Playlist

Preface

"And so let us now, with the aid of such wisdom as we may command, return forthwith to the place of our adventure, not dallying overlong in speculative digression lest, in musing the while upon the perils of unscientifically grounded conjecture, we unduly exaggerate the risk that happenings of some considerable moment may pass unobserved before our preoccupied sense."
- Benjamin Boretz "Language, as a Music"

Texts

Recorded

April 11, 2020
War - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

lesson and carol
cover of course

As a song it suffers from an irrecoverable opening whammy, much as does Also sprach Zarathustra.

Who Cares About You - Full Toilet [from Full Toilet 7"]

a great trip actually
It has that opening whammy thing down and then stops.

Pledge Allegiance - Robber's Roost [from Live in Minneapolis]



political?
add to the right left margin lists of Boretz's I/O

Winners - Manfriday [a Rescued Record]

manufactured live feel
hey kids
do it yourself
without leaving the house

sampled sound feel
no reason for instrumental intervals
if none are strutting
hey kids
insert your righteous strut solo here

push button for cheering multitude sound sample

When the Darkness Comes Out at Night - Whitney Ballen [from White Feathers/White Linen]



a sweet song sung with joy
playful
down with how unimportant it is to be taking it seriously

a strenuous joy

April 12, 2020
Banned Rehearsal 921 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 2016]



the need:
a place to stand
: could be a score
: could be a habit
: could be a rut or a phone booth or a wood box
: could be a vehicle
: could be a room or the past or our conjointed experience together

? how comfortable do we need to be with our bona fides ?
? our imprimatur ?
? does our place to stand allow adequate liberty to each others' places to stand ?
? does our place to stand disappear in the experience of the moment, become transparent to it ?
? are we now the center of attention ?

The house of Atreus has fallen in the dust. Pastichery has a similar problem.

a magnum mysterium - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

see?

if you don't mess with it so much it's lovely!

Monkey on a Chain - Courtney Marie Andrews [from No One's Slate Is Clean]

big arrangement of small sounds made bigger in perspective
big voice saying things to you holds its own
plenty big

I'm Set Free - Brian Eno [from The Ship]

slow moving rise of pitch level into choral harmony
like any another choir anthem might do has done

You Can Call Me Al - Paul Simon [from The Essential Paul Simon]

staccato talk-o
urban tales
told quick

Desert Bloom  (underlying electronic track) - Steve Scribner

a chorale underneath the yet dark sky
commendable intonation doing
no fade out on that
no sir just cut it off
yes

lovely understated it-ness

April 14, 2020
Gradus 302 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [November 2016]

we listen for paths to follow and then we have followed
calls into question the tense of listening
a fluid multi-morphing attitude to the sense of experience of what might as well be called now
bending sequential experience to follow the path we have formed to be on

[aside: music is often composed so that sequence matters to its image of comprehensibility. It can't be mixed or shuffled in our experiencing of it and still be recognizably it.]

this
shit
isn't

radical content determinacy writ so large as to be ungraspable as experience

Darlington County - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

or Klickitat County
as Karen sings it

the better life elsewhere
the myths of worker migrant america
the allure of the south

whips his big man out
sax, right

Dust and Dirt - Smokestack and the Foothill Fury [from America's Freedom Death March]



a report from the grit road
DIY blues hillbilly perfection
last red cent shiny dime
and time in time

Ocean Ambience Rocky Coastline (Volume 3) - Pete Comley

a list of sounds
arcanely catalogued and sequenced
for real

a drawer of specimens
of such beetle-like things
alike and not the same
a memento of eternity
that will persist beyond and without regard for our time of woe
and even these not eternal
all of it that we can be conscious of is limited to that of which our consciousness is capable
no more

April 15, 2020
Singet und klinget, ihr Kindelein - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

instrumental parts and vocal parts of essentially identical, interchangeable, double-able

does it mean that they were intended to be infinitely arrangeable,
or that these were the sorts of lines composers knew how to work with and were acceptable in polite paying company
and that they intended these pieces for the particular forces available to the instant occasion for which it was written
nor to be ever after considered

I Will - High Class Wreckage [from High Class Wreckage]



your evil ways
yeah I like 'em

the increments are extraordinarily narrow
but carefully prepared to inhabit the package they are packed in
with only just the bare necessity of protrusion

Banned Rehearsal 922 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer [November 2016]



"Bickleton Burger" for Aaron's birthday
shades of Aaronsbundler wheezing on the pump organ
trigger alert: metal on metal squeaking

out loud
reading from a score
of any kind
is
to some extent
a cop-out
a dis-engagement
a breach of social contract

or

success at engagement involves disappearance as a clearly independent activity agent
one's part comes apart
joins collectivity

the undigested past
disgorged
use fresh water

April 16, 2020
You Make My Tremolo - Sun Sect [a Rescued Record]

The band plays in another room, early DIY? Demo-ish frog croak
record me! I wanna be a paperback writer
bluesy bland guitar hook

What Love Will Provide - Yuni [formerly in Taxco?] [from Sanpaku]



late surf pop in a big can

Austin - SeaStar [from Never Go Back]



the power of a melody sung alone
still does it for me
all one ever really needs

Working On The Highway - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

all he really needed here
was a set of spoons

Smoke Goes Clearing - Shelby Earl [from Burn The Boats]



teaching one's self's mirror's you

who comfort
him or her

me you I

Gradus 303 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [November 2016]

rung one:
the nearly replete
rung two:
the replete
{of the collection so far}

this is not counting in the sequential manner, i.e.

0 - 0
1 - 1
10 - 2
11 - 3
100 - 4
101 - 5
110 - 6
111 - 7
1000 - 8
1001 - 9
1010 - 10
1100 - 12
1011 - 11
1101 - 13
1110 - 14
1111 - 15

it is out of order as counting
and will continue to scatter as time goes on
that is, taken as an expression of quantity in base 2
increment becomes confused or refracted
and that refraction is a figure
writ upon time

any segment of a rung might express a number in base 2
and any number can be placed in a hypothetical time point
so that composition can be time travel

{{having grown old with tape bleed it is easy for me to hear a PPP pitch instance followed by a the same pitch played F as just that: tape bleed
though here, that's just how he plunked it}}

and partitions of rungs played together
(think Babbitt's arrays)
are different quantities or quantity numbers nobbing hob together in a counterpoint of time travelings
extending beyond the universe

like tapes played together
as tape bleed made big

Bransle de poictou - La bona novella - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

The Renaissancy in all its jingle bell hoary glory
so quaint

--- Warning - Operation ID [from Legs]



a ringtone to riff under
push it around if you can
holds together under pressure
not immovable
but moves as a thing

Go Fast - Crystal Beth and the Boom Boom Band [from Yugen 3]



create a rhythmic environment
like a room to be in
of one's own
as it were

decorative impulse
in a non bull-shit way
throw some posters on the wall
what you might want to see
to reflect memory and aspiration and attitude

Postscripts

(-)ture he has labored at this and to be

complete monicker means a year at harvard

without music the only reward he

hung there from another mind

dyes dray violet

blows on the bass drum

Playlist

Preface

"The god comes wheeling down,
Does not disguise himself, so great the pride,
The confidence of his splendor. But he aids it,
Smoothing his hair, making the robes fall even,
The golden border showing; and he carries
In his right hand the wand that makes men slumber
Or rouses them to wakefulness: the sandals
Glitter around his ankles."
- Ovid "Metamorphoses" (translated by Rolfe Humphries)

Texts

Recorded

March 14, 2020
Darkness on the Edge of Town - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

Text on a page arises from thought in a mind, and though it has a reasonable reading can be unreasonably read. As it is here. There is an interval between the reasonable and the unreasonable, an interval along a line between reason and un.

Cello Concerto op. 104 (selection) - Antonín Leopold Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

(the slow movement)
Concerto-ness: two or more stand at a distance or entwine their parts, as each mirrors the other and their entwining and their standing at a distance.

Think Accessories - Operation ID [from Legs]



Sneaking around with sudden bright lights. Then we take a ride, go into a sketchy place. Spaceships are there. Skittery little things aren't they? Ride back out quick.

Corollaries Omnibus - Keith Eisenbrey



awesome fades in

fade in

awe

in

some fades

they come forward each at their time and at their pitch
to witness the hum of still distant or distant again comings or goings
an anatomy of chaos

March 15, 2020
Sonata in E minor, K. 98 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

artifice as, nearly, an end in itself
were it not for
nothing can be so revealing

Dream (Live 1982) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

pop: a style of performance in which song is buried in show.

Riu, Riu, Chiu - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

popped up: that is: was the old practice so gussied up with production value?

The Kustard King - Whiting Tennis [from Three Leaf Clover]



self inflicted nostalgia vibe icky sound all for an I could have told you so

Draw You Close - Your Mother Should Know [live at SkyChurch November 2011]

not a finished song, but to its credit it clearly inhabits its song space.
not pop.

The Main Part - India Glover [from Pup Demo]



verse: a private communication
chorus: public

songwriterly self-referentiality (the song to itself)
diggin' it.

Sonata in C minor, K. 99 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

I think Scarlatti would have loved the way phonograph records can get stuck. But he would want to compose with where the partitions of his figures get independently, variously, stuck.

obvious: some figures cadence within themselves, others don't.
codetta summary

Soft Palate - David Hicks, James Kelly, J. K. Randall [from Inter/Play]

equal parts
forthrightly, scrapy, and snarky

We have a quick auto-response to follow where led. Everybody looks where the first looks, in turn, to not be left alone.

The familiars having been got over it then gets down to business with familiars in the unfamiliar.

the pronunciator works on pronunciation
(riddle me this:
How does a noun become a nun? By pronouncing pronunciation.)

holding pattern
until a new matter
is what

leave room
for what the matter is

(don't) dance so close
your brother (I heard that) has become a different man

bold pat

bald pat
balding pat

balding pattern
holding pattern

holding pat
hold pat

bold pat

Racing In The Street - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

When heard live, after it has been intimately learned in the comfort of one's own vinyl, is it the same song at all, or a memory of it? They are singing along too.

Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81 (selection) - Antonín Leopold Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

must have loved Schubert.

Color Me Black - White Orange [from White Orange]



intense pressure
music between metal plates
Pink Floyd reference: (set the controls for the heart of the sun)

Gradus 297 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [September 2016]

While he was telling of what he would do I was shedding a tear for old Ireland, so I didn't hear of what he would do to the pitch set battalions of old Ireland.

Does a "combination" of __ include the intervals between those of __ of which the combination is possible of what can be combined? Mutually boned.

A collection always returns to itself (trapped)

the further we go the more subtle the distinction might be between rung and rung. If order is stipulated then ordinality is an unquestionable fact, as is distance along enumeration. O the eons!

March 16, 2020
Sonata in C Major, K. 100 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

kitten on keys game there
mouse chase
attack paw

Angel (Live 1982) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

song for enjoyment of a specific voice

person lifted into voice, a kind of possession
voice possessed

Outrage - Stuart Dempster, William O. Smith

Leaving parts of themselves along the way
like loops
sticky loops

doing with people in a space what would be done later by electronic means.

Wisconsin Blue - Whiting Tennis [from Three Leaf Clover]



covered up, not shown enough to be heard clearly
lazy songwriting

Superwizard - Ancient Warlocks [from The Superwizard 7" Single]



no fat on this one
lean and tense from outer space

Forest of Thorns - Your Mother Should Know [live at SkyChurch November 2011]

chaotic opening is a winner
(altar call: genre gambit)
James Brown already won that game.

Mr. Kerosene - Dræmhouse [from Only Friends EP]

veiled, but not covered up.
The threat is seen quite clearly.

compositional. solid.

March 17, 2020
Sonata in A Major, K. 101 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

direct repeat:
structural echo?
structural emphasis?
phraseological time warp?

that is: using balance A:B as reference, then with AA:B, A is both balanced by B and not balanced by B. Its balance is activated.

Orange Dots, Pasted - David Hicks, James Kelly, J. K. Randall [from Inter/Play]

Pitch freak is, I understand, the name of the game. We love notes (musical events of singular moment) because we can single each of them out as an entity. Pitch is a ready-made cross-reference among these singular items of study. They are good about holding still, so that we can listen at it closely, in grains.

March 18, 2020
Respect Yourself - Bruce Willis [a Rescued Record]

Drumming is at the root of this, as a music. Every sound plays a part, even the solo vocalist.

Czech Suite, Op. 39 (selection) - Antonín Leopold Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

as sold in shops

Movement Exercise #1 for Blindfolded Ensemble - Beth Fleenor [from Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble Vol. 1]

One of the bounds within which this plays is the obligation to play well, to make the means invisible. Not so much as though the puppet strings aren't there as that they don't matter so long as the actual pursuit is agreed upon.

Banned Rehearsal 918 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [September 2016]



here, playing well is neither encouraged nor enjoined
it is tolerated if it doesn't showboat much


allow ample room for hints of quiet doings
nearly inaudible is AOK.

composition as: establishment of a specious structural hegemony over a time span.

March 19, 2020
Sonata in G minor, K. 102 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

B follows A in more than one sense
i.e. not just follows after but tracks it either in whole or in part
aspects of A track into B, which becomes a new A for a new B.

That's the basic move.

After The Glitter Fades (Live 1982) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

NB: sorry, it never does. It gets in the water. glitter is evil.

This Land Is Your Land - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

Bruce is trapped in the same stadium must be filled quagmire as Stevie Nicks, but has a bit more room to stray, just because he's a man and a bigger draw, I suppose. He still can't help gussying it up with production value and new chords. Did it need improvement?

Legends Op. 59 - Antonín Leopold Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

episodic, a sequence of affects
relies on the pattern of returning material to tie it together (Schumann's game)
just enough to imagine a story behind it

Sweet Angel - Your Mother Should Know [live at SkyChurch November 2011]

comes with its own preamble
one chorus must be a guitar solo
a brief one

Lion Storm - Ancient Warlocks [from Ancient Warlocks Live Vol. #1]



a strong rope pulled taut

Sonata in G Major, K. 103 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

devious contrapuntal relations
he knows more ways through the maze
than you do

Wade The Water to My Knees - Lucille Holloway and Basers [from Art of Field Recording Vol. 1]

heterophonic clapping rhythm
sparks on the river

Wie schön leuchtet die Morgenstern - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

o give me more of that old Renaissance meter play!

Symphony #9 (selection) - Antonín Leopold Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

(the Going Home movement)
an operatic moment with hints of Mendelssohn's midsummer and Mussorgsky's Volga sunrise. The purpose of the little episode that isn't the big tune is to modulate back into the episode that is the big tune.

the backstory is hinted at in the middle bit.

Wet Petition - Yuni [formerly in Taxco] [from Slow Charade]


technological means toward a more branded sound.

Spokane Steam Plant Chimney Stomp - Karen Eisenbrey and Keith Eisenbrey [September 2016]



what fun!
how we kept from laughing I know not.

I don't know if you can still go in the room under the long open chimney in the current configuration of the restaurant there. A pity, if not.

Sonata in G Major, K. 104 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

several ways to get to the bottom of the keyboard
then some other ways to not move much at all

March 20, 2020
Leather and Lace (Live 1982) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

(sexual politics of the music industry as it comes out on this end)
Addressing A for the benefit of B presumes a skew of the fandom curve toward B.

Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Addressing A for the benefit of A (sort of), or playing Cyrano for everyman's mixtape of sexual braggadocio. Does that trick ever work?

quality instrumentals though. the money spent shows.

". . . the robes fall even,
The golden border showing"

Two Waltzes, Op. 54 (selection) - Antonín Leopold Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

lazy gracious then briefly (while the old folks aren't watching) more physically flirtatious, then quite openly sultry

Each waltz or trio is a way that a couple might be together, dancing, framed by elegance.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Your Mother Should Know [live at SkyChurch November 2011]

see you in a dingy bar someplace soon

Gradus 298 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [September 2016]

each musician's composing improvising listening analyzing narrating ear can activate a devious scheme
devious because, ultimately, inscrutable

must be accepted as an object immediately, while it occupies its span of experience

Analysis as a musical activity is a tool for discovering the ear behind the noise. We can hear what the ear is thinking because the playing of what we hear is the thinking of the ear.

Sonata in G Major, K. 105 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

fingery figurations are (of a piece with) the mechanics of the action
all those levers and plectra and key balances

balance - metrical, rhythmical, or of a lever - is a mechanism

Stop Draggin' My Heart Around (Live 1982) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

the guitar part plays the part of the A (in being addressed)
what A says back (a thankless role)
is the guitar played by the B singer here?
acting out sexual politics for the benefit of _?

Reading: Luke II 3-8 - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

woyse meyn
woyse guys

Romance in F minor, Op. 11 - Antonín Leopold Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

poetic in how it fills out its pitch space

[it sounds like the piano has its lid down, muffled]

The keyboard writing is quite fine, and quite clearly post Haydn/Mozart, in that it evokes a heterogeneous ensemble rather than, say, a lute or a blended choir of like voices.

Sleeping By Myself - Eddie Vedder [from Ukulele Songs]

long line melody
takes you right along
sets you down at the end
(nice!)

Otter Song - Bicycle Face [from Wonders of Female Strength]



a delight
it is positive positive
like like

In Session at the Tintinabulary

March 15, 2020
Maple Leaf 200315



I was up early so I put the microphone out early to listen to the birds.

March 16, 2020
Meadowbrook Pond 200316



Up early again I drove to a nearby wetland park to hear more birds.

Postscripts

fired with love's urgent longings 1 of the

first stanza concerning this dark night and its

now to discuss the about which love's urgent

** ** **

pitch in a swamp is a bird on a cattail

an embodiment of the absence of itself

an image of duration bereft