperfect medium
("noise reduction? who wants noise reduction?")
we had discipline back then
to stick with our chosen fipples
or pans
all of which are subtly echoed
by that ghost sound effect
that magnetic tape acquires
from long adjacency on the reel
from the imprinting of signal
made by one layer of rolled tape
upon its adjacent layers
a rich lode
happy is the music that brings to mind all music else

Wicked Rain - Los Lobos [from Kiko]

production trope
weirdness morphing into a beat
wherein the song is the song

what is a song
in the current cultural environs
a poem
sung/spoken/rapped
over a rhythm and pitch structure
that tracks
or amplifies
the rhetoric of the poem

To Be Someone (Didn't We Have a Nice Time) - The Jam [from The Sound of The Jam]

production trope
first establish or assert a rhythm/pitch structure
over which the poem is to extend
as sung/spoken/rapped
we hear
accents
vocabulary
locutions
obsessions

Lids Film Layers 5, 4, 3, 2 & 1 - Keith Eisenbrey [July 1, 2007]

starts with a clang!!
chugs through the underground stations passed by
we don't stop
the through track is ours
we own it
there went Yonkers
up there in the daylight somewhere
the long bell is measured
in multiply pulsed frames
conjointly un-interpretable pulse sequences
the ideal of simultaneity
or sequentiality
beggared beyond repair 

ecstasy is not an emotion
it is a mode of being
grasp the immediate
where are we gotten to be
now what passes overhead
pretending stillness
Europe of marching feet
alarums dissipate to the rear
Tibet of troubled calm
we go by so fast
that the flow of time decouples into rational portions
it will fritter away
into the calculational noise remainder
a whimper
"June 16 2007 just me playing some bells"

April 20, 2023

Hear My - Song Sparrow Research [from Song Sparrow Research]

opening vocal figure
in regular pulse
of single tones
in descending leaps
takes its time climbing back up
guitar figure
high notes on every off beat

I'll See You At The Next Show - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 21, 2017]

there may even have been one more show after this one
to see him at

Devil In Me - Emily Stranger [from Labor of Love]

controlled suppression
contrasted with
controlled dis-suppression
bad girl bragging

Corranto "Lady Riche", Fvb. 265 - Traditional - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

3 + 1 + 2 rhythm
any segment or item of which can be ornamented or repeated or cycled
so that
it resolves into a sum of 6 or a multiple
eventually
in any voice
independently

Mr. Johnson Turn Me Loose - The South Georgia Highballers [from Turn Me Loose White Man]

singing saw
theremin-ifying
behind fiddle and guitar
whoop it on down

Last Night When We Were Young - Peggy Lee [from Dream Street]

did ever song descend so slowly
with such control
when Peggy owns a song
it stays owned

Brickyard Joe - John W. Summers [from The Art of Field Recording, Volume 1]

fiddle figures
reckless on the open strings

Blindman - Big Brother and The Holding Company [from Big Brother & The Holding Company]

folk song
short type
one line is all that came down to us
inflated out
to fit its amplified performance practice
goes away before it comes to anything

Ball and Chain - XTC [from Fossil Fuel]

referring to demolition tools
rather than
implements of control over people
or Addamsian erotic toys 

with synthesizers
one could make such scrubbed up sound

Intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana" - Pietro Mascagni [from 100 Greatest Classics]

in a broad meter that revels
to spread out over the countryside
redolent in the product of the soil

It's Like That - Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth [from Mecca and The Soul Brother]

no time to savor any single rhyme item
moving on
long strings of lines in each stanza
aiming at the stanzaic end-rhyme
it's like that 

Track 6 - The Humidiflyers [from The Humidiflyers 2002]

a vocal harmony thingum moves up a step

Mississippi Sock Eater - Ghidra [from The Sound of Speed]

it's going to be a rough landing folks
buckle up
secure your belongings
time has slowed
as eternity approaches
back now to our regularly scheduled emergency ditching

In Session at The Tintinabulary

April 16, 2023

Sinfonia 1 230329 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey

I made another recording on clavichord, but on top of not keeping the tempo as plausibly regular as I would like I made a few changes to the score a few days later.

April 20, 2023

Sinfonia 1 230420 - Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · 01 Sinfonia 1 230420 [230420]

Here is the midi realization of the current version.

Postscripts

Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery

some listening journal doodles from 1993 

Playlist

Karen at the Barrytown Post Office, October 1987

Preface

"Chug Chug (Mailman Duck): Moomph
Montgomery Q. Frogbottom (Congersman Frog, Jumphrey): Just the man we want to see!
Fenster Moop: Hey! Mailman!
CC: What's up?
MQF: We want you to deliver a letter to the bats . . .
CC: Okay, that'll require you to purchase the use of a stamp . . . gotta fill out form P.O. Tooty-Frooty Sugar Foot . . . Who's this from?
MQF: The Eternal Revenue Service
CC: The Eternal Revenue Service? Ain't that a slip of the tongue?
MQF: Oh . . . not as much as you might think . . .
CC: Well, you want to send this letter, you gotta get up five cents. . .
MQF: Five cents!? You think us congersmen is made of money?
FM: Ain't made without it, boss
CC: Want me to read the new regulations? 'If, in the course of human events, it becomes . . .'
MQF: Nevermine! Whoo! Five cents!
CC: You mean to tell me that neither rain nor slog nor monstrous dark, neither sleet nor doom nor nightmare is gonna stop me . . . but you're too cheap to get up a nickel for the trip?
MQF: Hah!
CC: The goin' price is a jitney . . . get it up!
MQF: What dolt-knob voted in this new rate?
FM: You did"

Walt Kelley - from "Hijinks from the Horn of Plenty, The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Volume 8"

Texts

Recorded

February 18, 2023

Floating Butterfly/Wings on Fire - Ghidra [from The Sound of Speed]

blowing life into increasing pressure
lock it tight

Banned Rehearsal 823 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 22, 2012]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 823 121022

each working on a different part
colony of doing doers
never whole
delicate work
microlayers
low brass lip flutter
ball rolling in a drum head texture

Cemetery at Barrytown, New York - October 1987

analysis
sounds exist as states of rotation
center anywhere
circumference subject to transformation
observed from within
even the smallest sound is presumed to exist
within the whole of its audibility space
we say
the sound is over there
meaning
the object creating the sound is over there
but the sound we hear
travels with us
music capitalizes on ear-mind's ability
to construct an aural image
of our environment
not just ability
essential propensity
or
that's what ear-mind is
that is
our apparatus of audible-world construction
imagination
composition
and?
number-mind?
and?
word-mind?

Lullablaze - Antonioni [from Lullablaze]

felt everywhere
enveloping
swaddlesome
world as the condition of being within

Banned Rehearsal 1063 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [November 7, 2022]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1063 221107

space transpires in time
breathes across just in time
the singular point in time
that now is
is inconceivable
conceiving
is a process
moments in time
can't be observed
for the same reason
approaching limits by calculus

snare drum
prepared drum
spring pulled taut against a drumhead
to be audible in battle 

the nick of time
kairos or chronos
avoiding event collisions
can two events within kairos exist simultaneously
or is the nick of time
the necessary gap

chronos the time keeper
kairos the time being 

February 19, 2023

Loth to Depart, Fvb. 230 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

short phrases of like length
but of unlike size and shape
poetic lines
music as an image of a poem

Sonata in A Major, Kk. 221 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

hops on steps
the figuration is more devious than you are

String Quartet in F Major, Op. 50 #5 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Tatrai Quartet

the first cello note is a problem
constructing music as an experience
of music constructing its house
room by room
it is important that each subsequent moment
be immediately perceived
as flowing from something prior to it
a repeated figure as accompaniment will serve nicely
especially if one is as playful with it as Papa Haydn

Sonata in C minor, Op. 111 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Paul Badura-Skoda

this is not a house I would want to spend the night in

the effect of performance on forte-piano
it is no longer a sonata played on a piano
but
becomes this instrument
through which
this crazy shit
is performed
this instrument
makes this music conceivable

one is caught in each variation
for a kind of forever

Variations in B-flat, on ‘Là ci darem la mano’ from Mozart’s Don Giovanni - Frédéric Chopin - Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Kazimierz Kord, Garrick Ohlsson

ravishing
don't let the filigree fool you
this kid is really getting somewhere
deep into that theme
and we finally have the theme entire
whew! 

he transforms that happy little tune
into a funeral march
among other things
with who knows what end in mind 

my new all-time favorite piano concerto
grand-sire to the Busoni

Dew Drop Alley - Sugar Underwood [from That Devilin' Tune]

silent movie chase scene
cranked up fast 

this guy is the whole carnival
all the acts
all the time

John's Idea - Count Basie [from Turn Me Loose White Man]

those two high pitches and how they figure in the next figure
orchestra does a collective
WwooooowW
across the stage

February 20, 2023

This Is Always - Erroll Garner [from Erroll Garner on Dial]

that voice
and this
song and the microphone
a match made in  heaven

Oh, Why? - Little Richard [from Here's Little Richard]

grim situation hiding in danceable blues

Shimmy Shake - The Beatles [from First Live Recordings Volume 2]

if the band on stage is having a blast
everyone else in the bar must be also

I Can See For Miles - The Who [from The Who Sell Out]

presumably what he sees is a girl cheating on him
jealous guy trope
tiresome
using his mesmer gaze
incessant stare
the mock commercials are sophomoric

A Brand New Me - Aretha Franklin [from Young, Gifted, and Black]

stage arrangement
backup singers
strings
horns
keys
guitar(s?)
bass and drums 

nice ivory tickling

Weeping Wall - David Bowie [from Low]

one of his tone poems
in minimalist lite 

explicitly
a connection
because minimalism is both a comment upon industrial production
and a champion of it

Something in the Water (Does Not Compute) - Prince [from 1999]

the stage for this act
is the attention of Mr. Prince
you are immersed
submerged
lost in another head 

quite a number he pulls on you

Assembly Rechoired 39 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Gary Mosca [October 16, 1987]

Keith Eisenbrey · Assembly Rechoired 39 871016

fact:
we listen habitually
for instance
it is my habit
to listen to music while seated on a meditation cushion or a chair
in the middle of the room
equidistant from the speakers
while holding this journal on my knees or lap
and writing in it with a pen 

a chosen habit
is still a habit
my habit
in the case at hand
was chosen
to optimize a certain set of desires I have
vis-à-vis music
if I can get a clear enough image of what might be there to be heard down on paper
then the experience is made to some extent retrievable
from having been journaled
I find it personally useful
to copy the journal up to my blog
as it affords me a retrieval of my experience
to the extent the journaling affords or hints at
it also provides me with an opportunity to think about my thoughts
tease out my obsessions
argue with myself
and occasionally say something worth saying
this is why it is useful to me 

I have to wonder
whether any one else finds it useful to them
and if so how?
it would necessarily be in an altogether different way than mine

this is quite a lovely session 

which is a way of asking
what the use of my habitual listening might be for anyone but me?
hm. 

possibilities:
provides access to another person's thinking
to the extent afforded by the process
not that it's being mine specifically that makes it interesting
but
that any access to the thoughts of any other
is surely the essence of communication? 

any composition serves a similar set of purposes
the composer's purposes
(generative)
and the listener's purposes

and a group improvisation such as this one
serves the internal purposes of its participants
well or ill
and the listener is allowed access
to a synthetic mind's thoughts
synthetic thoughts
created virtually by the listener
in order to take the sound in
as a cohering whole
which we do
as listeners
habitually
perhaps
even
reflexively
as part of the ear-mind's process of constructing auditory reality
hard-wired or part of the machine code
retrievable states
thoughts in public 

hoot hoot hoot 

there is some really pretty playing back there, Gary!
am liking it 

after Prince's suffocating persona
it is quite refreshing to have this sound with me
just sitting down like folks

Zarathustra Fanfare - Richard Strauss - The Canadian Brass [from The Essential Canadian Brass]

they used a timpani for the timpani part

Track 9 [from Eisenbrey 2002]

a private recording of groups at a chamber music camp my Mom participated in back in 2002. Schumann I think one of those scribbly muscular piano quart or quintets

Gradus 121 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [June 11, 2007]

triple A
what does it mean to know what to expect?
or to be  told what to expect?
what is the intent of the teller of what to expect?
what is the intent of knowing what to expect?
why do that?
because adolescence is hard enough without going it alone
the conscious activity of teaching
is education
the conscious activity of responding critically
is learning
just waiting here for some new piece of brilliance to pop into my head
waiting for the stars to align
I know what I expect I will hear
will I hear what I know I expected to hear?
perforce?
knowledge and expectation operate in separate states
but in intersecting geometries

February 21, 2023

Easy Money - Bruce Springsteen [from Wrecking Ball]

shooting at a Cecelia vibe
and aiming too big

Huge Guy In The Mosh Pit - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 15, 2017]

another St. Rage cover
that is
one of Karen's songs from her novel "The Gospel According to St. Rage"

We Meet Ourselves In Every Moment - Steve Layton and Sound-In [from Miracles and Wonders]

how best to sit in this chair?

Fantasia, Fvb. 231 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

the instructive opening
simple presentation of the matter and the method
is its tonal world invisible to it
or was there other music
not learned
not written down
that all the trappings were needed
to distance this
from that unwashed?

Standing On The Promises - Tennessee Mountaineers [from Goodbye, Babylon]

perfect blend of voices
each remaining distinct
especially that soprano
cutting through the sound
without shyness or refinement
a discovered blend

Golden Gate Gospel Train - Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet [from Goodbye, Babylon]

these guys are deep into the train sounds
also doing a pretty nice vocal imitation of a mouth harp imitating a train whistle
the rhythm of a train in 19th and 20th Century America
served as a unifying force
everybody understood it viscerally

Marmaduke - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy and Dial Master Takes]

chart:
the chord-cycles and a plan of who when

Lament - Miles Davis [from Miles Ahead]

in a small place

A Dying Man's Plea - The Staple Singers [from Hammer and Nails]

downright Dickensian setup
dig my grave with a silver spade
Dylan recording this song under another name in the same year

Turn Me On - Nina Simone [from Silk & Soul]

cultural trope
the singular person (uncoupled) is incomplete
especially if they are a woman

Lesson in Survival - Joni Mitchell [from For The Roses]

a chatty letter

Fragile - Wire [from Pink Flag]

count of feet
length of line

The Have Nots - X [from Under the Big Black Sun]

text with a fashion component
dressed up to be part of the bar denizenry

Beer Money - The Young Fresh Fellows [from Refreshments]

to their eternal credit
the Fellows never took themselves all that seriously

I Can Explain Everything - T. Bone Burnett [from The Criminal Under My Own Hat]

the performances of all concerned
are exactly good enough
certainly no better than they were allowed

Work / Architecture / Unity / And / The (take 2) - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded at Jack Straw Productions December 2, 2002]

a false start
then the whole
one of the lessons this piece gave me
is to stop at each moment in the process
and ask whether its current state is better or stranger than the original idea
is there a reason to persist toward a goal
which
if reached
may not work as well as what you've got
in this case
I had composed these short music bits
with the idea that they would be like crags come upon in a fog
and then spent a lot of energy and time trying to get the fog to work
in the end the fog
as such
is inherent or latent in how the bits relate to each other
any literalist realization would be necessarily weaker
than the latent image

February 22, 2023

Fallen So Hard - Smokestack and The Foothill Fury [from Kitchen Recordings]

ornery blues

Rocks and Glass / Love Blackmail - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The Sound Effects Café, October 26, 2012]

adjustments are made to the sound
rumor has it that Your Mother Should Know was the last band ever to play at the Sound Effects
not long later the building was demolished

Lady Lazarus - Greg Sinibaldi [from Ariel]

the complex sound of the EWI doesn't obscure the clarity of the melodic thinking

Sinfonia 1 (2022 midi version) - Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · Sinfonia 1 221107

the first version stems from 2021
this is the second
and I have been hard at work
continuing to revise
trying to make all of its parts
parts of the same piece
and zapping anomalies
I should have a new version to share shortly

Fantasia, Fvb. 232 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

a fixed set of moves as in Tai Chi?
for graceful liberation and thorough elaboration

Bamalong Blues - Andrew Baxter, Jim Baxter [from Really The Blues]

ain't gonna be in the Second 'Bama long
a story is told
but its burden is obscure
fiddle and guitar in mule cart tempo

St. Louis Blues - Django Reinhardt [from That Devilin' Tune]

recompose the song and recompose the essential commentary

Words Can't Describe - Sarah Vaughan [from Swingin' Easy]

the melody starts with some stuff up high and a dip down twice
then some serious work
to set up the even higher register lift later
by the end every cranny of her vocal range
has a multitude of histories crisscrossed

I Looked At You - The Doors [from The Doors]

preliminaries accomplished
plays with the rhetoric of anticipation to add an unexpected coda

You Got To Know - Bonnie Raitt [from Give It Up]

Wife of Bath sass

Babysitter - Ramones [from Leave Home]

the fantasy of playing house while the borrowed kids are asleep

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band [from Before The Flood]

fond remeniscence of the confederacy
yup
and everybody cheers

Assembly Rechoired 40 - Tildy Bayar, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Gary Mosca, Markus Olin-Fahle [October 16, 1987]

Keith Eisenbrey · Assembly Rechoired 40 871016

a room with instruments in it
a piano
a violin
an upright bass
a flute or ocarina
a thumb piano
more 

boats at moorage having a nighttime séance
boats of different sizes and provenance
floating together
at dock
beneath their keels
barnacles
crabs
mussels
bullhead
flounder
perhaps a dogfish or an octopus
the keels know
what the masts do not
spin a yarn of ebb and flow
mountainous seas and viscious blow
quiet now so tell it slow

the birds all sleep
the rats
creep

February 23, 2023

Little Dog Named Right - Mike Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Penny Seeger [from Animal Folk Songs for Children]

a guitar figure and a tight wad of melody in verses
harmony vocal to mark the chorus
and add the melody to the guitar figure for variety
all wrapped up tight like a nursery rhyme
it isn't that it can't be unpacked
but that unpacking would vanish it

Love That Man - Whitney Houston [from Just Whitney]

distinctions:
the various manners:
of vocal delivery
of song structure arrangement (verse chorus bridge)
of rhythm (grooves)
of orchestration
of relations between vocal and instrumental
or solo and others (call response / blues commentary)
of cyclic harmonies (chord content and order)

Lids Film Raw Footage - Keith Eisenbrey [June 16, 2007]

first step:
collect some sounds
12+ minute sampling of bells in the studio for later manipulation
ring each one until silent then move to the next
bells because they have pitch but also a complex timbral envelope

Song One - Curtains For You [recorded live at The High Dive, Seattle, April 6, 2012]

attractive at any moment
but wanders after awhile
uncertain what it might do next
or how to wind it up

Regular - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 15, 2017]

analysis may be instructive
as to what
(in this)
exactly? 

not pitch structure
which is narrow, constrained
not rhythmic structure
which is merely repetitive

what part of this
if any
transforms any other part
or
is it designed to fit into a ready-made slot?

Tsuki - Gamelan Pacifica, Jessica Kenney [from Vessel]

the bed of gong's bongs
bend the vocal's timbre's tunings 

still image of flickering liquid light
each new beginning a door

Fantasia "Ay Me, Poore Heart", Fvb. 233 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

we love to hear our favorite songs in new guise

G Rag - Georgia Yellow Hammers [from Turn Me Loose White Man]

functional music for social dancing
with calls and all
strum and scrape
the music is not the show the occasion is

Hornful Soul - Ray Charles [from The Great Ray Charles]

that any of the manners listed above
is capable of great sophistication
is beyond question
but
how often are they treated that way
imaginatively?
here
the entire focus is on the bankable star
the interaction among the players is there
but downplayed

I'm Dying Mother - Bert Hare [from The Art of Field Recording Volume 1]

porch music
its function is the enjoyment of the players and neighbors

I Hadn't Anyone 'Til You - Thelonious Monk [from Standards]

gets going and doesn't
then we find we have been got going
when we're long along

Fly Around My Blue Eyed Gal - Lawrence Eller, Vaughn Eller [from The Art of Field Recording Volume 1]

vocal and jaw harp
a bit of foot tapping

Why Did I Fall For That - The Who [from It's Hard]

a tired song
trying hard
trapped by the past
befuddled by the future

Reyzele - Itzhak Perlman [from Tradition]

orchestra musicians are trained to disappear behind exact competence
so that a soloist can personalitize
which Perlman certainly knows how to do

Corral Nocturne (Rodeo) - Aaron Copland - English Symphony Orchestra, William Boughton [from Meditations for a Quiet Night]

the horses and herd may safely sleep
under the watchful eye of Boulanger approved voice leading

Work / Architecture / Unity / And / The (retakes) - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded at Jack Straw Productions, December 2, 2002]

a bunch of retries of one of the bits
called the second crag
listening back
many are just fine
not sure why I kept at it
usually it's because a note or two didn't speak
ppp staccato fast is tricky for me

February 24, 2024

She Married the Earth - Peter Fedofsky [from The City of Good Neighbors]

song setting
choosing the paper
font
line length
stanza format
the weight of how songs go
drags upon invention

Mannin' the Lab - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The Sound Effects Café, October 26, 2012]

short
but could be even more pointed

WWI - Shallow Lenses [from War Poems]

produced to stage amplitude
dynamic size
spotlight acoustic
to light show tutti

4 Pieces - Gavin Borchert [from Seattle Composer Pianists, recorded live at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, November 17, 2022]

Prelude in F-sharp Major (2002)

descent on a long thin wire

Two-Part Invention in F minor (2020)

tether
weightless unspooling
capsule receding 

Text-piece (1996) 

as the meadow reappears in light
near is here
then gone
then again
or another
nearer music
shoves in front

Two-Part Invention in C Major (2020)

a rhyming epigram without words

In Session at the Tintinabulary

February 20, 2023

Gradus 377 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

a multitude
pitch-class transgenders pitch-space categorically
if we tilt the gender field
will all the pieces slide off onto the floor? 

the question regarding determinacy
is about our intent
in making use of it
to think about music 

indeterminacy is just another flavor of determinacy  

more correct as to praxis:
indirect determinacy

Gradus
as a present sample of experience
to think about thinking about with 

prep the new keyboard into the mind
a retrievable field of memory
with this many notes 

Neal plays in voices chords arpeggiations tunes and counterpoints
I do the same thing
music as such
has crept in 
rhetoric has been strewn about in grisly abandon
all the rhetoric
with which it has been historically promulgated
that is
subject matter
is music
as it has been observed

February 24, 2024

The Virtuoso Pianist, #20 - Charles-Louis Hanon

Jazz Hanon #11 - Lockrem Johnson

As part of a soon to be revealed Lockrem Johnson project I was asked to record his contribution to Jerome Gray's "Jazz Hanon" - a book of teaching pieces, as well as the finger exercise upon which it was based.

Postscripts

Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery

some listening journal doodles from 1993