"Gunpowder Plot.
'Tis good to remember
The Fifth
of November
Gunpowder, treason, and plot;
There's abundance of reason
To think of the
treason,
Then why should it e'er be forgot?
Our sympathies thrive
By keeping
alive
Such sweet little hatreds as these;
And
folks love each other
As dear as a brother,
Whose
throat they are ready to squeeze.
I delight in the joys
Of the
vagabond boys
When they're burning Guy Vaux and the Pope;
It the flame keeps alive,
It makes
bigotry thrive,
And gives it abundance of scope.
'Tis a beautiful truth
For the
minds of our youth,
And will make 'em all Christians indeed;
For the Church and the State
Thus to
teach 'em to hate
All those of a different creed.
It is two hundred years
Since
our ancestors' fears
Were arous'd by this blood-thirsty fox;
But often, since then,
Our parliament
men
Have been awfully blown up by Vaux.
Now, they cannot deny
They're
afraid of their Guy;
And some of them earnestly hope,
He may fancy a swing
At the end of a string;
And
they promise him plenty of rope."
from
The Comic Almanack
an Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry
Tales, Humorous Poetry, Quips and Oddities, First Series, 1835-1843
Texts
Recorded
33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Artur Schnabel
internal motions
come to life
right away
in the first
variation
notes
stack themselves slant
extend themselves
out
over chasms
perilous weight shifts
what seems restful
is rattled off its foundation
forcing them
to fit
regularity
regularly
gone astray
pulling attention
down
into intimate spaces
voices
slip from alignment
as the ear
picks up
on a
repetition in progress
the least aberration
activates
a new
trajectory
November 3, 2024
6 Moments Musicaux: Allegro Vivace in F minor, Op. 94 #5 - Franz Schubert - Alfred Brendel
don't hurry to get on
but
once on
don't look back
6 Concert Studies on Caprices by Paganini: Vivace in G minor, Op. 10 #3 - Robert Schumann - Florian Uhlig
does this make more
or less
sense
if
one can track the
barlines
or
sense
is not something
that music can
make?
music rhymes
it does not reason
any reasons
music has
are rhymic
reasons
Mazurka in C Major, Op. 33 #3 - Frédéric Chopin - Vladimir Ashkenazy
a firm grip on propriety
clever remarks
crack open a window
Via Crucis: Station XII - Jesus stirbt am Kreuze - Franz Liszt - Nederlands Kamerkoor, Reinbert De Leeuw
hollowed out monophony
descending
into hollowed out sorrow
hollowed out comfort
in moments of sublimity
try singing
chorales
Der Gärtner - Hugo Wolf - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Daniel Barenboim
does goosing the characterization
help the song?
Das Orgel-Büchlein, BV B 27: No. 9, in dir ist Freude (After J. S. Bach's BWV 615) - Ferruccio Busoni - Wolf Harden
imitative polyphony
resounds the chorale's parts
Etude in D-flat Major, Op. 42 #1 - Alexander Scriabin - Ruth Laredo
a being
of butterflies
and blooms
Preludes Book II: No.4, Les fees sont d'exquises danseuses - Claude Debussy - Walter Gieseking
cryptid exoticism
MacGaine's Kick - Percy Grainger - Percy Grainger [from Percy Grainger plays Percy Grainger]
my thoughts gravitate
toward the economic position
of this music
within its society
Pássaros Em Feste - Ernesto Nazareth - Marcelo Bratke
settles
for the adequate arrangement
Wayward Girl Blues - Lottie Kimbrough [from Really The Blues]
blues strophes
aim
to their rhetorical ends
Quatre Romances Sans Paroles, Romance I: Op. 129, #1 - Darius Milhaud - François Choveaux
how is this different from Nazareth?
it isn't an acceptably able
arrangement
that gets out of the way
all the lines work together
to shape each other
Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man - Billie Holiday (with Teddy Wilson and His Orchestra) [from Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia]
this music settles never
I note
that she clearly sings
"that"
not "dat"
Four Transcriptions from Emerson (mid 1930's): No. 1 (beg.) - Charles Ives [from Charles Ives plays Charles Ives]
murky harmonies
hidden under a blanket
Looking for a Woman - Roy Brown [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
the technology of sound recording
took a giant leap
during the war
(sonar research effort?)
Love My Baby - Little Junior's Blue Flames [from Sun Records Definitive Hits]
a lick
that is mum
about its beat
is shown
to fit in
quite nicely
become ordinary
There's a Moon Out Tonight - The Capris [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
life's all right
no blues here
I Saw Her Standing There - The Beatles [from Please Please Me]
I like the guitar solo
The Echoing Green (William Blake) - Allen Ginsberg [from Holy Soul, Jelly Roll]
exaggerated enunciation
Quadrant 4 - Billy Cobham [from Spectrum]
playing together
wicked fast
signifies
hypercompetence
as a display feature
male bonding
Everything Must Change - Nina Simone [from Baltimore]
long lines
articulate
opposing forces
and
their
resultant energy states
Place For Us - Kool & The Gang [a Rescued Record]
cliché
pop anthem
November 5, 2024
the room this sound is in
is also host
to a more global
external
low hum
possibly
the heating unit
for
the building
such a constant sound
acts
as a surface
for the percussion
to be played upon
tip tap
crickle crickle
hum
sing a song
in the playalong
utterance
exitrance
Concerto in G minor, BWV 1056 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Itzhak Perlman [from The Art of Itzhak Perlman]
a display concerto
is a display of prowess
wealth
what lovely instruments
we afford for ourselves
life's finer
things
for refined natures
be impressed
and suitably so
Banned Rehearsal 488 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [March 12, 1998]
we open
with something like
what might have become a beat
had we all
not drifted off
into our own tempo corners
don't let steadiness fool you
drums
signify
the anchor
firm
but
the line
has gone lax
household of sounds
lives here
where else?
the steady needling
of the small drum
apply pressure
I confess
to academic credentials
with my
full name
but without basis
occluded lines
in turns dialogical
we drift slumberward
winking across
wavering back
{journal entry of March 14, 2006:
a throwback
sort of
lots of talking}
Toccata and Fugue - Michael Nicolella - Michael Nicolella [from Shard]
touch of tocattas
the art
of distinctions of weights
through
the hand
Zither Film 7 - Keith Eisenbrey [January 19, 2008]
temporary continuities
appear
some quite persistent
they are
missed
where they would have been
had they not ceased to persist
all at once
I made this file
with a purpose in mind for it
but
that was
my purpose
not its
Nocturne - Craig Pepples - Yuji Takahashi [from Open Space 53]
a linked chain
links made apparent
a figure
in a pulse
has a first token
unique
in being
without predecessor
and
a last token
unique
in not going on
to a
further token
open unassumingly
without splash or flash
Loops from the Crypts of Chaos, Slow Speed Backwards Version - Pete Comley [from Paintronics 3]
should a music
not build itself
from its sounds' internal
urgencies
upon what basis
then
do we assess its
utterance?
sounds
become stated facts
inarguable
and opaque
a
storage room
of sounds
in piles
on shelves
ready for
use
November 6, 2024
L'Incoronazaione di Poppea, Prologue and Act 1 - Claudio Monteverdi - Orfeo Orchestra, Sergio Vartolo
we make use of Gods
as a literary device
to personify
the
impulses of drama
later
we would make them
all too human
as yet another literary device
we make use of royalty
as a
literary device
to act
as puppets
of us
out there
where we can see them
and voice their thoughts
the music
is a mechanism of a literary conceit
a drossless
societal self portrait
we write ourselves large
the singing style in use
is actorly 0
low buzzies!
how lovely!
harpsichord turns the pages
traces the lines
the orchestra
is the body
of the readers of the work
costumed placards
the masks
from beneath which
the text
emerges
a text
is proliferated
into architectures
Canzonetta in G Major, BuxWV 171 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
oh
you thought that was it did you?
we have one more for you
Cinquieme Ordre (la): L'Angelique. Rondeau. D'une legerete moderee - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert
flawless service
Keyboard Sonata in B-flat Major, Kk. 248 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
music
as an arcane skill
Keyboard Sonata in A Major, Wq. 65/37 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi
takes an appraising tour of the stage
gets to know his props
we
are mid scene
before we have been aware
now it's time to clear the
dishes for the evening
Keyboard Sonata in F Major, Hob. XVI:23 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim
improvisatory display of courtesy
competitive flattery
Sonata in A Major, K. 331 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Peter Katin
1
gently played
a lullaby
as with
one might lull
someone
to sleep
or ignorance
is a magic incantation
a lullaby
has been applied
and it has been lulled
also
the state of having been lulled
a lullaby
in the storm
a day of play
presented
as a set of variations
on a
lullaby
2
and now
for a balancing act
with jugglers
and sad
clowns
and droll clowns
and mustachio twirling clowns
3
and then
of course
the foreign dance troupe
Wolfgang's Amazing Three Ring Circus
entertainment for all
Six melodies pour le piano, Op. 4 & Op. 5: VI. Andante Soave - Fanny Hensel - Béatrice Rauchs
pulls a melody out
from a slowly simmering figuration
it drops
back into the pot
Whistling Rufus - Olly Oakley [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
this cook
uses saltier language
homespun garmentry
nothing about how this music gathers itself together
is unextraordinary
quick cuts (cinematic)
multiple screens
multiply overlapped
nothing solid enough
to balance with
I wonder
if
the original choreography
was as utterly new?
pattern play
of inner voices
the timpani player(s) in this recording is(are) excellent!
String Quartet 2 - Zoltán Kodály - Kodály Quartet
the exotic
has begun to think about our language
in
relation to its own tongue
but
in our language
of which language (our)
they
are also
of
its our
our our
too
in
point of fact
something new
haunts the old mansions
inhabitation is encouraged
decoration beyond utility
is
discouraged
have you ever studied your own handwriting?
what is it like?
how
do you make your marks?
I enjoy js and gs
I fill in gaps later
my i dotting
is
irregular
t crossings
are rarely missing
ks rarely appear
connected to the next letter
though
sometimes
from the
prior
fs and zs
are also crossed regularly
in general
I'm better about crossing
than I am
about
dotting
ns are a problem
ms and ws
cause me to lose count
of
bumps
vowel concatenation
run together
hs
ds
ps
skeletal Scriabin
a ghostly
ghastly tale
dusty corners
in dimly cavernous halls
gloomy
with dark frames
of
obscured figures
rs and ns
are difficult to distinguish
sometimes
they are
elided
the forms
of es
are dependent
upon their surroundings
ss are not joiners
I Must Have That Man - Annette Hanshaw [from Really The Blues]
the art of discussing troubles in public
Firebird - Spike Hughes [from That Devilin' Tune]
do such things as night clubs
with house orchestras
and dancing
exist anywhere
anymore?
Bachiana Brasileiras No. 3: Aria - Heitor Villa-Lobos - New York Chamber Symphony - Gerard Schwarz - Robert Bonfiglio
my notion
of what Villa-Lobos is
to me
as a composer
is colored
by the fact
of interactions I had
decades
ago
on CompuServe
with a conductor
who rather belligerently
maintained
that Villa-Lobos
was a superior composer
to such
as might pen dissonant music
and
that this was
proved
by the superior number of pages
in his New York
Times Obituary
in comparison with those other dead guys' obituarious
page counts
Tess' Torch Song - Ella Mae Morse [from That Devilin' Tune]
or
was the nightclub scene
a creature of Hollywood?
modern
stand-in
for the fancy dress ball
Symphony #4 - David Diamond - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz
orchestral music
of mid 20th Century Symphony patron acceptability
required
that all musical material
be made
quite plain
to hear
wherever it appears
radical transformation
is
frowned upon
these
are my tunes
they permeate everything
and won't go away
nor transmigrate
they keep on
being
here
as
they are all there is
a homogeneity to it
like unto that of Hovhannes
these rhythms
are Exciting®
by definition
settling into a warm bath
we are unsettled
to realize
it
is
an unending mirror image
of a warm bath
and
that
all these mirrored baths
are poured out
ecstatically
into a richly jeweled
and embroidered cave
of mirrored
warm baths
sternly warmed
but still
a bath
warm once again
poured ecstatically out
in a warm kind of ecstasy
though
the lip
over which
we
are poured
is
sharper
harder
moral feeling
(now
some good old American muscle rhythms
happy worker/consumer
music}
Old Grey Goose - Red Belcher & The Kentucky Ridgerun [from That Devilin' Tune]
high tail hootenanny
hokum
comic shtick
For Your Precious Love - Jerry Butler and The Impressions [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
the thin line
between sincerity
and mockery
Times Five - Earle Brown
there was a fashion
for composing instrumental music
so that
it imitated
some of the odd effects
that electronic music
of the time
had come up with
so that
it would sound
suitably
up to the minute
to perform indeterminately derived music
indeterminately
or
is performing
exactly
the ultimate
determination
of the suggested potential?
every score
is indeterminate
in relation
to its ultimate
performances
you can put a sound
in a person's ear
but you can't make
what they hear
the open-formness of Brown
(if that's what's at play here)
is more
interesting
than the modernism of the sounds
he uses
which
from this distance
seem mostly
just
old-fashioned
as 60s as The Beatles
In Session at The Tintinabulary
November 3, 2024
Patmos - Keith Eisenbrey
Magnuson Park - Keith Eisenbrey
some froggy action in the Sunday afternoon wetlands
November 4, 2024
Banned Rehearsal 1112 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt
Postscripts
Drops
recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream
