Playlist

Preface

"......... although music stands alone, I don't mean that it is defenseless, --- that it can be interpreted freely. It is necessary to stipulate          that each music puts forth its own language.          It is necessary to stipulate         that each music desires its own context.          It is necessary to stipulate         that each music prepares its own ground from which all external articulation becomes possible."
- J. K. Randall "ADVT.: Repeat After Me" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts 

Streamed

June 13, 2020
Your Mother Should Know (Neal Kosály-Meyer)

Performance! Art!

Karen sings along to the computer image, since she couldn't be there. The lighting is harsh and abstracts the image to match the abstraction of the sound that comes through the stream.

Yellow shirt: Mr. Mustard in the library.

Wayward in Limbo

"With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series now moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is curating and commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of exclusive material. Many of these will be essentially 'live' performances recorded at home for this occasion. Others may create a mix of pre-recorded material that has not been previously released elsewhere."
- from the Wayward Music Series website at https://www.waywardmusic.org/.

June 13, 2020
Cruel Diagonals (Megan Mitchell)

Groups of like sounds are the matter, and they are spacious. Pressure from nothing sustains them, tatters them. Vocal sound group orients us to our ground, our stand spot, our place from which. Drum sound groups are the other bodies. Electric humming (sinister) is sealed off, malevolent. Industrial voices, cloistered, scene by scene, room by room, in a mechanized process.

June 14, 2020
Kole Galbraith "Kennewick Man"

at first we were going there on foot
we may now be there
a low tone throbs
a white noise also throbs, but goes
other tones are here now

so far everything comes in from inaudible in a slow fade
. . . there, ictuses
but only in re-iteration of an already present tone
the differently paced throbbings of tones allow various groups of tones to shift their balance in respect of each other - a kind of melodic motion in which we can choose our path with minimal coercion
radiochatter choppiness in some tones
an outside is incoming
it vanishes, except the low throb, which is now a faster constant pulse, an engine below
another group of throbbing sounds throbs
our rate of passage is constant, inexorable
long waves on a low slant shore
we are moving but not by foot nor in any direction

except now that we have moved we find where we had been headed
back into the space of a room with synthesizers in it
or perhaps in a small boat in a quiet spot
shovel in loam

June 16, 2020
Paul Kikuchi
Paul Kikuchi, Miuri Remi, Nakamura Hitomi, Christopher Yomei Bladsel, Tajima Kazue

a succession of layered removes all at the same remove
filmlike - flat screen

now we may be outside in a quiet space
then quieter

inside surrounds us with long bowed string tones

we wander to holler into echoes halloo!
the halloo!ed hollers

Recorded

June 13, 2020
Missa Pape Marcelli - Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina - King's College Choir, Cambridge, David Wilcocks

the uniformity of script
hold the book quietly

the language of this is for study, it is studying its text, shaping it as it goes

plastic polyphony
his lump of clay

cathedrals are for singing in
they are made to sing by singing in them

Mass for Four Voices - William Byrd - BBC Singers, Bo Holton

turbulent

a voice, a part of a counterpoint, can be realized by a single voice, sung by one

or can be realized by a group of such, who thus, share a voice

tempo change sneaks in through clever quasi hemiolas

The poetic patterning of the liturgy helped shape the later forms of classical European art music, the looping and staggered entrances of imitative counterpoint

June 14, 2020
L'Orfeo, Act I - Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi - Ensemble La Venexiana, Claudio Cavina

so hopeful!

the structure of this narrative:
tiny scenes like sentences
promenade-ritornello
larger scenes like paragraphs
so artificial, this structure
so mannered
but that just makes it more believable as a story

opera began as a literary conceit
and never budged

Passameze, Gaillarde - Michael Praetorius - New London Consort, Philip Pickett [from Dances from Terpsichore]

uplifting
triumphal
fit for a king

Two Noels - Nicolas Lebègue - Marie-Claire Alain

organ music is always in a dialog with its space
space talks back

Praeludium in G minor - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella

a long tale with subplots
before the talkies
melodramatic
and funny too

Come, Redeemer of Mankind - Johann Pachelbel - Howard Wolvington [recorded during service at the University Temple United Methodist Church, December 8, 2019]

building these monumental technologies to serve the word, in the guise of the verses behind the chorale tune, monumenting scripture

La Descente d'Orphee aux Enfers, Act I - Marc-Antoine Charpentier - Les Arts Florissants, William Christie, Patricia Petibon, Monique Zanetti, Katalin Karolyi, Sophie Daneman, Paul Agnew, Jean-Francois Gardeil, Steve Dugardin, Francois Piolino, Fernand Bernadi

refined
never before more so or since
Baroque: another service economy (heads rolled) it sparkles!
rolling heads sparkle

when operas were tone paintings
they are even named that way, as if they were a painting
not the whole myth, just the one scene
music is color time
revolutionary creativity would not be tolerated
it was necessary to practice subterfuge
suddenly these cardboard cutouts came to life on stage
we have been sucked in
the power of myth and drama: formidable

the history of record keeping and record retrieving - of scholarship - is ripe with regicide

Bach (JS) is the wrong lens through which to understand the Baroque
He was looking forward, as should we

Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir BWV 131 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Gächinger Kantorei, Helmuth Rilling, Kathrin Graf, Arleen Auger, Gabriele Schnaut, Helen Watts, Adalbert Kraus, Kurt Equiluz, Wolfgang Schone, Figuralchor der Gedachtniskirche Stuttgart, Bach-Collegium Stuttgart

The BWV folks should have bent and called this one 130.

the text has seeped into the frame
it fairly drips with it
chorale melodies float through like ghosts

text includes commentary in poly-directional text space
mash up of mix and mash parts until it moves like a body

Sonata in A minor - George Frideric Handel - Michala Petri, Keith Jarrett

recorder and harpsichord

Duets are about the right size of thing for Handel. In close quarters the energetic folk element can activate.

virtuosic displays :: in the royal era :: see what fine talent I command :: show off for my friends, low clown

June 16, 2020
Dixieme Ordre - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert

Each thought is given its just proportion
celebration of rectitude
no innocents led astray
stay put or move by step
by step
by step
tyranny of the barline is addressed with playful repetitions and immovables
clever mechanicals

June 17, 2020
Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band I, Prelude and Fugue in C Major - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet

the unsustained arpeggiations above the sustained notes keep those lower strings vibrating and lively

fugue cadence: arrival at tonic area - chromatic cadenza - resolution

Sonata in C Major - Georg Philipp Telemann - Michala Petri, Elisabeth Selin

two recorders

the super power of recorders is their precision of intonation
there is no mistaking it
and no fudging
merciless

Sonata in A Major Wq 48.6 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Bob van Asperen

harpsichord

grinds to halts
doubles backs
abouts faces
misses entirelies
forgets whereabouts

several time schemes competing for space
packed

June 18, 2020
Symphony in A Major (#14) - Franz Joseph Haydn - Hanover Band, Roy Goodman

how corners are turned and where they hide
I guess we're exploring
politely domestic
paternal calm decorum
how to be a good servant
do not disturb
do not observe
nor let in

Symphony in F (#6) K. 43 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Jaap Schröder, Christopher Hogwood

scrubby energy standing in for what he hadn't thought of yet, or couldn't
laden with tasteful balance

Sonata in C Major, Op. 10#1 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Artur Schnabel

impatient
all the same material
all the same figures
but nothing will be the same ever again

the balance is implied, but not explicit
no need nor time for that

slow movement sneak attack
hints of keys like show of dagger from under cloak
the violence inherent in the system
affect riot

ends in sullen smolder

In Session at the Tintinabulary

June 15, 2020
Bannedecameron 200615 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · Bannedecameron 200615

We had hoped for Neal to call, but there were communication issues that day so it was just Karen and me on the porch at the Tintinabulary.

Postscripts

the always seemed so suited to the flock

friend brick factory had a stained a grimy

was copper in back the tin minister's

increment

through matrix

trace result

Playlist

Preface

"Stimulating Speculation no. 1: What something Is is merely our way of indexing the context to which we ascribe it."
J. K. Randall "Compose Yourself: A Manual for the Young" 1970

Texts

Live

June 1, 2019

Sunnyside, Washington

Sandel & Karrick
Robin Jackson and the Caravan
Wilsonville Festival of the Arts
Wilsonville, Oregon

And this is why I didn't blog last week. I spent the blogging time driving to and from Wilsonville (3+ hours each way).

Sandel & Karrick and two others were a light swing jazz band that gained my trust with some fine playing and by the covering of an obscurish song I actually knew! "The Frim Fram Sauce." Delish.

Robin Jackson and the Caravan had some more fine fiddle playing and a woman that switched between accordion and trumpet. Robin sang a fine original song about the best way to find the one of your dreams: on the dance floor. Get out there dudes! Shake that thing!

June 7, 2019
Lori Goldston: Rivulet
Chapel Performance Space
Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Dave Abramson, drums & percussion
Haley Freedlund, trombone
Kole Galbraith, bass guitar
Lori Goldston, cello
Greg Kelley, trumpet
Austin Larkin Violin

Pre-auditory sentences:

The drum set sports a large square cymbal. Trombones, as a whole, are not built straight up and down. There is a warp. Microphones are discretely obvious spies. As are many ears. The large square cymbal is holy.

sound:

ultra slow
rococo chorales
rochocho corals (e)

Ben said of Bruckner "I'm in favor of anything that goes that slow." This is Bruckner in a cold dark land. Muffled blows on the bass drum.

Superb stuff Lori! I'm glad we got out to hear it. And then the next morning we had your strawberry jam on sourdough waffles. Equally intense.

Recorded

Sunnyside, Washington

May 25, 2019
Sonata in G minor, K. 12 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

no slack, taut
a discourse of taut pushing form to the front

Upon a . . . - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, director [April 1966]

as the aperture closes gently
the silent movie kiss on the sward

Beyond and Back - X [from Wild Gift]

shit-kicker punk
bouncy battle verbal
shuffle

Lonely Girl - Screaming Trees [from Clairvoyance]

instrumental solo
or simply band without voice
impression live is different in kind from impression on recording:
live: a flow of focus among visual and audio
recorded: no "and"

Symphony in A, op. 141 (#15) - Dmitri Shostakovich - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy

the parts don't hang together
they combine and cross combine
attempt a consensus among a ghostly hall of shape-shifting changelings

1. emptiness (silliness) of the powered

2. weary suffering anger seething repressed, ignored, banished with the old faith lava monster doing biding time :: frivolous chains, but chains at that :: breaking point

3. meanwhile in plain day / gradations very fine indeed / between bureaucratical webs, secret handshakes, (the High Sign) /?/

Plato's shadow and aesthete's image in counterpoise

4. now is fate's time (it's a bitter comment upon two fellow political-minded composers: Rossini and Wagner)

under night's secrecy
it will come to it
(here be the stakes)

:skeleton key ↑↑↑↑↑↑

"...woe my road is spoken..." draft 5.4 Final - Keith Eisenbrey [July 2006]



If, in 21st Century contrapuntal practice, we have moved our focus along the axis toward individuation of voice and from the harmony of the whole it is because we understand that a new axis has arisen.

In the deep background this is a late generation riff on the good old 4-3 suspension chain.

May 27, 2019
Whiskey In The Jar (mix B) - Train Case [July 2011]

I adjusted the balance in the vocals and brought guitar in on verse 2, or rather suppressed the guitar track until then.

Intro - Ease [from Roots]

Sunnyside, Washington

working on precise sound
listen to the guitar how it pulls the cymbal sound tight
multi tempo
sequentially
big pretense of Manly Sound

Sonata in G Major, K. 13 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

loops and gates
proceeds like an algorithm: counters, stepping
music for the age of thinking clearly

Red River Blues - J. T. Adams [from The Art of Field Recording Vol. 1]

blue river reds
with some talk beforehand

Winnebago Warrior - Dead Kennedys [from Plastic Surgery Disasters/In God We Trust]

cheap laugh and not all that funny

Banned Telepath 6 Berkeley - Aaron Keyt [June 1986]

some other session (#65) plays off to the left
a bit of close sound hints that Aaron may be in the room
an abwords list: abandonment abatement abduction abeyance
Dong!! a potlid perhaps, cookware
we call Aaron. It's OK.
We hear a session stop during a session
Australian clicking sticks (see 982 below) in Seattle are recorded in Berkeley and sent back to Seattle
an audio-only skype session to be assembled as a whole only later but lined up ill so you'll have to put it together in your head on your own
our rows are not the same
NEWS! 2nd Bannediversary (the 35th will be 983 or 984 I think) Amontillado
a dial-up phone
where are Neal and Anna?
Oh. No.
paperformants by Neal Meyer
a problem with numbers
(there's that royalties tax spiel)

Trailer - Ashtray [a Rescued Record]

the dramatic appearance rising through the smoke effect from beneath the stage
one wonders: a collection of things she has heard guys say (or others) as political commentary.

Gradus 101 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 2006]

outside a distant plane makes mealy-mouth flange of the A naturals vibrating free
producing tones

a moment of silence
a time for prayer

On Ear and Ear - Hilary Tan [from Milton Babbitt: A Composers' Memorial]

Debussy smiles
restless motion
not afraid to end it twice

Shine Rock - Low Hums [from Shine Rock]

Lots of guitar and some vocalism making sounds that are like the shape of storytelling.

May 28, 2019
Gradus 294 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 2016]

being peaceful and dyadic
enjoying those low notes played quietly

Sonata in G Major, K. 14 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

the floor is slick
take care

Rock and Roll Music (live) - The Beatles [from Anthology Volume 2]

Not even The Beatles could compete with that screaming shrill.

Tiag Guls - Throbbing Gristle [from Greatest Hits]

disconnect as to how they arose through the visual arts and how they found me as sound, as a band, which isn't what they ever were either way.

Good Christian Men Rejoice - London Symphony Orchestra [from Listen to the Joy]

makes a halfhearted feint at development

You Speak Jealousy - Unwound [from Kill Rock Stars]

to imagine as the voice of one articulating something
the feeling of it?
sung as a box to put a thought in
this one is not a nice thought

Take Me To The Water - Rollo Dilworth - University Temple Chancel Choir; Chris Vincent, director; Howard Wolvington, piano]

(my church's choir, in which I sing tenor, performed just the Sunday before, disclosure done)

from an arrangement tradition (still trying to figure out what I mean by that, more later perhaps)
riffing on an older tradition

to what extent is it exacerbated rather than assisted by the music publishing industry

Whiskey In the Jar (Mix B Reverb) - Train Case [July 2011]


add light reverb
all it needed

Ko - Paul Kikuchi - Paul Kikuchi, percussion; Taina Karr, oboe and english horn; Ivan Arteaga, clarinet; Greg Sinibaldi, bass clarinet; Natalie Mai Hall, cello; John Teske, contrabass [from Autonomic]

recorded right up in their faces
pitches within tones
embodied boulders
it might take a river to move

May 29, 2019
Sonata in E minor, K. 15 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

the power of contrary motion
or of motion at all
sparingly applied

the bewilderment momentaire
when suddenly we know we have moved on
but know not whither

It's Worth Anything - Earl Gains [a Rescued Record]

this bounce bed is not smooth
is not without underlying peas of anxiety
but it is for real
and to be sure it do bounce

Think About It - Stevie Nix [from Bella Donna]

encapsulated message
take a pill
a capsule
mantra suggestion
advice
to be taken aurally
before leaving

May 30, 2019
Banned Telepath 6 Greenwood - Karen (Meyer) Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [June 1986]

we each seem to be handling our microphones
or (ah ha!)
we are recording the taping of the microphones to the wall
it will all be on 101, stay tuned
and of course the Amontillado (see Berkeley above)
and cookies too
tweety birds are heard but they are the loud ones outside now not anything on the tape
I poked my self outside to be sure

We speak to Aaron at the same time, but offset, perforce

clicking sticks (see below and above) twice

discussion of the trip to Downunderland
the smell of Amontillado on tape

2 years in, establishing tradition out of teacups

this is it folks
this is how Banned Rehearsal began
this is the first sound
oh no uh oh oh dear oh heck
twice as many couches
cranberry satin and pink lace
I got a bug in my amontillado
other than that
it's dead
everybody knows the chorus more or less

uh oh the bug's gone

the ukulele stays in tune for one year

June 4, 2019
Goin' Cali - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]

The West: toward death, the promised land
Bruce does Independent
a musician can do something like this when they's got nothing to lose by it or when they are so big no one will remember that they did it anyway

Banned Rehearsal 705 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 2006]



im-Vögel-ating geese and ducks
shadow play on a hot day
drums sneak in among the toots and hoots
goose keeps it real

June 5, 2019
So Cool - Choke The Pope [from Emotional Material]

even the guitar sound hangs up toward the sinusoidal
hard to belong when everyone is title of track, it is
(attack on disaffectitude by out-cooling the so cool

Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 16 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

The science of oblique sequitur (neither non nor non-non)

June 6, 2019
Pitches Low and Inside - Stuart Dempster - Marzena Music Ensemble [from Hendrix Uncovered]

Dempster Stu
Dijeri  Du

Cistern
blothern

bone
tone

gone
too soon

Every Day I Have The Blues - Billy Stewart [from The Best of Billy Stewart]

He allows the pitchiness of the drum kit to build into a rhythmonic groove.
Who was his drummer? Was that him himself? Damn!

set back
do it again
done

Is That All? - U2 [from October]

A song is buried in there among the guitar (nice job Edge) and hook (good enough). Probably not enough song to bother much with.

I Believe - REM [from Life's Ritch Pageant]

Hey, don't stop, I was digging that finger pickin'!

phrases on stickies posted on a revolving lyricbelt squeezbox.

there is something almost Renaissance-harmony-ish about how it hangs in counterpoint space.

UCLA Experimental Workshop Ensemble - Elaine Barkin, Benjamin Boretz, Lindsay Clare, David Open Space 12]

Jones, Jay Keister, Grace M, Ben Thigpen [from Open Space 12]

the room is made small with close sounds
close sounds can be heard moving
percussion and variously excited strings
punctuated by sax and crumar(?) ((synth of choice)) (((NB we prefer Wurlitzer)))
neither passage episode nor selection
an hollow
a grove
or a thicket

In Session at the Tintinabulary

May 27, 2019
Gradus 349 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

all
all this and
all this

7th chords arose as a means of mediating between the cognitive demands of pitch class and just intonation.

Does astonishment come to the roses, or do the roses come to astonishment?
How does one come to the astonishment of roses? ↔ ↔ establish the environment within which sufficient complexity exists so that astonishment will arise as summoned. The voice-leading trick there is there but sounds like something else cognized.

June 3, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 982 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt



I was intent on scraping and clicking with wood sounds

Postscripts

longings 1 of dark night and its traits it
will be a good thing to leave sad the fruit
of and the happy traits about which it

the wanderer

in the house of fire

soon