"so saying, divine Odysseus came out of the bushes
and broke a leafy
branch from the thick wood
with his
strong hands
to hide his flesh and cover his genitals.
And just as a
mountain lion, mighty and confident,
though assailed by rain and
wind,
goes forth with blazing eyes among sheep and cattle
or pursues wild deer,
for his stomach
commands him
even to hazard entrance
to the confines of a
sheepfold
to get at the flocks,
so Odysseus was about to descend
upon the maidens
with beautiful hair,
even
though he was naked,
for necessity had him."
Homer - from "The Odyssey" translated by Charles Stein
Texts
Live
April 27, 2023
Twelfth Night: A Musical Adaptation
Seattle Shakespeare Company
Center Theater, Seattle
Conceived by Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina
Taub
Music and lyrics by Shaina Taub
Directed by Ruben Van Kempen
This show runs through May 21, and if you get a chance to see it I don't think you'll regret it. The cast was clearly having a blast and they were all, each in their own way, if I may be permitted the expression, hot. The songs skewed toward an exuberant soul/gospel style. And the shirts! The jackets! The SHOES! The Officer's HAT! Such fun! If music be the food of love, play on!
Recorded
Hey Yesterday (un-mastered) - Your Mother Should Know [December 2, 2012]
another of the four versions I have of this recording
made by Jake
Thompson of Pouch
O Divine Redeemer - Charles François Guounod - Marjorie Palmer [from Make A Joyful Noise]
dubbed from a stretched tape
Marjorie is one of my many cousins
her voice is remarkably similar to my mom's voice
sentimentally heroic piety
The London Boys - David Bowie [from Toy]
from his deep back catalogue
seduction
of fitting in no matter
what
from within a report of one
Corranto, Fvb. 266 - Traditional - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
the ornaments are played
so that
they clearly only affect the note
they ornament
they don't lead to the next
as they often do
in galant style
or baroque practice
Rondo in A minor, K. 511 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Kristian Bezuidenhout
such as here
in full galant
far more extensive a form
than a
Couperin Rondeau
wherein
the internal couplets depart from the
prime couplet
in only the most specific details
the point
there
not being high contrast
but
the barest hint of
relief
here
the internal sections are elsewhere entirely
a
room with a different design concept
a sequence of different pieces
or miniature movements
Mazurka in C-sharp Minor, Op. 6 #2 - Frédéric Chopin - Garrick Ohlsson
a harmony is sounded
then another is sounded
but
at such
remove
as to be able
to take a good hard look
at its prior
neighbor
Herzlich tut mich verlangen, Op. 122 #10/B. 50 #5 - Johannes Brahms/Ferruccio Busoni - Wolf Harden
a plodding along below
only partly independent
of the meditations
flowing above
a pall has enveloped the streets
textures of beat accents
turning tricks on themselves
Erroll's Blues (Duo) - Erroll Garner [from Erroll Garner on Dial]
the bass line moves over into the next chord
on its way to the one after
that
Jenny Jenny - Little Richard [from Here's Little Richard]
pop up to a high short yodel tone
nails it every time
Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles [from Magical Mystery Tour]
is that an alto flute back there?
the production explodes around his
vocal
without his reacting in the slightest
I've Been Loving You Too Long - Aretha Franklin [from Young, Gifted and Black]
Aretha here
is collaborating with the size of the world around this
song
gospel preaching
Havana Affair (live at The Roxy) - Ramones [from Leave Home]
music can have a social purpose
that doesn't align with any of my social
purposes or needs
but
even without such an alignment
one can
search out features of that music's nuts and bolts construction
that
might be found admirable or appreciable
Liberian Calypso - Nina Simone [from Fodder On My Wings]
or might provide a porthole
to another culture and attitude
9mm Goes Bang - Boogie Down Productions [from Criminal Minded]
some aspects of which other culture(s) and attitude(s)
I would
personally
prefer to not experience
to wit:
gang
violence
which is not by any means limited to hip hop/rap culture
nor
is it the entirety of that culture
said culture simply
has better music than I could
or would want to imagine
the Proud
Boys culture
exempli gratia
as having
Needle Sing - Guthrie Family [from Woody's 20 Grow Big Songs]
doing for the menfolk
back up singing works the same here as in The Shirelles
though the
attitude isn't the same
an old idea kept going
Lids Film Layer 6 - Keith Eisenbrey [July 2, 2007]
if this is an engine
it has troubles
very little bell nature is
obvious here
far more wooden or amphibian
all the puppet's teeth
are chattering
behind the picket fence
it seems
objects can
be discerned moving about
from here to there
on curvilinear
paths
or hedgehog tracks
but the sound object from which
that seeming was generated
is nothing like it
no path
no
track
no hedgehog
we brought these to the table
we make sense of music without its requesting
because that is an
activity of our minds
it makes sense of things
as a matter of
survival
but
why would music make sense
because
music
is us
music is the sense that we make
the sense we make that
reflects itself to itself
it is our sense and none other's
which
is why
at its best and most powerful
it is the most personal
my music
is my own individual sense making
making that
unique sense
that reflects that sense making
to its sense making
we compose
in order to experience
what we mean
by
making sense
If I Remain - The Swearengens [from Devil Gets Her Way]
this song concerns itself with
dislocation
uprootedness
severance
trauma
anxiety propaganda
a music can be a refuge
from dislocation
present or past
which is the point I suppose
behind any altar call
Dumb Drum - Steve Layton [from Excavations 2013-2014]
there are occasional frogs and toads grooving down in there
A Gigge, Fvb. 267 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
to make sense
is to construct a delightful contrivance
Weary Way Blues - Johnny Dodds [from Really The Blues]
to make sense
is to make a dancing clown
dis-inhibited and
dis-inhabited
from any actual physical person
a puppet
a
contrivance
Little Benny - Charlie Parker [from The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz]
a code of how things begin
with how things end
and the lines
between
::
main solos
each of which gets a stanza or more
then a single stanza
made of a quick sequence of the minor solos
No Cover, No Minimum (take 1) - Bill Evans [from New Jazz Conceptions]
the hands have distinct functions
though I suspect the left joins in
with the right's doing at some points
during the bass solo
piano makes hemiolas against the high hat's
precisely dotted eighth sixteenth time keeping
drummer takes a short but
loud solo
The Giving and the Taking - Dolly Parton [from Hello, I'm Dolly]
mule wagon tempo
Don't Look Back - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]
defiant greivance?
The Shape I'm In (Live) - The Band [from Before The Flood]
guys talking to guys
post-rural confederation of bad boys
Burning Down - REM [from Dead Letter Office]
stanzas in variously cycling chord groups
and placements of syllables
within the meter
all with a binding tempo enforced by drum
it
already is what it is from the beginning
right to the end
can a
music that doesn't in itself move
move us?
Skypager - A Tribe Called Quest [from The Low End Theory]
celebration of now long defunct modernity
The Predator - Ice Cube [from The Predator]
alliteration and rhyme chains end with a hook
to articulate the whole
into segments
When Mountains Are Nourished by Rain - Jarrad Powell - Jessika Kenney [from Stonehouse Songs]
I covet the embellishments
mostly quickly alternating notes
Hey Yesterday (mastered) - Your Mother Should Know [December 2, 2012]
Jake Thompson did a fine job of recording this and putting it together for
Neal and Karen
but to my ear
the fact that it sounds good
and that each individually recorded track is engaged and well done
doesn't make up for the
to my ear
lack of a palpable
immediacy of time
such as would arise naturally
had they played it
at the same time
it becomes a manufactured thing
Song 3 - Strange Like Us [recorded live at The Sunset Tavern, April 18, 2017]
this
for instance
sounds like a thing that happened all at once
a trace of an actual experience
this band has an interesting mix
of vocal types
a high one and an unexpectedly low one
a slow tone
on a doppler shift
in a Möbius strip
bowed
strings interject
we imagine the dopplering Möbius
is
itself
moving away
and
itself
undergoing its own
ever
so slow
dopplerization
the bowed strings' interjectionary activities
can only observe and
mutter to themselves
grumbling imprecations
A Toy, Fvb. 268 - Traditional - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
subdivision games
All The Days Are Gone - Charles Ives - Kia Sams, Russ Warner [from Ives Songs]
spunky
Mr. Johnson Turn Me Loose - South Georgia Highballers [from Really The Blues]
Mr. Lowe has anthologized this elsewhere as well
it just came up last
week
whoops
a fiddle and singing saw
that old boy playin'
that saw
whoop it on down
Springsville - Mile Davis [from Miles Ahead]
but not stringsville
only the bass
piano at most
Medac - The Who - [from The Who Sells Out]
dispiriting and half-hearted
Fox Chase - Neal Patman [from The Art of Field Recording]
how to play the harmonica and sing at the same time
but never together
real old
Incorporate No Language - Benjamin Boretz, J.K. Randall [from Inter/Play February 22, 1982]
a weighty mass moves at our ankles
furniture nudged into slow higgle
piggles
configurance dislodged
our eye floats above
for
external data transfer
the mass peers back
takes swipes
music:
sound with a feel to it
an intentional feeling feel to it
not the sound
and not the feel
but an immediately
experienced relation
a palpable synthesis
the mass plays innocent
they get along here
notes:
a frequently employed music-feel signifier
it must be music
it has notes
tactics adjusted
shoving ensues
warier are we
the mass and
our eye
have exchanged partial positions
Love Will Save The Day - Whitney Houston [from Whitney]
life advice
sisterly
literally
"hear my advice!"
urban
percussion mix
fun little vibraphone bit
bump up a step
signifies
we're closing in on the end
She Sees Color - The Young Fresh Fellows [from It's Low Beat Time]
suburban west coast surf pop
If I Asked You - The Humidiflyers [from The Humidiflyers Fall 2002]
suburban culture puts an emphasis on competence and musicianship
Lids Film Layers 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 - Keith Eisenbrey [July 2, 2007]
all together now
if we understand this as objects moving across our
field of awareness
then
by parallax
the slower pulses are
objects at a greater distance
the field acquires a synthetic depth
complicated by the apparent diversity of directions
that we are
traveling in
and/or
that they are
Siolas - Brendan Byrnes [from Micropangea]
the pitch universe is peculiar
that beat universe is cliché
does
the beat regime
flatten peculiarity
lifeless
it ends up
going like any other
Don't Black Out - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 21, 2017]
ditch the solo
back to the power strums
Behind The Projected - Entropic Advance [from Chaos Out Of Order]
filter on spoken vocal
signals
message from alien overlords
oh so sci fi
camp horror suspense
loud heart beaty beat
rhythm
to up lift anxiety
Galiarda, Fvb. 269 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
one of a collection of aural needleworks
each unique
but in
mutually exchangeable stitches
Deacon's Prayer Service - Deacon Leon Davis [from Goodbye, Babylon]
sung pleas
congregationally goaded
voice lifted into
prayersong and songprayer
You Hit The Spot - Sarah Vaughan [from Swingin' Easy]
every other line is hummed at first
then an uptempo
to bring in
the song proper
in which
Ecclesiastes
is mis-exegesis-ed
April 28, 2023
Sophie, Barking, Deconstructs (And Disperses) Some Heavy Mindflow Action - Benjamin Boretz, J.K. Randall [from Inter/Play March 1, 1982]
gloomar and piano
pianissimar and low
heavy and grave
crawling to the slope
hardly a rise to speak of
still dark
still night
alarming light
impulses
stretch stiffly
some pitch stuff happens
there's Sophie barking
In Session at The Tintinabulary
April 24, 2023
Banned Rehearsal 1075 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt
this session
is out there
in the
that's out there man sense
of
out there
April 28, 2023
Sinfonia 1 - Keith Eisenbrey
I was up early Friday morning, and I managed to take advantage of the quiet to get an acceptable recording of this piece on clavichord. I finished the original version in late 2021 and have been cutting out notes ever since. I made the last changes a week ago and am quite pleased with how it turned out.
Postscripts
Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery
some listening journal doodles from 1993
