Playlist

Preface

Skyline Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park

"Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs: the tiger of Bengal crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba knows tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands. So, too, it is, that in these resplendent Japanese seas the mariner encounters the direst of all storms, The Typhoon. It will sometimes burst from out that cloudless sky, like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town."

Herman Melville, from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale.

Texts

Recorded

February 15, 2026

Sonata in D Major, Kk. 313 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

structuralizing voice motions

Lobe den Herrn, miene Seele, BWV 69 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Amsterdam Baroque Choir, Ton Koopman

multiple meshing polyphonies
in a mesh
of metapolyphonies 

modes of declamation
such as
recitative
aria
chorus
chorale
duet
parts of the rhetoric
of its text payload
as is
its tonal mesh

Kinderszenen: Kind in einschlummern, Op. 15 #12 - Robert Schumann - Florian Uhlig

oh that astonishing dissonance
against a missing other 

a masterpiece of tonal poetry

Weber – Preciosa: Einsam bin ich, nicht alleine, S453 - Franz Liszt -  Andrey Ivanov

treating its honest simplicity
as a Romantic ideal of self

is it
how anyone
saw themself
ever? 

an humble prayer

2 Pieces: Caresse Dansee, Op. 57 #12 - Alexander Scriabin - Michael Ponti

sprinkled fae motes
sparkle
drifting
to the least final sounding
final cadence
of its time

Skyline Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park

February 16, 2026

Symphonic Raps - Louis Armstrong, Carroll Dickerson's Savoyagers [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

practiced togetherness

Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream?) - Roy Orbison [from For The Lonely]

Sha-de-Dah-dab 

I like the back up singers in this cut

Charlie Browning - The Young Men [a Rescued Record]

local
college ball
novelty
throw away 

Charlie Browning
still first-downing

Burning of the Midnight Lamp - The Jimi Hendrix Experience [from Electric Lady Land]

powered blues
the parties mix it up
in the between

Doctor Jimmy - The Who [from Quadrophenia]

whistling wind flange
(gustless) 

the repetitions of stanzas
in industrialized songs
in cyclic loops
become more uncanny
with each iteration 

the same blank wall
in each direction
in-terminate

Rosy - Bruce Springsteen [from Live at The Roxy]

vamping through the introductions
goes on and on 

life escape fantasy

Cars are Cars - Paul Simon [from Hearts and Bones]

a disbalancing inset groove
in the bedrock groove

Relentless - T Bone Burnette [from The Talking Animals]

a production
shaped
as a song
might be

Soft Queenie - PJ Harvey [from Rid of Me]

power brag

Frozen - Madonna [from Ray of Light]

were these a real person's anxieties
would they ever seem to be experiencing them
with this kind of production value?

Sing & Seek - Christian Asplund [from Brainstun]

a vamp
is an explicit point of reference
tonally and metrically
a smooth but firm floor
for dancing upon
barefoot

Thank You - Courtney Marie Andrews [from Urban Myths]

smile for awhile
a way
to not
quite
say it
straight
splitting a statement
in breaths that
don't match the
sentence structure

Skyline Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park

February 17, 2026

I'm Not Gonna Worry (Cinnamons Cover) - Acapulco Lips [from Demos]

cooption
of a traditional lyric
for a new abode

Track 2 - S. Eric Scribner [from Free Improvisations Quartets Project]

the construction
in sound
of a platform
for the elevation
of sounds 

we conspire
to lift ourselves
with voice alone

Cave Creatures - Steve Layton & Sound-In [from The Many Voices In Our Heads]

hold still
and they
will come
to you 

all of them

Me and My Gin - Bessie Smith [from Empty Bed Blues]

she seems to pronounce it "sin"
at first
but that may be an artifact
of the track's path
to me
here and now

I Walk a Little Faster - Blossom Dearie [from Give Him The Ooh-La-La]

making hay
out of a few different notes
from our first encounter
with
their containing lines
or
in stepwise movements
from
line to line
falling

Sally Go 'Round the Roses - The Jaynetts [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo's Milieu]

warnings
that sound in one's head
on repeat

The Wheel's On Fire - The Band [from Music from Big Pink]

sings
as a steady
beat
of firmly
planted
feet

Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting - Elton John [from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road]

a constant
and steady onslaught 

firehose dance

TV Party Tonight - Black Flag [from Nancy's Mix]

frat punk

Skyline Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park

February 18, 2026

Clay - Echo and The Bunnymen [from Porcupine]

half-bar or so
of guitar sound
foot in a door
for the song
to push in behind 

explaining oneself
in opaque metaphors

Little Fugue in G - The Canadian Brass [from More Greatest Hits]

interwoven certitude

Throb - Janet Jackson [from Janet]

bass layer
of the danceable beat
and its impersonal machinery
another layer
of what might be overheard
from the nearby booths
another
of what might have been
in your ear
another
of ones imagination
having intimate relations
later

Watch My Back - Aretha Franklin [from A Rose is Still a Rose]

backing singers
hold down the fort
during flights
of melismatic arabesquery

It Ain't Worth It After Awhile - Bettye LaVette [from A Woman Like Me]

is the purpose
of a projected persona
to allow a listener
to identify with
or otherwise empathisize
to see oneself in a situation
or to diagnose another's problems 

the blues
being in the form of a
dialog between an explicitly projected persona
(singing the text)
and a supporting bed of commentary
shifting
under that persona's body
as it moves

The Shop of Wild Dreams - The Tiptons Saxophone Quartet [from Laws of Motion]

hard contrast
back and forth
between sax sound
and sung sound
to open
establishes a metrical-rhetorical framework
by which
the continuation is understood
in small and large

Skyline Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park

February 19, 2026

Chaotic Heart - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The Comet Tavern, Seattle, March 5, 2013]

enthusiasm
is a reckless game 

one of my faves of theirs
in an energetic performance

Like It Anyways - India Glover [from Ur OK I Guess]

the bass and shuffle drum
add body to the sound
but not much to the song
which
perhaps
didn't need them
being plenty bodily
with just the voice
and the simple guitar figure

Ward - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [October 15, 2023]

prying open a tight meter

Let Jesus Lead You - The Jubilee Gospel Team [from Goodbye, Babylon]

subtle pressing forward in the tempo
only gradually
becoming
clearly
apparent 

fancy cadence
just for nice

Aren't You Kinda Glad We Did - Sarah Vaughan [from Sarah Vaughan Sings George Gershwin]

morning after
less than sorry 

outcast
doubt cast

Dialogues for Violin Solo - Eduard Steuermann - Paul Zukofsky

the layers
have been pressed thin 

razor
stairs 

for violin, 4-strings

Jugband Blues - Pink Floyd [from A Saucerful of Secrets]

adrift
in a bay
of lines
from songs

Cleotha-March and Two Step - Scott Joplin - E. Power Biggs

gears of like size
turn cams
on spindles
sparking a motion
through the various stanzas

You're The One - Yoko Ono [from Milk and Honey]

some flavor of fame
requires one to make statements
like confessions
and mass produce them

Surrexit Christus Hodie - Cambridge Singers [from Brother Sun Sister Moon]

setting a most proper tone of celebration

Dumb - Nirvana [from Unplugged in New York]

a tune of alternating short spurts
articulated by a repeating phrase
that ends differently on each iteration
wrapped up
with a cycle of
I think I'm dumbs

Pack Up Your Sorrows - James King [from Bed By The Window]

social prowess
fair ground

Track 7 - Eckstein Middle School Bands, Moc Escobedo [from Mach 6]

tricky counting
with duet
for piccolo and bass clarinet

End This - The True Bugs

a moment
in a time poem capsule

Lips and Limbs - Waxahatchee [from Cerulean Salt]

the simplicity
of singing the song
with a noncompetitive accompaniment

U Don't Know - Black Dresses [from Hell Is Real]

anxiety
industrialized
puts on ferocious face

Mutes and Overtones - Tom Varner, Neil Welch [from Out of the Mud]

start over
the distant shimmer of it
was drowned
by the heat pump fan 

Music Drowned By Fan

Skyline Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park

Goofus - Slim Lamar [from That Devilin' Tune]

1928 mouth drumming
key in the door
introduce
to each of the folks in turn 

them's over there's
the lovelies 

lively dance
with carnival tricks

Why Was I Born - Morgana King [from Morgana King Sings The Blues]

the existential feminist query

why was I born
to love you 

cuts both ways and back

Love You Madly - Ella Fitzgerald [from Love Songs: the Best of the Verve Song Book]

finds some hip slang swing 

light on its feet

An Orange Grove in California - Rusty Dedrick Orchestra [from Irving Berlin: All By Myself]

my dad grew up on an orange farm
in California
his dad
died
of a heart attack
trying to run it
through the Depression 

what bird flies West again? 

streets paved with gold dossier

Love Train - The O'Jays [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

this train
has been through a sermon or two 

altar call department

Live - Mrs. Whitehead [from Bard Sampler 82-83]

thrash and hop

Stand - REM [from Green]

orientation ritual

Cold Mountain Is A House - Robert Morris - Deborah Norin-Kuehn, Margaret Kampmeier [from Open Space 30]

descriptive
of several architectures
walls
floor
fences
boards

I Learned From The Best - Whitney Houston [from My Love Is Your Love]

cottage industry
in romantic revenge fantasies 

last laughs best

Samples - Excess Time - Steve Kennedy [from State's Exhibit]

office of liquid machinery
stay on walkways
do not cross yellow lines

Intermezzo in midi: DanceSquares - J. K. Randall [from Open Space 22]

the articulations
by silence
require precision
more than heft
so that
the parts
are merely listed
never promoted

Seven Months - Red Ribbon [recorded live at The Comet Tavern, Seattle, March 5, 2013]

all heft

Astotas - Triptet [from Slowly, Away]

arrives like weeds
or moss
at night
under cover
of damp Winter 

fibrous
unyankable
earthclenched 

firmly belonging

Create Desolation and Call it Peace - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [from Keith Eisenbrey 5: 1984-1988]

halting steps
reluctant words
solemnly spaced 

repetition
is rhetorically required 

always moving on
always sinking more deeply in

In Session at The Tintinabulary

February 15, 2026

Warwick - Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · 137 Warwick 260215 [260215]

February 16, 2026

Skyline Trail, Mt. Rainier National Park

Gradus 428 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

a new note!
what joy! 

it is the note
that is not an A-flat
but rather
the note
a semitone above G-nat
(natch!) 

any note
can send a Morse-ish message 

a note
is
in that space
a valueless token
that is
its value
as a pitch
is immaterial
to its time points' patterning
any other pitch
would serve as well 

be that as it may
and nevertheless
and notwithstanding
the particulars
of the pitch in question
as being meaningful
in regard
to the time point structure
of its rhetoric
any pitch
has a suchness about it
that suchifies
anything
it touches
the modes
are helpless against each other 

|Rung| 

new rung
a second pitch
added to the last

so
we have the time point patterns
of each pitch
and the time point patterns
of both pitches together
and the time point patterns
of their interactions
all reckoned
with the suchnesses
of each pitch
and the suchness
of their intervallic effects upon each other 

the acoustic relations
among pitches
are perceived
as effects upon
changes within
by virtue
of their particular proximities to others

Postscripts

Drops

Keith Eisenbrey 30: Sabbatical Improvisations (part 1) 2013-2014

In 2013 I had reached an inflection point in my big project, Études d'exécution imminent, and took a sabbatical (indifferently observed) from composing written-down music. I filled the time with various forms of improvisation, both "in-the-moment" composing, and sometimes puttering about with multi-tracking and other digitally applied effects. Here are the first bunch of them.

recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream 

Playlist

Maryhill Museum of Art

Preface

"Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of this post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward nigh the windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have seen there, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers. Not the wondrous cistern in the whale's huge head; not the prodigy of his unhinged lower jaw; not the miracle of his symmetrical tail; none of these would so surprise you, as half a glimpse of that unaccountable cone, -- longer than a Kentuckian is tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and jet-black as Yojo, the ebony idol of Queequeg. And an idol, indeed, it is; or, rather, in old times, its likeness was. Such an idol as that found in the secret groves of Queen Maachah in Judea; and for worshipping which, King Asa, her son, did depose her, and destroyed the idol, and burnt it for an abomination at the brook Kedron, as darkly set forth in the 15th chapter of the first book of Kings."

Herman Melville, from Moby Dick; or, The Whale.

Texts

Recorded

Maryhill Museum of Art

November 8, 2025

You Really Got a Hold On Me - The Beatles [from With The Beatles]

text and tune inseparable
not even
with a ten dollar toothpick

Who Can I Turn To? (live) - Bill Evans [from Another Time: The Hilverson Concert]

if a music seems to be asking a question
throughout its span
how then
might we correlate that
to the linguistic modes
of question formation?

I've See That Movie Too - Elton John [from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road]

an
I'm on to you
riposte

Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen [from Live at The Roxy]

name dropping
the landmarks
of decaying industrial environs
tracks and roads
and porches and wheels
and hoods
towns full of losers

Intermezzi 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded October 16, 1983]

in anticipation of then an upcoming performance
I was playing them at a much faster tempo
than I had originally
so
this was part of that process
proof of concept 

telling a different story
with the same notes
in the same order 

long pauses
very slow through here
cutting through violently
lots of time to think after each one 

swimming through
fluidly
weariedly
carefully 

a study
in the Fuxian motions 

this presentation
puts the rhetorical weight
on number 6

Maryhill Museum of Art 

November 9, 2025

Desire - U2 [from Rattle and Hum]

sung on a straight line
one of Bono's better performances
though it loses focus in the wordy bit

Black Tie White Noise - David Bowie [from Black Tie White Noise]

with vinyl surface
for that warm airy flavor 

the poetry here
is a part of the scaffolding
of the stanzaic syntax
of the chord changes

Every Lil' Bit Hurts - Aretha Franklin [from A Rose is Still a Rose]

negotiating personal rapprochement
talking it out

back up singers are the straight words
Aretha sings what's between the lines to read

Banned Rehearsal 658 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 20, 2003]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 658 031020

improvisationally collaborating
to straighten out the distances among us
or trace their contours
establish locations
nexuses
lines of optimal flow
a virtual neural network
occurring
before
and within
our very earminds 

a social phenomenon
that happens
in making this music 

a lovely depth
in this soft soft sound
every gesture signifies

Maryhill Museum of Art

November 10, 2025

Number Six - The Tiptons Saxophone Quartet [from Laws of Motion]

establishing a groove
is making an invariant frame of reference 

in my own practice
I want the malleability
of the frame of reference
to be on the table
and to actively participate 

creativity
along
a long
straight
line

Try Try - Interlude I (Drum Solo) - Juniper - Jesse Canterbury, Tiffany Lin, Brian Cobb, Paul Kikuchi [from Crosstalk]

nervous
caged
restlessness
pushed along

Zade - Taylor Ho Bynum and Mark Dresser [from THB Bootlegs Volume 4]

two strolling together
their conversation pulled taut

Sonata 1979 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded April 27, 2007] [from Keith Eisenbrey 1: 1979-1981]

composed without recourse to pitch class
the page represents
unpartitioned registral space
and the passing of time
from left to right

concerned
with an image of attenuation
the isolation of tokens

Madrigals, Book VIII: Mentre vaga angioletta - Claudio Monteverdi, Rinaldo Alessandrini

they sink slowly
through small intervals
play with antiphonals
and parallel melismas

Toccata in F Major, BuxWV 156 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella

long pedal tones
all meals come with a fugue
sometimes two
or even more

maple snag, Seattle

Es ist nichts gesunder an meinen Leibe, BWV 215 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Gächinger Kantorei, Bach Collegium Stuttgart, Helmut Rilling, Arleen Auger, Helen Watts, Doris Soffel, Aldo Baldin, Adalbert Kraus, Niklaus Tuller, Walter Heldwein, Philippe Huttenlocher

the wordless voices
spirits among us 

the bass line keeps it flowing 

the whole world
is nothing
but a hospital
strong words
forcefully declaimed 

baritone
plays the part
of the abject sinner
rending clothes
pouring garbage
upon his head
icon of despair
turning to repentance
and here comes God's mercy
with flutes a-piping
and bells a-jangling 

bass line
still in charge 

chorale celebration

Sonata in D Major, Kk. 299 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

clearly
these figures don't occupy
commensurate metrical schemes
and yet
there it pounds away
in threes
and yet
pockmarked
with hemiolae

Novelletten, op. 21 #8: Sehr Lebhaft - Robert Schumann - Éric Le Sage

this music swarms with critters and contraptions
very lively indeed 

how many entrances
can be piled into a phonebooth? 

Schumannian polytonality 

each of these pieces
is a cycle of pieces
in its own right 

suddenly
we are on a windswept moor 

suddenly
a wild night's coach ride 

now
a drawing room

Maryhill Museum of Art

Ländler in A-flat Major, S211 - Franz Liszt - Leslie Howard

as for a music box
in its containedness

Etude in D-flat Major, Op. 42 #1 - Alexander Scriabin - Dmitri Alexeev

it all goes down in the sparkles

Old Country Stomp - Henry Thomas [from Anthology of American Folk Music]

drum the ground

Yesterdays - Art Tatum [from Piano Starts Here]

there was a song thread in there somewhere
I know it

Hot Rod - Ray Charles [from Ray Charles at Newport]

cookin' down the road
for the wind and brass
to get their licks in 

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love [from A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector]

chimes and shakers and glockenspiel

Here She Comes Now - The Velvet Underground [from White Light White Heat]

some albums are collected
from a working band's set list 

some set lists
are designed
together with their albums
and tours
and merch
and clothing lines

Le Lis - Billy Cobham [from Spectrum]

for the suave edge
of fashion menswear

Maryhill Museum of Art

November 11, 2025

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Episode 6 - Douglas Adams - BBC Radio Workshop

I play a book
on the radio
or a wall
or the moon
or a box of shoes 

ravening princesses

Borrowed Time -John Lennon [from Milk & Honey]

blingy production value
is there a song behind the bling?

Banned Rehearsal 148 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [July 28, 1988]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 148 880728

drums and sax discuss matters
piano supports each from the back 

is free improvisation an oxymoron? 

we do what we wish
not
what we are free to do?
{are we free
from our wishing?} 

do we say
free conversation
in the same
anything goes attitude 

are we free enough
in our conversation
to question
what we mean by that? 

or:
all choosing
all the time
Kierkegaard's repetition 

we become revealed
by speech 

joining
and parting ways
going
gone

I am suddenly remembered
of the room we made this tape in
the living room
of the Greenwood Big House
where my piano was
and Karen's drums
in the bend
I don't recollect
where I set the microphones 

the big move
to trombone and toy accordion
-[wrong! the toy reed organ]- 

the old ball game 

the beat
is a process
and takes time to accomplish
there it lies
panting on the floor

sax poeticizes
piano provides rain and thunder
in the distance 

o pussy cat
what do you see?
you're looking through the window
and yawning at me 

our 80s sound
complete with Schoenhut
and tape bleed ghosts

maple snag, Seattle

Jesus Doesn't Want Me For a Sunbeam - Nirvana [from Unplugged in New York]

articulate
inarticulate
elided speech
parts
of the articulate words
are given
a half a chance
but only half

Lover's Will - Bonnie Raitt [from Fundamentals]

overheard
at a bar
for the jaded
re-tempted

Track 4 [from Eisenbrey 2003]

sounds
suspiciously
like it has
a national character
in its closet 

cartoon nations

Zither Film 25 - Keith Eisenbrey [November 14, 2008]

climbing steadily
left in a null space 

can an object
be sound
but not music
and
still
be about
what music is? 

vast gaping voids
for trying patiences with

High Roads and Hard Shoulders - Smokestack and The Foothill Fury [from High Roads and Hard Shoulders]

the road is a useful metaphor
among traveling folks

Interview Question - Keith Eisenbrey [August 6, 2018]

as though on the radio
the well-prefaced interview question
yeah kinda
needs no answer

Totem 24 - Sascia Pellegrini [from Totem VI]

within the whirring disks of industry
energetic discharges
as poles flip
and motors turn
deep in its bowels
elbows plunged
in the magnetospheric slime

How Long Is That Train Been Gone - Roy Evans [from Turn Me Loose White Man]

early one mornin'
I woke
I was hungry
and broke 

throat warble blues
quite the trick
dead aim yodel

Man's Best Friend - Norman Monath [from Songs of The Pogo]

doth warm the winter day

New 'Frankie and Johnnie' - The Brothers Four [from The Brothers Four Cross Country Concert]

this one has Annabelle Lee
and not Nellie Blye

Marcie - Joni Mitchell [from Song to a Seagull]

poetics
of the left behind
sad people
beautifully photographed

In The Meantime - Betty Davis [from Betty Davis]

living in the moment

Maryhill Museum of Art

November 12, 2025

Reiche: Fanfare "Albeson" - The Canadian Brass [from High, Bright, Light and Clear]

music for public ceremonials
complexity avoided

Pléïades II Métaux - Iannis Xenakis - Red Fish Blue Fish

this music is located in a fish bowl
or lagoon
in changing weathers

Six Intermezzi - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at Bard Hall, October 17, 1983]

finding the music
between music
time blunders ahead
music
in conversation
with conversation
seeking break-through
fixed
in the idea
that
what we say
and play
matters
personally
a tonality
invented
by exploration
shaped
by the paths
of seeking
it
out

Dance, Dance, Dance - T Bone Burnett [from The Talking Animals]

costuming a fantasy
as a horror

Cold Mountain Songs 7: A Dream - Robert Morris - Deborah Norin-Kuehn, Margaret Kampmeier [from Open Space 30]

pitch class saturation
all voices have a say
at all times 

a music
might find room
in the shapes
of their continual reconfigurations

Track 4 - Students of Joan Schoepflin [from Spring Piano Recital 1998]

brevities

Maryhill Museum of Art

Gradus 54 - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 27, 2003]

our evening's penance
is read out 

we are still
on a diet of As
only 

the pitch
of a moment
is not to be confused
with a possibility
of its inclusion
in a class
hear it
without a name
are we capable
of willfully
refraining
from deciding pitch matching
or
is that part
of what pitch is?:
a predisposition to match
or not
but
not
neither
that is
not innocent
of having made a decision

is the sense I make of it
due
to the names
or is it prior? 

hearing
is a tool we use
to determine objects
in the space we inhabit
as is sight
touch
et cetera
hearing determines things
things have durance
the durance of a heard thing
is its match

do we make too much of piano key strikes
as atomic elements?
they can also be a means
of sustaining a pitch
as a wind player would
with breath
or a string
with a bow stroke
a sound
that can only be created
with the picket fence
of repetition
of keystrokes
on its perimeter

replenished singing pitch
and then
the dampers can be deployed
with many results

Brambles - The True Bugs [from 25 Songs]

a wordy endeavor

Hilton Hihat - Bad Cop, Bad Cop [from Wings of Techno]

this hihat
apparently
uses a dial
I do not wish
every hihat
did 

clever use of settings
within a precision pulse groove
for where one dances
dipped in irony

November 13, 2025

Wait No. Wait - Josef K [from Found on the Stone Path]

shipping lanes
behemoths
long passages
fog and uncertain distance
stasis

Sonata 1980 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded May 14, 2009] [from Keith Eisenbrey 1: 1979-1981]

think out each move
measure carefully
pause on command
interruption within interruptions 

such a lot of noise
broken on the floor

maple snag, Seattle

Broadway Stomp - Jack Pettis [from That Devilin' Tune]

music to get the hips to swaying
in sleek outlines

C'est si Bon (It's So Good) - Stan Freberg [from The Very Best of Stan Freberg]

how I learned French

one of these days
pow
right in the orchestra pit

A Very True Story - Chris Kenner [from Land of 1000 Dances]

dance of nodding heads
it can be done while seated

I'll Oilwells Love You - Dolly Parton [from Just Because I'm A Woman]

playing on a southern pronunciation
oil is well that ends well

Euphoria - Michael Jackson [from Music & Me]

selling it like perfume

Serenade for Guitar and Percussion - Lou Harrison - David Tannenbaum, William Winant

percussion connects guitar to bedrock
or earth
or delight 

these movements are in separate rooms
we go to them

Annapolis Suite - Robert Starer - American Brass Quintet, Nancy Allen

competently starched
presentable

Banned Rehearsal 134 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 6, 1988]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 134 880806

we rumble the floorboards
grumble into our beards 

roaring harumphoderms 

somebody called on the phone
in 1988
to ask
if we were interested
in purchasing
any major appliances 

where one cannot predict
one cannot be surprised 

pouring our presence
unto magnetic tape
our:
we
were
here

maple snag, Seattle

Pie Jesu (from Faure Requiem) - Empire Brass Quintet [from Class Brass on the Edge]

tastefully played

Tall Pines - James King [from Bed By The Window]

at the ends of the lines
the banjo will fill the gap
with a traditional end of line lick

Gnome, Noam, 'Nam - Christian Asplund [from Brainstun]

keeps it narrow
knows its way

In Session at The Tintinabulary

November 9, 2025

Hermon - Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · 123 Hermon 251109 [251109]

three voice a canon at the fifth above and the fifth below

Postscripts

Drops

Music of Gavin Borchert (part 1)

some piano pieces from 15 years ago or so, and a bunch of more recent two-part inventions 2020 played on clavichord.

recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream

Playlist

Washington Arboretum

Preface

"Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. So Samuel told all the wordes of the Lord unto the people that asked a king of him. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint [them] for himself, for his chariots, and [to be] his horsemen; and [some] shall run before his chariots. Also he will make them his captaines ouer thousands, and captaines ouer fifties, and to eare his ground, and to reape his haruest, and to make instruments of warre, and the thinges that serue for his charets. He will also take your daughters and make them apoticaries and cookes, and bakers. And he will take your fields, & your vineyardes, and your best Oliue trees, and giue them to his seruants. And he will take the tenth of your seede, and of your vineyards, & giue it to his Eunuches, and to his seruants. And he will take your men seruants, and your maide seruants, and the chiefe of your yong men, and your asses, and put them to his worke. He will take the tenth of your sheepe, and ye shall be his seruants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day."

I Samuel 8:9-18 (Geneva Version)

Texts

Recorded

July 5, 2025

Boo Boo's Birthday - Thelonious Monk [from Underground]

a complex series of like events
keep it all in your ear mind

Your Man My Man - Betty Davis [from Betty Davis]

as with a knife at ones throat
threat postures

Someone to Watch Over Me - Willie Nelson [from Stardust]

truly one of Gershwin's best
sung with respect

Without You - David Bowie [from Let's Dance]

manufactured glow on his vocal falsetto
suppleness

Banned Rehearsal 136 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [April 3, 1983]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 136 880403

Banned Rehearsal 136

Bickleton provides the pit orchestra
to San Diego's opera stage 

when did I first?
that was the last 

oh oh one
is cracked 

a fool I must be 

pogopuppeteer 

bow
box

July 6, 2025

Bring da Ruckus - Wu-Tang Clan [from Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)]

threat of harm is conversational default mode
machismo

Glory to God - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, September 6, 2006]

clearly formed melody
accompaniment stays out of its way
and supports

Track 1 - Victorious Gospel Choir [from Bruce Springsteen: Christmas in Asbury Park]

the choir's sound
is somewhat lost
in
what sounds like
a large space
try
as they mightily do

Banned Rehearsal 740 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [June 9, 2008]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 740 080609

a session is a conversation
that involves its space
as intimately
as its participants 

feedback production
always carries
a potential
to overwhelm 

anxiety results 

that sounds like me on piano
Karen I presume
is playing the drum
and Neal
on everything else
correct 

feedback
touch
and flavor
of rhetorical sequitur 

this percussion stuff
is lovely
metallic sounds
resonating
on metallic chambers
every so lightly brushed with feedback
binding those sounds together
accompanied
by harmonica feedback humming
and guiro scratching 

flute engages directly now
feedback lullaby

Washington Arboretum

July 7, 2025

Dizzy - Lures [from Dizzy]

a bar
is a framework
used
to organize words
into lines
a sequence
of chord changes
is a framework
used
to organize lines
into stanzas

Ghosting Doubles (third sighting) - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, March 24, 2018]

does a sequence of notes form a melody
by default
id est
if
it's a sequence of notes
then
it is a melody 

or
might a process
that generates that sequence

if that process

is not concerned

with the notes

as a melody

complicate
or compromise
any such automatic melodic apprehension?

Tranquil Landscape - S. Eric Scribner [from SoundScrolls: Lost Landscapes]

microtonal twisting
loves being lovely
but not indulgent 

spare time
that surrounds sounds
their time-breathing-room 

may be tranquil
but there is no lack of activity

Madrigals, Book VIII: Altri canti di marte: No. 1, Altri canti di marte, e di sua schiera - Claudio Monteverdi - Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini

drop the needle on Monteverdi
and magic is discovered 

hollow harmony of morte 

Monteverdi doesn't seduce like Mozart
rather
he ensnares
a trap
into which
one
continues
to fall

Praeludium in C Major, BuxWV 136 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella

lumbering through its chorale
brontosaural 

it goes on and on
because clerical garb
can be complex
to don
properly 

and
they never hurry 

is a change of tempo hopeful
or not
in terms of impending post-praeludial dramatics? 

nope
we have a fugue too
don't get excited

Premier livre de clavecin: Deuxieme Ordre (fin) : La Babet. Nonchalamment - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert

a bit of the caricaturist in him
but
in a drolly humane spirit 

draw me a porcupine
now a cow

Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein Herz, BWV 136 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Amsterdam Baroqued Choir, Ton Koopman

did Bach and his librettist presume
that the day's lesson
was congregationally known
prior
to their instant telling of it 

we'll start with deep mind bends
and earisthenics 

the best way to confuse
is to clarify
clearly

characterized recitativerers

near hidden flute stops

never unlearned

Washington Arboretum

Sonata in D Major, Kk. 282 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

some meters don't resolve themselves immediately
as soon as they do
I regret
their loss of irresolve 

rhythm creates meter
which is entirely dependent upon it 

meter
as an upstart sect of rhythm

Sonata in F Major, K. 494 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Kristian Bezuidenhout

1
these characters introduce themselves to us
in which process
we become involved
in their chaos
and such engaging chaos
we're delighted to be involved 

2
on older keyboards
such as fortepiano
it isn't so much
the timbre delta across register
it's the presence delta
and/or speaking-time delta
presence envelope 

una corda
alters all the deltas 

3
instant problems
instant
and amazing solutions

Die Schöpfung, Part III - Franz Joseph Haydn - Berliner Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, Gundula Janowitzs, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich, Werner Krenn, Walter Berry, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Wiener Singverein

let's take a look around shall we?
isn't it lovely
so pure and chaste
hand in hand
conjoined in song 

a chorus of angels
spy upon them
commenting from behind
the arrases of Eden
upon
the bare asses
(Eve's and Adam's)

a display of voices
ends of things
are events unto themselves 

this fugue is jollier than Bach's was

Washington Arboretum

July 8, 2025

Prelude in F minor, Op. 28 #18 - Frédéric Chopin - Garrick Ohlsson

crammed in
lid slammed

Album für die Jugend, Wilder Reiter, Op. 68 #8 - Robert Schumann - Eric Le Sage

the rider may be wild
but the piece has been fenced into balanced periods

Prelude in A-flat Major, Op. 33 #4 - Alexander Scriabin - Dmitri Alexeev

the registers fight into a tonality

Mother's Religion - Kentucky Trio [from Turn Me Loose White Man]

harmony on a hum
the tempo is free from metronomic shackles
without being any less firm

In The Mornin' - Johnson, Nelson, Porkchop [from Turn Me Loose White Man]

when I was a young man
91 years ago
witness of long sufferer

Laughing at Life (take 2) - Billie Holiday [from Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia]

the format of these musics
is designed for record sales

Sonatas and Interludes: Sonata V - John Cage - Boris Berman

conceptually for three instruments
perhaps just two
the wooddrum sound
and the twangy ringy sound
(in two registers)

It's Too Late - Buddy Holly and The Crickets [from The 'Chirping Crickets']

he steps into a larger echo booth
for the chorus

For All We Know - Aretha Franklin [from Laughing On The Outside]

slow dance
romantic groove
folks need hardly move
words
to travel
as directly as possible
tongue to ear

Caledonia Mission - The Band [from Music from Big Pink]

sounds older than they can claim
young men singing like old men

Happy - Michael Jackson [from Music & Me]

young singing
like older
than young
if not old

Thirteen Emily Dickinson Songs: If I'm Lost - Now - George Perle - Bethany Beardslee, Morey Ritt

this music is written carefully

The Sea Song - the PKs [from Live in The Living Room]

Washington Arboretum

two chords
to see saw between
(sea song see saw)

People Have The Power - Patti Smith [from Dream of Life (Remastered)]

somehow I ended up with two versions of this album 

a voice of impact
those with ears to hear
we shall see
what repetition
through the weeks
works

About a Girl - Nirvana [from Unplugged in New York]

a voice of focus

PC KEE 5 - Pete Comley, Keith Eisenbrey [July 6, 2003]

Keith Eisenbrey · PC KEE 030706

jumps right into Titus Andronicus
chocolate
coffee
cawfee
coded messages
sent by typing lesson instructions
an electric guitar
visits another's
memories'
back offices
listens in
wraith-like
another mind
is a strange museum
doppler shifting explained
loudness levels of tones 

Washington Arboretum

my guitar playing
is messing with that demonstration of Pythagorean intervals 

Tannhäuser is saved!
O Glory! 

we'll bring our own frogs thank you 

to give the mockingbirds
a run for bragging rights 

alone
the heaviness
of heavenness 

conviction of hypnosis
is hypnosis 

conflicting sets
of hypnotists
dissimultaneities
autolisping 

we have drifted into flute space 

inter-outer-planetary
where sounds go
to have fun
far from importance
ever new
outermore spheres

Homesick - Courtney Marie Andrews [from Urban Myths]

the piano is low in the mix
as though it were from elsewhere
pitfalls of studio isolation

Scrap Film 2 - Keith Eisenbrey [September 18, 2013]

Keith Eisenbrey · Scrap Film 2 (130918)

including
as I had forgotten
a performance
of my Intermezzo 6
zoo exhibit
bird and human chatter
copious occasional tape wobble

Everything - Whitney Ballen [from You're a Shooting Star - I'm a Sinking Ship]

are y'all OK?
party in a dark mood

Washington Arboretum

Sinfonia 2 (midi) - Keith Eisenbrey [June 1, 2023]

the game play
is clear as day 

the shape
of the playfield geometry
possibly less so

When You And I Were Young, Maggie - Fiddlin' John Carson [from Turn Me Loose White Man]

fiddlin' John
fiddles honestly

It Won't Be You - Bessie Smith [from Empty Bed Blues]

blues singer
frown clown
with talk back
backing band

Study No. 9, The Anti-Abolitionist Riots (1943) - Charles Ives - Charles Ives [from Charles Ives Plays Charles Ives] 

I get an impression
that he cared more
that everything be included
than
in how it sounds
making sense of it
is not his problem

Cottontop - Stan Hasselgard [from That Devilin' Tune]

fancy jazz
that adheres not
to the old standards
of vocal song

I'll Never Let You Go (Boo Hoo) - Little Richard [from Little Richard]

that piano
is low in the mix
but everybody
not right up to the soloist-microphone
is also 

creating
a plausible space
for this music to be in

Washington Arboretum

July 9, 2025

Boys - The Beatles [from Please Please Me]

boy group
does girl group song
only slightly altered
dance band
plays dance band hits
without regard
of dance song
gender

Remember A Day - Pink Floyd [from A Saucerful of Secrets]

in tune with ones generational peers
that they too were children
not long since

lost in reverie

Down So Low - Etta James [from Etta James]

a slow blues stanza
in a gospel locution
aiming at the rafters

If You Pray Right - Nina Simone [from Baltimore]

but is heaven a reward
for correct living?
isn't that what Jesus said it isn't?

11:00 Tick Tock - U2 [from Under a Blood Red Sky]

once again
the band outshines Bono

Some Sound Examples - Banned Rehearsal [April 23, 1988]

Keith Eisenbrey · Some Sound Examples 880423

early in the Banned Rehearsal story
Neal would break into Wild Thing
there are a bunch of them
in 1988
as a gift to Neal
in far off San Diego
I put together a mixtape of them
and sent it off to him with no explanation
as to what it was
this is what it was 

in a way
it counts
as Banned Rehearsal's
one and only
rock album
on cassette
two copies existed 

I borrowed an academic voice

introducing sound examples

by number

for reference 

several varieties
of unhinged
comportment
as if
one were on another stage
our sound
as commodity
an hallucinatory audience 

hence the title 

this one may have been recorded live
in Brechemin of all places 

rhythm guitar riff

is a posture of control  

this is the real thing
the last was a rehearsal
for this 

not sustainable
but cheery anyway
back to the studio
and at the end
with Amazing Grace
and Uncle Louie Louie
gleefully quoding libet

Washington Arboretum

Cold Mountain Songs: Today - Robert Morris [from Open Space 30]

the voice and the piano entwine tonally

Glory to God (Rehearsal take 2) - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [July 30, 1998]

at a generous tempo and gentle
rather a fine performance for both of us

Moose Knuckles - Frieze of Life [from Nuclear Frog Pond]

a generator for alt-jazz song titles
that could be band names 

name objects
made of word objects

Zither Film 17 - Keith Eisenbrey - June 15, 2008]

identified as identified by identified with
compared as compared by compared with
shuffled as shuffled by shuffled with
isolated as isolated by isolated with
grouped as grouped by grouped with
critiqued as critiqued by critiqued with
queried as queried by queried with
measured as measured by measured with
processed as processed by processed with
distilled as distilled by distilled with
comprehended as comprehended by comprehended with
apprehended as apprehended by apprehended with
traced as traced by traced with
birthed as birthed by birthed with
smudged as smudged by smudged with
sleeps as sleeps by sleeps with

These Are the Days - The Hunting Club [from Holiday Beach]

how much of the social thrust of this music
is its posturing

Corollaries (Up's Down) - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, March 24, 2018]

sinking without hurry
ever down
from the last ever

Betwixt The Electrons (Razor Space) - Pete Comley [from Paintronics 7, Early Lo-Fi Stuff  - Guitar]

what is fidelity low in comparison with? 

filling the media
with signal

expect ants the size of elephants
and rabid tomatoes
emerging
from flaming forests

Washington Arboretum

July 10, 2025

Shreveport Blues - Clarence William's Blue Five [from That Devilin' Tune]

regional dialects
of social music
the feels of its grooves

Come Over Here - Elder Richard Bryant's Sanctified Singers [from Goodbye, Babylon]

where the jubilation
is an ecstatically sanctified dance

Just You Just Me - Lester Young [from That Devilin' Tune]

is the worthiness of a listening experience
contingent
on our being able
to track the flow
of the changes
keeping them
in their proper sequence
or
can we leave that to the performers? 

would that question only make sense to a musician?

Night and Day - Bill Evans [from Everybody Digs Bill Evans]

begins with an empty drum set solo
song to enter the clatter later

I Wish I Was In Bowling Green - The Brothers Four [from The Brothers Four Cross-Country Concert]

complacent privileged Americana

Washington Arboretum

Say It With Music - Rusty Dedrick Orchestra [from Irving Berlin, All By Myself, Notable Compositions 1926-1933]

a melody mellow
played on a cello 

melody and romance
wander hand in hand
cupid never fails
assisted by a band

Directions - Carole King [from Fantasy]

this music lives
in a nice place
where conversation
is meaningful

There Are Other Worlds - Sun Ra [from Languidity]

a dawn ritual
on one of them 

mysteries
whispered
lips to ears
released
into enlightenment

Hang Tough - The PKs [from Live in The Living Room]

music
with limited music-technical moving parts
now we'll pretend we're Bruce Springsteen

Monkey Dance - T Bone Burnett [from The Talking Animals]

short seduction story
with chorus
and euphemismical hook stanza
standing in
for the closed bedroom door

Festive Overture - Empire Brass Quintet [from Class Brass on the Edge]

fanfare for circus clowns
and troops of acrobats
in the form of a medley review
each feature
does their shtick in greeting

Big House On The Corner - James King [from Bed By The Window]

a music for folks to be nostalgic within
like Günter Grass's onion slicing establishments

Banned Rehearsal 652 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 7, 2003]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 652 030707

I record sessions
because I am greedy
I want to hear everything
again
later 

ominous chimney bell
the sounds
mix themselves together
an aural blend 

devices activated
to allow entry 

the desire
to categorize
sort ones thoughts 

a good night to be a zither 

a flute
is a feedback loop
under bodily control
feedback loop
as expressive conduit
its worth
judged
by the appropriateness
of the degrees of control
the player has
to the specific
expressive
need
right tool
for the right job 

gentle electroflange
sweeps the shore
curves of waves

Washington Arboretum

trapped
in a groove
inflicts a grid
upon the whole
a cage
a barrier
I shake my rattle at you
I will bang my chimney
and ring a little bell
bewilder with content 

mechanical pulses
impervious to play
squeeze to burst
nearly
to separate
the parts of sound
to distinguish
its parts

Sind' - The Tiptons Saxophone Quartet [from Laws of Motion]

this music is its own circus

Fox Spit 130923 - Keith Eisenbrey [September 23, 2013]

Keith Eisenbrey · Fox Spit 02 130923

playing guitar
involves a sensitivity
in pitch and hand position
that is differently configured
than in playing keyboards 

my automatic knowledge
of which pitches I'm playing
is a visual metaphor
and doesn't connect with guitar notes
ignorance as a kind of liberty

Your Car - Red Ribbon [from Dark Party]

to escape the intolerable
impossible

Sinfonia 2 (piano) - Keith Eisenbrey [June 1, 2023]

I am gratified
at how each of these Sinfonias
changes
when played on each different instrument

Mobile Blues  - Wade's Moulin Rouge Orchestra [from That Devilin' Tune]

a well rehearsed stage act
playing for folks
not to each other

Take It Easy - Duke Ellington [from Ken Burns Jazz]

inventing an urbane sophistication

They Say It's Spring - Blossom Dearie [from Give Him the Ooh-La-La]

what the modern cynics shout of
poet's plights are pathetic

Packing Up - Chris Kenner [from Land of 1000 Dances]

a dance in every activity
one of the fifty ways there must be at least

what one tells ones buddies
at the bar

Summertime - Big Brother and the Holding Company [from Cheap Thrills]

with canonic guitar intro
sung to the singer's self

Golden Lady - Stevie Wonder [from Innervisions]

speaks Vegas glitz natively
and with authority of its class

Just As Long As We're Together - Prince [from For You]

this music
is a type of music
made of types of music

Dancing With Myself - Generation X [from Nancy's Mix]

collected back when I knew people who were clued into current fashions

In Session at The Tintinabulary

July 7, 2025

Arlington - Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · 105 Arlington 250706 [250706]

Postscripts

Drops

Music of Aaron Keyt - Part 1

My decades-long collaboration/conversation with Aaron Keyt has been among my most valued musical relationships. I have two more volumes of recordings waiting in the wings, and quite a few scores queued up to learn and record. This first volume includes pieces written over the last four decades and more. The recordings were made from 2005 through 2014, except "Monsters" for piano 4-hands, which were recorded live in 2022. Jennifer K. Chung plays the Primo and I the Secundo.

Three Bagatelles (1999)
Occasional Pieces (1984-1989)
Monsters (2022)
Three Pastorales (1984)
Sonata (2012)

recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream