Preface
"For a composer or a performer (perhaps also for an actively creative listener) the constructs of a quantified music theory may be exteriorized resources for composition, that is, for the reintegration of a musical particularity - a particular manifestation of musical-ness - within a music. Inside the internal-compositional circle, such a theory's prescriptive-normative implications are negotiated within a compositional process, that is, transmuted into, as, the particular-musical. In that context, musical output emerges as ideologically neutral, or, rather, its ideology is expressed as a particular musicalness; its political-aesthetic implications are assimilated into the nonparaphrasable (and hence interpretively unconstrained ) nonverbal (acoustic or mentalized) sonic text. The implicit self-privileging and prescriptive-normative messages of such texts are unproblematic because they speak integrally within their own musics. Exteriorized as public-persuasive discourse, however, the ineluctable privileging and normative-prescriptive messages of theory become ideologically and expressively preemptive, disembodying ideology and expression from the musical text and relocating it within the discourse text exhaustively. Perhaps it can be said, then, that the public theory-making space is essentially post-musical, and that the musical music-making space is essentially pre-theoretical. Creative interaction within one's own musical experience is a radically different kind of theorizing, trading in authoritative prescription for imaginative re-creation, recognizing the musical in music by leaving it normatively uninvaded."
- Benjamin Boretz "On Reading Each Other" from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020
Texts
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/.
May 29, 2021
Ewa Trębacz, w/ Leanna Keith & Josiah Boothby
The Tower of Broken Mirrors
swim
glide
submerged native
we are alien
among them
our vessels
might sink
past these
reflective limits
at
curved distances
this might be
a single whale
in several places
under
sea
earth
sky
and sleep
an inverted vase
breathing
sightless
cave cetaceans
May 30, 2021
Noel Kennon
brought in brought
came in came
rung in rung
brought in came
came in rung
rung in brought
rung in came
brought in rung
came in brought
rung came in
brought rung in
came brought in
brought came in
came rung in
rung brought in
brought brought in
came came in
rung rung in
lifted space
opened walls
allowance made
May 29, 2021
Variations in E-flat Major, Op. 35 "Eroica" - Ludwig van Beethoven - Artur Schnabel
up down
close far
theme
is a frame
first
from in which
its image
fills out
step by step
all there is
in all
their
slicings
concentric layers
the frame
can be discerned
in each
without trouble
he makes sure of that
a frame
of trivially countable quantities
2s and 3s
but also
the tune theme
is a separate
though conjoined
subject
as though
it
were two sets of variations
played simultaneously
the fugue is a delight
with stretto diminutions
Sonata in B-flat Major, Op. 2 #6 - Muzio Clementi - Howard Shelley
sunny day play
picnic gambol
day's gayety
more than plenty
to shine through
any pensive moments
such graceful shapes
these dance
Sonatina in A minor, Op. 88 #3 - Friedrich Kuhlau - Loredana Brigandi
only in minor mode
for one short bit
we'll get more later
3rd movement
the minor mode
as the imp
the clown
2nd movement
the major mode
as placid
Etude in G-flat Major, Op. 10 #5 - Frédéric Chopin - Cecile Licad
a big moment surprises us
we pause
to wonder
at it
then back to mischief
Slavonic Dance in A-flat Major, Op. 72 #8 - Antonín Dvořák - The Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi
she
was a vision of loveliness
and later
by candlelighted
eyes
a dance is an event
by means of which
a story
can be
threaded
Track 3, Selections from The Nutcracker - Piotr Ilyich Tchakovsky - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy
and here's one
a dance
now
for rapturing on
Poor Mourner - Cousins and Demoss [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
among the many terrible things
the minstrel music
of late 19th
Century America
was
it was also
often
music
of
astonishing sophistication
May 30, 2021
the music observes closely
turns to the next scene
Geneviève's
vocal line
composed with the care of plainchant
and several
centuries
of recitative
behind it
the descent
of the steps
is into otherness
Rose Leaf Rag - Scott Joplin - William Albright
knows how to build with it
does not question it
Sonata, Op. 64 "The White Mass" (#7) - Alexander Scriabin - Ruth Laredo
how does this hang
within
our psychesphere
pull in
to reveal soft breezes
Dixieland Jazz Band One Step - Original Dixieland Jazz Band [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
they sure sound like they're having fun
a clown car band
weaving
crazy
under the bigtop
June 1, 2021
Finnegans Wake, Chapter 1 (start) - Jame Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer [April 22, 2014]
This is a pre-performance recording that I made at the Tintinabulary
echoland
1132 A.D.
566
now after all that . . .
June 3, 2021
I Believe I'll Go Back Home - William & Versey Smith [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
thread voice
solid as a rope
interjection voice
barnacles
where it dips
into some certain
substance
It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) - Duke Ellington [from Ken Burns Jazz]
where the mass of the body floats
and how it moves the belly
Ben Dewberry's Final Run - Frankie Wallace and his Guitar [from Evans 78s]
pedestrian
how told
is not the focus of the performance
but
the tale told
at this remove
it is the sound
of the old vinyl
that wins
most
plainly spoke
6 Hungarian Songs - Zoltán Kodály - Kodály Girls Choir, Ilona Andor
This recording came from my Mom's collection. In the 60s and early 70s she was in charge of the children's choirs at our church, including a girls' choir.
an example of what was possible.
Locked Out - Hank Penny [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
the textsong part of this number
is a placeholder
for playing
instruments fancy
with advice
to the next barstool
in the form of a complaint story
In Session at the Tintinabulary
May 31, 2021
Banned Rehearsal 1027 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, and Neal Kosály-Meyer
we gathered on the porch
Neal with us in the flesh
first time
since
a year ago
in early March
our resident chickadee
had some harsh words for us
Postscripts
::Consult the Oracle
the company in which people saw him
gesturing sniggering and talking to
himself did not go back his place in part
Reality Check::
tried to burn myself up
was alarmed to be walking barefoot
but the lion turned away
