Playlist

 Preface

"What I want to suggest about this kind of music experience is that it might plausibly be consequent on, and ultimately ontologized with respect to, a series of previous life-events speaking exclusively in the suigeneric language of music. 'Suigeneric' does not signify 'isolated', or even insulated, just relatively discrete in the total cosmology of consciousness. Floating independently within the global consciousness-bubble along with, in some loosely determinate relative configuration, everything else in your momentary mind-world. Of course the interdependence of everything is not in doubt, but it probably isn't designable in any one intracoherent language; although everything has to do with everything, and everything is affected by everything, not everything is intercommensurable with everything."

- Benjamin Boretz "Music, as a Music" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streaming

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/.

January 23, 2021

Amy Rubin 

Introductory Remarks

How to Paint the Portrait of A Bird (French #1)

Jamaican Sunset

How to Paint the Portrait of A Bird (English)

Beneath My Hand And Eye The Distant Hills, Your Body

The Sigh (English)

Better Times Ahead

1980: Letting Go

The Sigh (German)

Winter Solstice Improvisation

January 24, 2021

Kaori Suzuki

rose flames dance on a spiral staircase

an aside:

the shift in new music performance practice
from when live digital manipulation
was rare
and suspect

to being absolutely the norm
transpired in my lifetime 

for me at the UW in the late 70s
to hear a synthesized piece on a program
was weird
a genuine curiosity
from the province of specialized computer labs
and expensive equipment
at that time
electronic music meant
analog synthesizers
magnetic tape
and soul numbing tedium 

amped up free reeds
source sound
fed
into a fine grained manipulation device
bending
extracting stress rhythms
vowel flange
these are like shapes our mouth can make
for singing 

Randallian
as in
Compose Yourself

Recorded

January 23, 2021

Elite Syncopations - Scott Joplin - William Albright

pleasant sunny simplicities
go nowhere
certainly not to dark places

Frieden auf Erden - Arnold Schoenberg - Robert Shaw Festival Singers, Robert Shaw

all are found
wherever hidden
however it must
contort to achieve 

octopus clever 

desperately seeking cathedral

January 24, 2021

Evocations - Albert Roussel - Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Michel Plasson, Jose Van Dam, Nicolai Gedda, Nathalie Stutzmann, Antxon Ayestaran

from whence Grofé cribbed
so is it second order Debussy
or something else 

but such opulance
something else I think
more grandiose and pathetique
a different accent to it
French equivalent to Zemlinsky perhaps 

pre-war decadence (1912)
wide screen
showcase Western
open sky
steppe 

chorus in the last one
sad echoes of Beethoven's 9th 

the diaphony is voluptuating
pretty fancy choral writing
back there in the voluptuary
diaphonizing 

Holst could be a kindred spirit also

Sonatine Bureaucratique - Erik Satie - Frank Glazer

stamped in triplicate
deft

Fantasia and Fuge in C minor - Johann Sebastian Bach, orchestrated Edward Elgar - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz

the impulse to opulance
and the safety
of the safely
dead masters
pound it home 

takes a martial turn there

En fantasirejse til Faerone - Carl Nielsen - Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Herbert Blomstedt

how it sounds
in the dark north
travelogue
here's the dance hall

I'm Leaning on the Lord - Famous Blue Jay Singers [from Goodbye, Babylon]

barbershop neighborhood
men's quartet
a particular culture trope
think the Beatles
4 guys

Diga Diga Doo - Duke Ellington [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

the frame is square
black
greys
and white
maybe 16 fps
aspirational line

motion transfers
in the space
within clock time
and metrical time 

Circus Polka - Igor Stravinsky - New York Philharmonic, Igor Stravinsky

the tempos are remarkably exact

Cherokee - Art Tatum [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

how crazy it gets
(pretty crazy) 

is only to measure
how closely
(pretty closely) 

he adheres
to the center of singing 

the tune
straight in the middle of his sound

Schlagtrio - Karlheinz Stockhausen - Aloys Kontarsky, Jean Batigne, Georges van Gucht

the high notes
descending
the low
ascending
the Schlag
playing ref
between them

I'm Waiting Just For You - Pat Boone [a Rescued Record]

or so he says

do what we used to do

I Love You - The Volumes [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

back to your friendly neighborhood barbershop
naively brilliant arrangement
all the sounds in a little clump
low to the right
(shaker) 

pop songs
no one cares how they end

24 Preludes, 17-20 - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey [from my recital Preludes in Seattle Part 5, February 2018]

it is ominous
18 is scary 

as well as I know these
they are never what I expect
they remain sharply distinct
from any idea I have
of how they go
while I am playing them

January 26, 2021

A Simple Song - Paul Revere and The Raiders

funk all over

("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...") - Benjamin Boretz - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded at home June 2010]

the question for me is
can I divest myself
of classical music habits
thoroughly enough
to play this
to keep its focus
rather than
my prevenient long line
or attempt
at a long line 

about as well as I've ever played it
always room for improvement
I sure wish I would
consistently
play the dyads exactly together

Peek-a-Boo - Devo [a Rescued Record]

the American mechanical sensibility
automatic music
like the carnival calliope mechanical orchestra devices
of the late 19th and early 20th 

in this sense only
in that it evokes a machine

Seeds - Keith Eisenbrey [midi realization February 2006]

Keith Eisenbrey · Seeds (060206) 1987

without breaks between
and mechanical
as above
as though it were a single piece
rather than a set of 6
works that way too
brings out something at its core
concerning the size
the heft
of these ideas
and how
the weight and balance
shifts
as it moves on

After The Reign - Michael Leese - Cleveland Chamber Symphony

film score reticence
attractive without calling attention to its doings
its own logic is not any point at all
free floating atmospheres in search of a planet

from my journal entry of August 23, 1996:
block sounds supplanting each other
occasional parodistic element
(chinoiserie)
motoric masses
like traffic
Ivesian leftovers
but they don't get the last word

January 27, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 441 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 1997]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 441 970117

begin with din
fill the media with signal

Wurlitzer
Silvertone
Ludwig 

chimney
violin 

socializing for a long journey
each copes
separately together 

we don't know what we're doing
Aaron spells it out
the obo roi
scrawl of the 90s
our intent
even when spelled out
is hard to make out
above the noise
all for the best 

in full ear scour mode
settling into a feedback hum drone

the ground is treacherous slick
devious within
dubious support
we crowd and press 

nothing about this is
good
professional
public spirited
it's all crud 

from among the last of the analog cassette tape sessions

soon we would move to digital audio tape

from my journal entry of September 19, 2004:
opens with something of an energy release
cornet guitar over percussion
sounds like a lot of chimney and banging on metal
high pitch bells
baby mutter
rattles-word and guitar
tiny fingery sounds
all sharing a rhythmic space
runs too
slowing
calming
a violin works its way in
back in our enclosed space
we wrestle
Ya! Yahaa!
see Isaac
some energy dispensing itself outward
feeding back into itself
and the organ
funmaker
Isaac complains
rather especially
as it gets going 

this sounds pretty good
sounds like perhaps Neal on the guitar
me on organ?
winds down
loses some energy
though the sound is pretty reasonable
Aaron begins to spell things
and the obo roi comes out
sounds very much like a crying baby
Isaac demonstrates
Aaron continues to spell
a fascinating way to make what is written nearly unintelligible
especially when we only get a bit of it
still much engaged with tension release
Isaac's contribution is fine
as it calms down
it could close or not
these guitar feedback sounds are pretty nice
may be better to cut the first bit if we need to cut (or perhaps as this bad drumming takes over but then here it is being pretty interesting again [NB at that time we may have begun to think about putting out a compact disk]

January 28, 2021

superfly - The Humidiflyers [from Blue Ducky EP]

here we come to save the world
all the boys and
all the girls 

this year I can't wait for Halloween
a million little kids all dressed to look like me

Banned Rehearsal 713 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 2007]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 713 070122

we do not cram the signal
but scratch
and occasionally bong on it
tune in
or not quite
in tune
near 

an older sound comes to visit
in a can 

animal human hybrids 

we allow and comment on the past
creating a seminar live 

big feedback squeal
we have to stand for life
but is it a codeword?

In Session at the Tintinabulary

January 25, 2021

Banned Telepath 69 Toad Hall - Aaron Keyt

Banned Telepath 69 Tintinabulary - Keith Eisenbrey, Karen Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Banned Rehearsal 1018 - Keith Eisenbrey, Karen Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 2018 210125

once again the banned gathers along the telepath

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

upon the sun-blind frames outside the

druggists' appear to have been just turned out of

the united states' mint and when I saw a

Reality Check::

remove quantification

focus on reality

for a change

Playlist

 Preface

"Or, is it possible that music is not like verbal language, but that - like verbal language - it is an input/output behavior acquired transactionally, mimetically, not through other language systems - that is, not theoretically: which is to say, could it be a functionally discrete psycho-ontological space - in that sense a language, rather than a subspecies of some other, or some super-language - an expressing/thinking/behaving mode not learned through the agency of (the content or the sense of) a prior psycho-ontological space, of a prior, supervening other language - like say, verbal language? Could music, in such a possible worldview, be, in formal terms, an experiential 'primitive' rather than a derivative or a construct of the senses of previously ontologized sense-bearing experiential subsystems?"

- Benjamin Boretz "Music, as a Music" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streaming

January 17, 2021

Amy Denio & Annie O'Reilly

dance party with Amy and Annie
yes
Karen and I did get up and dance a little
here in the library
where we were listening

slide show
back forth
two camera
production
mebbe 3 
ping pong
prodigal light 

quick change from goofin' to total in 

a state entered by many doors
dulcet tones and all that 

pokahometer 

New Orleans Blues 

back and forth
soul come home 

2 metal plates
and 15 metal screws 

I don't believe I had heard Annie O'Reilly before. I am grateful for such a wonderful introduction.

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/.

January 16, 2021

Steve Fisk

Be the First to Like B-83

Reflections on Berkeley in a Time of Plague

composers compose sounds
paths through
or potentials for paths through
pitch-
timbre-
reverb-
space
where it transpires
right there in our heads 

sounds fade
while sounds near
moving our listening head 

newhere 

war intrudes
drumming remains 

writhed awhile
b b b black with death
post-beat
reportage

January 17, 2021

A.F. Jones

Camera Lucida

the hum agent binds and clears
listens 

we hear sounds of things being done
in rooms
and not in rooms 

we hear broadcast sounds
the hum agent isn't static
in the
stays the same
sense
its sound morphs
or is shorn
or is briefly joined
but in the
never moving sense 

it does seem to feed
it just swallowed that song
engulfed
pats its belly
the door shuts

January 21, 2021

Kyle Hanson

breathless breaths
quickstep
inout
cycle 

in groups that regroup
and launch 

legato through a picket fence
persistence of audiation
time's track
lost in its tracks

Recorded

January 16, 2021

Elijah, Part 2 - Felix Mendelssohn - Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Robert Shaw, Thomas Hampson, Barbara Bonney, Henriette Schellenberg, Florence Quivar, Marietta Simpson, Jerry Hadley, Richard Clement, Thomas Paul, Reid Barteleme

well formed and polite
Haydn would not be much alarmed 

marmoreolized
stands heavy on massy pillars
not to scale and bloated 

choral shout infra-titles
in case we didn't hear properly 

improper focus on the prophet hero
not on the prophecy 

I get lost in these huge rooms
where it is within its cathedral 

the Lord's Enunciation
Imperial Piety 

drips with wealth

January 17, 2021

Hungarian Coronation Mass - Franz Liszt - Orchestra of the Coronation Church Budapest, Chorus of the Coronation Church Budapest, Janos Ferencsik

ponderous portent
nothing Haydenesque about it
he'd be alarmed 

this music says what the words do 

no padding
large gestured
composed to fill the space
it just is that big
wasn't inflated to get there 

rhythm of syllables in statements 

not that he hadn't listened to Haydn
nor neglected to reference Beethoven
string solo Sanctus 

the material of the melodic portion
is severely drawn
no softened edges
no tasteful grace
ferociously complex harmonic timbre mixes
in the Agnus Dei
giving Berlioz a run for his money

Boris Godunov, Act III Scene I (1872 version) - Modeste Mussorgsky - Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, Jerzy Semkow, Martti Talvela, Leonard Mroz, Nicolai Gedda, Bozena Kinasz, Andrzej Hiolski, Aage Haugland, Halina Lukomska, Polish Radio Chorus of Krakow, Boys Chorus from the Krakow Philharmonic Chorus

the fairy princess and familiars
nope more queen than princess 

if this scene was added
as a revision in 1872
was it because
the opera as a sound needed more high voices
rather than
because the plot needed them as characters 

a force to reckon with
miles from the sound world of that preamble before Act I

once again the menfolk bring trouble

January 18, 2021

Swan Lake Suite - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan

Greatest Hits
from this big ballet thing I wrote 

human feeling is best expressed loudly
en masse 

an oddity
it includes in the middle of it as a Suite
numbers that are
I presume
ends of acts
designed to bring curtains down
and launch audiences into the intermission
how or why go on 

in short it ain't nothin' like a Suite
as such might intentionally be composed
it is an advertisement

January 19, 2021

Parsifal, Act I (Beyreuth 1966) - Richard Wagner - Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Pierre Boulez, Thomas Stewart, Kurt Bohme, Josef Greindl, Sandor Konya, Gustav Neidlinger, Astrid Varnay, Hermann Winkler, Ger Nienstedt, Ruth Hesse, Elisabeth Schartel, Dieter Slembeck, Erwin Wohlfahrt, Ruth Hesse, Anja Silja, Dorothea Siebert, Lily Sauter, Rita Bartos, Helga Dernesch, Sona Cervena, Wilhelm Pitz (chormeister)

ordered interval sets and their elaborations as they mix
the opera begins in the middle of the Prelude
or
in the middle of the Prelude
singing begins  

darkness weighs upon everything
a writhing gooey mass 

Kundry/Venus
captured
enslaved by a fallen world 

Parsifal wanders in and does what he is
he is accosted by a street gang
accusing him of a nonsense crime
made up on the spot
bully tactics
hazing without consent 

enter the holy of holies and call upon the dead

January 20, 2021

Slavonic Dance in E minor, Op. 72 #2 - Antonín Dvořák - The Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi

marketing national identity for easy consumption
folk color in a cage

3 Intermezzi, Op. 117 - Johannes Brahms - Julius Katchen

deep registral focus
figure and voice leading
synthesized into a texture-tonal-function-farben Melodien 

the music you perceive is not the notes

arising within a web
of potentials
a snake pit of lyric lines

from my journal entry February 25, 1996: 1. Lullaby- with a chill wind - hint of hard edge 2. remembers Schumann 3. the chill wind blows gently inexorable b: remembers Schumann → almost flatfooted modulation back

Sonata in G-sharp minor, Op. 19 (#2) - Alexander Scriabin, Michael Ponti

melody is there
but can't be pointed at
it slips to the side
escapes verification
or definition

from my journal entry September 20, 2004: 1. a lingering, poetic reading 2. light, bubbling -, the big moments explode

In Session at the Tintinabulary

January 19 - 21, 2021

Adagio con espressione from Sonata in D Major, Op.31 #2 - Jan Ladislav Dussek - Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · Dussek - Adagio con espressione from Sonata in D Major, Op. 31#2

In July of 2017 I started a sight-reading project as part of my morning practice. The intent is to read through a large sampling of keyboard works from the European-centered repertoire, starting with the English Virginal composers and working through composers chronologically by year of birth. Currently I'm working through the Sonatas of Jan Ladislav Dussek. When I came across this lovely movement recently I thought that I could work it up without undue fuss and make a video performance for eventual use as an offering for our on-line church service. I made the video on January 19, and then recorded it with better microphones on the 21st. I indulged in some elaborations during the repeats, figuring that it wouldn't be out of keeping with late 18th Century practice, and that Dussek was not in a position to complain.

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

I assured perfectly I remember

having a few like that out of doors I

hope not made yes what subject autographs

Reality Check::

the risen throne

the corridor

in tinted eyes

Playlist

Preface

 "So the body is musicalized; but also music is corporealized - its ontology is objectified as one's own identity or as the situation obtaining between one's self and it, or its identity; such an objectification is like an extralinguistic reconfiguring of the expressive event, a turning it over in your mind and body - re-living and re-doing pieces of it - not only experiencing what you are doing, but also doing what you are experiencing."

- Benjamin Boretz "music/ /consciousness/ /gender" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streaming

January 9, 2021

Finnegans Wake, Chapter 7 - James Joyce  - Neal Kosály-Meyer

did his hair

Shem's Bodily Makeup
speech without words
the Joyce sub
marine man
fear these
talk about lowness
of
it 

it
will trickle out 

commuinicaauted 

not a bit sorry
new irish stew
becoming a novel 

communicquated 

among the pornfarts of speech
low

the obligatory
ewe of queue

lowness 

forehead as visual
stank out of sight as structural 

Persse O'Reilly
toon
Leitmotivalisticatulus
a bad fit of pajamas
these are the words we heard 

were we to memorize one wwword
we e eoooe a k (dd)

dd(ak)
d a d
k d
( ) 

in the names of the incensed privy
moose gas 

onechapteratatime
echapte
e a ch pt htcp thpc 

tits 

the age of his arteries
public impostures 

once
current
punce 

edge you
candied
fermented words
highly prosy crap in his hand
let us pry
to booth

we all take [*] 

premature gravedigger
to find out how his innards work 

Lowness (of the) Highlands 

he points the deathbone
and the quick are still 

woe woe woe
way way way 

[*misforbegotten] 

he lifts the life wand
and the dumb speak

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/.

January 9, 2021

Tom Baker

Traces:Sarah – Melissa Achten, harp
Traces:Henry – Tom Baker, bowed mbira
Traces:George – Tom Baker, electric guitar
Traces:Nellie – Lily Shababi, viola; Madison LaVigne, cello

floating
amidst chatters and engines
we are inside
the outside
may not persist
if we could move
we would wander 

signal transmission released from location
the chambers are roomy but interminable
walls are made of empty space 

intermittency

January 10, 2021

Rahikka (Carson Rennekamp) & James Lee

gentle otherworld 

whole body float 

slow river wonder land 

periodic without stops
semi-stops
or any else stops 

it flows
and undulates
breathing
river music
un-flow stasis
null motion
in null space
no disturbance below the surface 

music designed for living with
like walls and ceilings and floors
and the volumes
so arising
between them

January 12, 2021

Bit Graves

built from center of a sound outward
the center is at the root
unshakable
discord's squirrels notwithstanding 

the space aliens are talking
welcome to bloop beep land 

irresistible periodicity
shop sounds
manufactory

Recorded

January 10, 2021

The Quaker's Courtship - Train Case

sense and sensibility

Love is a Landmark - Antonioni [from Lullablaze]

voice flips yodel-like into a distant part of the head
and occasionally drops into an alto warmth 

not without some technique there
no question about it
she got some pipes

Jhon Come Kisse Me Now, Fvb 10 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

The written music of those days looked different than the written music of our days. I wonder if those old guys had different concepts of what music was made of, than our concepts are of what music is made of, stemming from the differently shaped symbols?

Courantes - Michael Praetorius - New London Consort, Philip Pickett [from Dances for Terpsichore]

the art of pleasure
dance
the night is long 

one for strings
one for recorders
(what's record about recorders anyway?)*
drums and brass and krummhorns

*great Wikipedia article with terms like fipple flute and jongleur.

Suite in F Major, BuxWV 239 - Dietrich Buxtehude - Stella Simone

multiple voices together
even virtual voices
create a lyric line
inexplicitly
between them
a melody of their intervals 

Fux thought
perhaps it could be explained
mechanically

Vom Himmel hoch, da komm' ich her, BWV 700 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Michel Chapuis

more than two voices
of course
means multiple inexplicit lyric lines
which being lyric lines
create 2nd order inexplicit lyric lines
between them
melodies of intervals of intervals

Lamentationes pro die Mercurii Santo 2 - Jan Dismas Zelenka

the art of making the word beautiful
aestheticizing prophecy
a risky gambit 

sensuous dissonance

3 Excerpts from Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

familiar to generation after generation of piano pupils

Partita in F Major, Hob. XVIIa.2 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim, Andreas Steier

duos are clearly as much fun to play as to witness
possibly more

January 12, 2021

Symphony in F Major, K130(130) - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood, Jaap Schröder

as much as it continues returning
it presses forward 
never looks back
completes the phrase
spins the tale
harmonic progression becomes a thing
with a narrative of its own

January 13, 2021

Sonatina in C Major, Op. 36 #1 - Muzio Clementi - Howard Shelley

now that's familiar! see CPEB above.
a nice clear little piece 

but
as a child
I got the impression that Clementi only wrote pieces for children
because his music never came up again 

were teaching pieces a publishing vogue?
lucrative no doubt
democratizing music
anybody can learn

Sonata in G, Oop. 31 #1 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Wilhelm Kempff

the quick-echo figure that opens
is more than just a clever flourish
it informs everything
as effective as it is obvious
even when noticed by its absence 

I tried to learn this as an undergrad at the UW
it got the better of me 

the figure continues through into the third movement
right out to the double bump end

Sonata in F-sharp minor, Op. 61, "Elégie harmonique sur la mort de Louis Ferdinand" - Johann Ladislaus Dussek - Tuija Hakkila

he sticks with a figuration
out as far as it will take him
the appassionato strains in its harness 

keyboard as arena
of worth and prowess
a martial art

January 14, 2021

Impromptu in B-flat Major, Op. 142 #3 - Franz Schubert - Murray Perahia

balanced phrase
lyric expression
song is the model 

theme and variations
to show how expression is foreground
the theme is a carrier wave 

same dude
different mood 

anti-reductionist
(we contain multitudes)

Etude in A minor, Op. 10 #2 - Frederic Chopin - Alfred Cortot [1942]

like Queen Mab

String Quartet in A minor, Op. 41 #1 - Robert Schumann - Quatuor Via Nova

let us gather in this lonely place
to share what comfort we can 

doubling back on himself
bursting outward 

balance is
hinted at
alluded to 

counts as dire 

through figuration meter is liberated from the bar line
an invisible hand molding the tension of a poignant balance

In Session at the Tintinabulary

Assembly Rechoired 60 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · Assembly Rechoired 60 210111

Karen and I made some noise while engaged in an ineffective attempt to straighten things up out in the Tintinabulary

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

without music the only reward he

took students is he out of a sigh and

raised mine so goddamn important me old

Reality Check::

the lion in my wall

unravel

lick her side then

Playlist

 Preface

"Expression: is it 'sexual'?

I would say, no expression is not 'sexual', except where it is explicitly received as metaphor, symbol, or signifier;

Otherwise, I would say, expression is not 'sexual', I would say it is sex, just not sex of any definable variety, but sex, nevertheless, of utterly knowable sensation. Sex that maybe we can look straight on at, not need to avert our gaze from, because sex that is literal yet inexplicit, specific and intense yet without exterior reference to make it confrontational, sex fully absorbing within yet unsignified without, interpersonal yet unsocial, medically safe, socially covered, but maybe risky in obscure ways not yet identified in the sociotheoretical literature."

- Benjamin Boretz "music/ /consciousness/ /gender" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streaming

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/.

January 2, 2021

Kaley Lane Eaton

I drew a picture.

January 3, 2021

Greg Sinibaldi

181,461 Dead

Scientists Fret
201,736 Dead
Emergency from Climate Change on Two Coasts
Trust Looms as a Casualty
Rounding the Corner as Hospitals fill
Lament for 234,566 Dead

melody and expression
pitch
as such
as the common
not universal
location
of expression in music
maps to our vocal apparatus
and thereby speech 

pitched drums
are talking drums 

all the pasts of song recalled 

these melodies hit home

Recorded

January 2, 2021

The Bumps - Jeanette's Synco Jazzers, Ml. Williams [from Allen Lowe's Really The Blues]

This track is ready for the full Max Fleischer treatment, song and dance in a single sinuously flowing line.

Piano Concerto in G Major, Op. 55 (#5) - Serge Prokofiev - London Symphony Orchestra, Lorin Maazel, Sviatoslav Richter

poked and prodded without ceremony
or a by your leave 

comic characters
cruel clowns 

concert music prizes expertise
and music that displays its own
and/or allows the display of others' 

must be sure all the keys work
one of his more believable orchestra pieces 

his orchestration style enjoys having a foil to play against 

here comes the cleanup crew

January 3, 2021

Piano Quartet in G minor - Johannes Brahms, orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg - Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Robert Craft

part of what music is
as it comes into me
is the residue
in sound
of the experience
of making that sound 

the performers' experience
of being inside
making that experience
would
I think
be profoundly different
for a member of an orchestra playing this version
than would be 
the experience
of being one among four
making their music
for those others of that four
and for those other others
outside of that four

Concerto in F (excerpt) - George Gershwin - Oscar Levant [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

The tunes and their settings are the strongest part of this. The symphonic workings out of them aren't nearly up to the same standard. 

please look aside
while we move to the next showcase

Standing In The Need of Prayer - Stanley Brothers [from Goodbye, Babylon]

features
call and response
solo
ensemble
and tutti
in balanced segments of groups of sounds
each distinctly orchestrated
as one might hear a baroque concerto

One Mint Julep - The Clovers [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

nice little piano lick
clean and bright

Violin Concerto - Benjamin Boretz - midi realization

lots of Petrushka in the first movement 

midi makes like as if
each note is played from
into
and through
a different radio 

music set against music
music splitting 

interrogation

January 4, 2021

O God of Love - [?] - Betty Eisenbrey, Joanne Deacon

a family artifact
I'm guessing it is something my mom and her accompanist were working on
for
and I'm guessing here
a ladies' musical club
the name of which I don't recall

Funky Broadway, Part I - Dyke and the Blazers [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

How many times can we say Broadway
and stay on the same street? 

The fade out with drums and vocal is starting to get somewhere.
Too bad it was on a pop record and only had 3 minutes to work with.

Veni Jesu - [?] - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey [1962]

another family artifact
probably a more or less contemporary arrangement by the sound of it
50s or later I would say

No One Receiving - Brian Eno [from Before and After Science]

a placeholder for a music

Pastorale: "The Color of Water" (take 2) - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 4, 2010]

house that jack built structure
but reversed 

partly 

each segment starts with the old
and adds new at the end 

house that jack built
starts with new
and works each segment backwards 

doing either in the pattern of the other
variation one 

doing either in total reverse
variation two 

doing either in the total reverse of the other's pattern
variation three

from my blog post of October 9, 2010:

Neal came over to the house to reacquaint himself with how his 1982 score goes on a grand piano, in anticipation of his performance in Snohomish on October 14 at Steve Scribner's concert. Back in the day Neal was concerned that an audience would be unable to hear the details of a piano's high partials in their moil, but his experience with Gradus (more about this massive long-term project in subsequent postings) has led him to a different conclusion. After reviewing the textual material, he played through the piece twice, each time clocking in at about 20 minutes. The leisurely tempo seemed comfortable and right to me, and I look forward to hearing it in public this week for the first time since 1985 or so.

Where'er You Walk - George Friedric Handel [from 100 Greatest Classics, Vol. 4]

begging for parody
what would the 100 Classic Greatests consist of 

a lesson in how not to set a text

January 5, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 285 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [February 1992]

rattles or shakers and zither strums 

I am sitting on my Zafu and Obb cat sits upon me
and purrs 

everything is held right up to the microphone's ear 

sub dude 

sloppy snake slides past
the machine colonizes 

we will march loudly
fife and drum 

we will march
cheering for Blue Georgia 

the sound meter giving its  own last VU gasp
the sound of its own destruction 

It's the Speaker of the House 

the qualities of our doing
the quantities of our stinking
Keith & Aaron
glistened carefully 

oh dear Mr. Punch
made the baby cry 

farts of speech
we bring the Speaker of the House out for scatological time

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 285 920214

January 7, 2021

Untitled - Versaille [from The Carlos Compilation / Pleed Zine a Rescued Record]

bracingly basic punk
mal-shaped precisely

24 Preludes, Op. 50, 1 through 8 - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey [from the recital Continuity in Small Things, University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, February 23, 2002]

clever sharp intelligent pieces and fun to play too

Roundelay (for six instruments) - Robert Morris - Ossia, Geoffrey Pope [from Robert Morris at 70]

we wiggle at each other
vigorous page turns 

but something about it moves slowly
taking all of its details
with it 

punk rock songs
compressed into a few notes each
and then we get the whole history of  them

pay attention there will be a test

In Session at the Tintinabulary

January 3, 2021

Anybody's Fingerbook - Keith Eisenbrey - midi realization

Keith Eisenbrey · Anybody's Fingerbook Draft Omnibus 210103

This is the 14th part of a multi-composition project that has engaged my attention since February of 2013. I started this, a set of finger exercises, about 2 years ago and completed it last July. Since then I have been carefully proof reading it. This midi-realized read through of the entire book is, I hope, nearly accurate. I have some cosmetic adjustments to make in the score but am more than a little ready to move on to the next part, which will be a single composition that combines parts 15 and 16. 

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

affair included in any deduction

offer and before second breakfast

they in castorp might debt it and domestic

Reality Check::

insidious green

violets

the numbers reduced irretrievably

Playlist

 Preface

"Listening is the primal expressive act;
listening is primal composition;
the music we hear, the sound we hear, moves us to the core not because of the external things and persons it expresses, but exactly insofar as it expresses us, ourselves,
the listeners.
To listen tangibly is to be mobilized, as a total consciousness, to be present to an occasion of sound experience.

Listening is primal composition"

- Benjamin Boretz "music/ /consciousness/ /gender" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streaming

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/.

December 26, 2020

Lost Chocolate Lab

one feature of much processed sound:
the gap between the perp and the crime - a finger twitches and oceans engulf 

does this isolate the body performing the act
alienating it from its result
or erase it
ridding the self of ego
by hiding behind a maximized ego shield? 

but:
that presumes we're not involved
and that the perp isn't listening
as we are 

and:
the above is, here, only a background of general thinking,
the music here is quite lovely and approachable 

Here:
like some of what Neal does
in Gradus
on occasion:
playing an evolving sonority
by telling figurational touches
balancing the reverberant roil
like a finger painter 

ages ago, after a session with Ben
I admitted that I couldn't see myself
playing all those jazz-stacked Bill-Evans-spaced chords 

- his response: but those are some of my favorites
- (like this) 

who am I to complain about a figure?
so they're plain?
they still each have their particular effect upon the roil

December 27, 2020

L.A. Lungs - Nathan Markiewicz, Lori Peterson

1.
our hero emerges in detail
at the bottom,
where they sank to 

slowly we circle
shining such lights as we have with us
vast ocean floor Buddha 

no part of the bass pattern
can be in a different tonal space
than any other part
they are all in the same bubble
enclosing it
womb desire
floating
umbilicaled 

little pulses wiggle

2.
humming blocks
we tend them
have always so
hygiene is crucial
for humming blocks to hum 

patient entrance
all the time in the world 

nursery for humming blocks
child's play 
L'enfance du humming blocks

December 29, 2020

China Faith Star & Arrington de Dionyso

Hindsight 2020

an incident
might be an entrance
of a new voice
into the jumble pile
or
it might be an inflection
of that voice
ripe with incident 

active
bracing
tonal qualities raucous
in a salutary way
medial storm

Recorded

December 27, 2020

Boris Godunov, Act III- (1872 version) - Modeste Mussorgsky - Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, Jerzy Semkow, Martti Talvela, Leonard Mroz, Nicolai Gedda, Bozena Kinasz, Andrzej Hiolski, Aage Haugland, Halina Lukomska, Polish Radio Chorus of Krakow, Boys Chorus from the Krakow Philharmonic Chorus

female voices duet
worried minds
their melodies
circle back around 

let's try singing
silly old songs
old tales
game songs 

uh oh
a man
takes over the sound entirely
the female voices have vanished
man has words to say
no wonder the worried voices
man goes all spooky
gets nightmarish real fast 

as a National Honor composer MM stands out as an original creative mind
not content to fold folk material into otherwise unsullied high art
the peculiarities of his material permeate everything
down into the functions of harmonic practice
(why it alarmed NR-K so much) 

ends in pathetic whimper

Symphony in C minor (#2) - Anton Bruckner - Kolner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester, Gunter Wand

instantiates a space
builds its corners 

a new space
disconnect
gapped 

a third space
related to the second
like its back wall
might be 

idyllic for ever
isolated cadences
question
as much as
complete 

find space 1 hiding 

dramatic sequence
not in any Mahlerian sense
but baldly structural
it is there
as it is
as doing what it does
not what it means
in some mind or other
but its doing
what it does
is its meaning 

dramatic in that
these tonalities
burn against each other
these descend on us like sleep
enclosed shapes
icons
images
very strange thin place
but it would be 

confession
comfort
brother and sister themes
if so
sister is kept within 

furtive nocturnal terrors
cavalry storms in
sink like sleep again
more secretive
but still furtive
still terror 

such chaste keys
fighting evil from inside 

scariest damn C Major chord I is ever heard

Gesang der Parzen, Op. 89 - Johannes Brahms - Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Robert Shaw

heavy bodies shove each other around
no Odes to Joy for this puppy 

parental warning
causes depression

December 29, 2020

Slavonic Dance in B, Op. 72 #1 - Antonín Dvořák - The Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi

completely forgettable

Sadko (A Musical Picture), Op. 5 - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Milton Katims

like a short at the picture show
nothing particularly challenging
colorful 

I presume he knew his audience

December 30, 2020

Polonaise in B-flat minor - Alexander Scriabin - Michael Ponti

restless stasis
full of nervous fidgets
goes nowhere
with great energy and bravado 

from my journal entry of August 17, 2004:
Chopinesque, but with an explosive clotted rhythm in the figurations, and a stutteringly decorated tune-sense

All C---- Look Alike To Me - Arthur Collins [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

of historical interest (only)
for the banjo playing style
and flexible tempo
otherwise just awful
- though Mr. Lowe feels that if one takes the time to actually understand the lyrics (good luck) it's more than a little subversive in a sexual-political way. 

trigger warning for numerous racial slurs

When You Aint' Got No Money You Needn't Come Around - May Irwin [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

ain't the only poodle in the pound
- flex temp
- mostly steady except when the stagy presentation calls for emphasis 

see trigger warning above

Valses nobles et sentimentales - Maurice Ravel - Orchestre de Paris, Jean Martinon

The orchestration is wonderful, and it probably has a larger audience in this form, but the piano solo version is more subtle, with a wider apparent dynamic range - what was sharp and clean as a solo becomes, for orchestra, atmospheric and merely pretty.

Ancient Dances and Airs for Lute (Orchestral Suite No. 1) - Ottorino Respighi - Philharmonicia Hungarica, Antal Dorati

clearly the neo-classical was an immediate reaction
or pre-cursor
to modernism
or to the general insanity of 1917 

but the question remains
aside from lifting these pieces to a larger audience, does expansion into orchestra do them  any real favors?
rescue from oblivion? 

or: neoclassicalism before Stravinsky got hold of it 

but: also offering an alternative to the increasingly dense contrapuntal chromaticism that sprang from Bach Beethoven Brahms and Co.

January 1, 2021

Symphony No. 5 - Carl Nielsen - New Philharmonia Orchestra, Jascha Horenstein

I stole the minor 3rd tremolo
or quoted it in transposition
for my Sonata 1980 

the lingering nationalist school of North Europe
especially trending eastward
or leaking West from the Revolution
post WWI toxic nationalism 

tambourine stuff is weird
music from a land of stone fields 

we follow the wiggly critters into grim weather 

now we follow a figure from the high strings
Shostakovich employs a similar method of stitching a long movement together, using a constant messenger wave figure that morphs, but is recognizable, as it moves into new territories.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

December 28, 2020

Banned Telepath 68 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K*, Neal Kosály-Meyer* - *telephonically from Outpost Howth

Banned Telepath 68 Outpost Humble - Steve Kennedy

Banned Telepath 68 Outpost Toad Hall - Aaron Keyt

Banned Rehearsal 1017 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1017 201228

We gather once again, by Telephone and Telepath, from four locations, to make noise for you.

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

origin of the others to be means

of the dark night persons many of which

can be called through the dark infirmities

Reality Check::

the white knight

doomed in the forest

the crank in the roof

Playlist

 Preface

"To be moved, by music, or with, transported ontologically, inhabiting a new-perceived world, resonating a new-composed music, being thereby a new-created new-being, of unsignifiable but saturately selfspecific gender: Was I male, within myself? Was I female, within myself? Was I person? Am I still? Have I been some resonance, some inflection, some reinvented creature alchemized out of the base matters of male and female? (yes, if I remember correctly, . . . )"

- Benjamin Boretz "music/ /consciousness/ /gender" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streaming

December 19, 2020

Seattle Modern Orchestra - This Is Beethoven Festival (Revolutionary) Julia Tai and Jérémy Jolley, Co-Artistic Directors

Eric Rynes, violin; Jordan Voelker, viola; Rose Bellini, cello; Bonnie Whiting, percussion; Cristina Valdés, piano; Marcin Pączkowski, electronics

Wang Lu - Like Clockwork

parallel play
conspiracy 

each period a subject
common and unique 

pre-organized

Suzanne Farrin - uscirmi di braccia

bass drum and viola in an outdoor brick space
screen frames and metallic chairs 

battle, Träume

Mauricio Kagel - Ludwig van

bits form 

mingled with memory
ala Sinfonia 

continuity filched
source as signal 

busy box

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/.

December 19, 2020

Pink Void (Crystal Perez)

chill and dark
an aftermath strewn
remains utter stillness
unpeopled 

new scene
fade in
frog chirp
running water
thaw 

machine
churns and sputters
passes behind security door
ozone hum
cutting torch 

what
we rely
on when
we rely
on machines

December 20, 2020

Dangerknife (Nico Sophiea, Brad Rouda)

improvising to (a film) 

[a score is a stimulus (BAB)]
[a stimulus can be a score] 

a film can be a stimulus || a film can be a score 

doing something to
(a stimulus)
relieves the mind
from being
its own stimulus

but in so relieving
also distracting 

attention tools
being focused
on the stimulus 

other parts of the mind
are left to their own devices 

[or] 

we have been hijacked
an alien has visited
and we have welcomed it
as a valued guest 

[a guest can be a stimulus] 

improvising with
a film
we can follow the score
there it is on the wall
(a projection of it or from it ) 

the bouncing ball
follow the ball
bouncing

December 22, 2020

Stephanie Wood

gongs are wealthy and generous when coaxed
episodes of sounds
gathering building releasing 

each bears warnings calls
of distant beasties 

vast inhabited space
location of incidence is far off
unseen 

metallic sinews
shock waves reverberate
along molecular paths
pulled into vibrations
that bump the air

Recorded

December 19, 2020

Beato in ver chi puo - George Friedric Handel - Renee Grant-Williams, Dorothy Barnhouse, Alden Gilchrist

The roundness of the piano tone doesn't help what ought to be delicate. 

sonority padded
where it oughtn't be

Sonata in B-flat Major, Wq. 65/20 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

on fortepiano
moving through
no more 

adjusting position
in a strange chair 

propositions are impatient
but stay put 

lots of minore
for such a happy key domestic drama

Sonata in A-flat Major, Hob.XVI:46 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Anton Nel

(modern piano)
bright
wit
mischief 

2nd movement is lovely
quiet home time
game time
say this fast 

speed run

December 20, 2020

Symphony in D Major, K141a(161/163) "Il sogno di Scipione" - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Jaap Schroder, Christopher Hogwood

at the height of fashion
refined
but also independent
complete
nothing to waste

Rondo in C Major, Op. 51#1  - Ludwig van Beethoven - Artur Schnabel

Rondo: the playful form 

allows sharp contrasts
and license to ornament
and vary

Sonata in B minor, Op. 40#2 - Muzio Clementi - Howard Shelley

aloneness leaping in melodramatically 

hey
I'd watch this movie 

more proto-Romantic than classical
2nd wave Sturm und Drang
this being 1802
and Paris being
just down the road a piece

Sonata in A-flat Major, Op. 54 "Retour à Paris" - Johann Ladislaus Dussek - Zvi Meneker

see?
I did not plan that ahead 

Mozart's operatic sensibility in anything he did:
for the next 30 or 40 years
keyboard works are operatic
in the same sense
that Mozart
and Haydn for that matter
was 

it was in the air
and Wagner picked up on it 

a certain amount of
see what a great noise this makes!
Chaplinesque
(or Chico Marx)
(or Liberace)

December 21, 2020

Impromptu in A-flat Major, Op. 142#2 - Franz Schubert - Murray Perahia

peaceful evening with a pipe

Symphony in D Major, Op. 107 (Reformation) - Felix Mendelssohn - Wiener Philharmoniker, John Eliot Gardiner

a violent struggle gets in everything 

the Romantic Symphony needed to be
about something
have a theme
a subject 

music told stories
like operas did
or poems
or pictures 

this Symphony is loads of fun if
as in this performance
the stick is removed
from where it had been
stuck up

Impromptu in A-flat Major, Op. 29 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot [recorded in 1922]

through the modern magic of figuration
melody floats independent of the accompanying pattern 

the ice is slick 

take care

December 22, 2020

String Quartet in F Major, Op. 41#2 - Robert Schumann - Quatuor Via Nova

Due to a confluence of indexing errors and mis-readings, I was under the distinct impression, as I listened to it, that this was a String Quartet in F minor. It bent my brain into extraordinary meta-tonal contortions as I persisted, with some success, in imagining that this was actually intended by Herr Schumann to be a minor key quartet. Quite the trip. Irreproducible.

Mephisto Waltz (Dance in the Village Inn) - Franz Liszt - Stephen Hough

music to fill a room with
to be superhuman
to transcend the possibilities
of mere individuality

December 24, 2020

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Act III - Richard Wagner -Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin, Eugen Jochum, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Peter Lagger, Peter Maus, Roberto Banuelas, Roland Hermann, Gerd Feldhoff, Loren Driscoll, Karl-Ernst Mercker, Martin Vantin, Klaus Lang, Ivan Sardi, Miomir Nikolic, Placido Domingo, Horst R. Laubenthal, Catarina Ligendza, Christa Ludwig, Victor von Halem\

rising
while falling
while falling
while rising 

everpresent unobtainable quotidian transcendence 

Hans spills his beans
opens the door 

Walther lets 'er rip 

Hans: not bad for a tenor 

more busy work before the big payoff
the main characters check in
the fashion show
fill the stage!
the more forces the better 

This opera lacks a strong female character (as do most of Wagner's operas except the Ring cycle, Tristan, and Parsifal). On top of the misogyny this makes for a whole lot of male-voice sound in a long span. This being a domestic setting, a strong female might have been unbelievable in that era. It took myth to make it acceptable. Sieglinde is the hinge from domestic rape victim to Brünnhilde as full on star of the show. 

German he-man culture with supportive comments composed right into the chorus.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

December 20, 2020

Psalm 22:9-10 (2020 version) - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · Psalm 22 9-10 200716 (201220)

In 2019, during an Advent service at our church, Karen performed a setting of these two Psalm verses that I had composed in the Summer of 2000. I was accompanying, but at a certain point it occurred to me that the reason one particular bit was difficult to pull off - the very bit I was even then preparing to play mere moments hence - was due to the clear fact that I had composed it poorly, settling for good enough when I should have worked it out properly. Further, I began to furiously make internal compositional decisions on how to improve that moment and the rest of the piece. Needless to say my feeble brain can't compose one thing and play another at the same time. Karen persisted like the trouper she is, singing on until I regained my bearings and rejoined.

When I got home I made some notes, and over the course of several weeks realized that the only way to correct that spot was to start from scratch and re-compose the whole thing. Those pages sat on my piano's music rack until this Summer when I finally had some time to work it out and complete it. For about a month I have been learning to play and sing it myself. The range is pretty high for me in spots, and the chromatic leaps are a challenge, but I get the idea of it across. Next task is to teach Karen to sing it. It fits her range much better than it does my untutored-except-by-what-I-have-picked-up-over-the-years-from-choral-conductors voice.

December 24, 2020

24 Preludes (Preludes 21 through 24) - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey 

I had hoped to put together a recital sometime this coming year to complete my survey of the Prelude cycles of Lockrem Johnson, Greg Short, and Ken Benshoof, but the Covid lockdown didn't just mess with my timing, it has also made me reconsider the idea of my playing composed music in public. I reserve the right to change my mind, but at the moment I'm just not sure I need that kind of self-inflicted stress in my life. For now I think I would rather just work on getting good recordings. I have such recordings in the can, and am slowly piecing them together in sequence, for the recital I had planned for this last Autumn, of recent music by Aaron Keyt paired with the 12th and 13th segments of my Études d'exécution imminent project. This is the start of such work for Preludes in Seattle Part 6. Lockrem's pieces are not as technically difficult as Greg Short's or Ken Benshoof's are, but they make up for it in exposure.  

Postscripts

primitive it must be and the basis
of their type know only that and k i.
e. knowing about each occupies as

twice

we turn a corner

in stop frame motion