Playlist

Live

November 10, 2013
Octava Chamber Orchestra, Johan Louwersheimer, cond.
Maple Park Church, Lynnwood

Divertissement for Double Woodwind Quintet Op. 36 - J.E.A. Bernard - (Dan Schmidt, cond.)

Domestic activity contained within the possibility of its own unhinging - like a picnic.

Prelude to an Afternoon of a Faun - Debussy

There is nothing impressionist about it. Corporeal, warm with pulse, glowing with stench.

Concerto for Clarinet and Strings - Gavin Borchert - Sean Osborn, clarinet

Gavin Borchert

As music it begins, or always begins :: from music it veers, or always veers :: subsiding slowly into autonomous alt-conscious selves :: selves of each other's self each autonomously alt-veering :: beginning again to veer again so as to glimpse again, over the shoulder.

Selections from the Christmas Oratorio BWV 248 - J.S. Bach

The clunky mal-shaped peasant core inextricably embraced within the ornate regularizing societal gloss.

Recorded

November 10, 2013
Christmas Carol Service (1969) - Bellevue First United Methodist Church combined choirs, Betty Eisenbrey, cond.

A tape recently copied from my mom's collection. She directed the choral activities at BFUMC for most of my childhood. This is one of the earliest recordings I have in which I play a part (a 10 year-old in one of the children's choirs). It ends with an arrangement for combined choirs of the over-wrought quasi-hymn O Holy Night. Ben Boretz often asks us to recall those moments in our musical lives that sent us, willy-nilly, into music as a calling, those moments to which nothing outside of music can compare. Being a part of this performance was unquestionably such a moment for me. I suppose I was naïve for having my buttons pushed by this, but hey, I was only 10.  And to be honest it still gives me a thrill - always a sucker for a great entrance.

Piano Music - Aaron Keyt

Improvising on solo piano, an essay on phrase length/shape/balance/note-count. The effect is part Satie, part Broadway, part antique dance. Pitch is so not the point.

November 12, 2013
Assembly Rechoired 48 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy - December 2005

Getting somewhere, but not by our own effort - more as though being ballooned.

Snohomish Concert (Steve's Mix) - S. Eric Scribner

In October of 2010 Steve Scribner produced this concert at a little theater in Snohomish. The event itself was pretty informal, with lots of banter between the audience and performers. The music was a hodge-podge of compositions (by Scribner, Neal Meyer, Wayne Lovecraft, and me) and various collaborative improvisations, making a low-key evening out of some pretty far-out music (far-out per se and far-out from its accustomed locale). But what Steve did, through judicious cuts and inspired overdubbing, is utterly transforming. All the low-key has been expunged, and all the sprawl has been made thrumming taut. What was informal and chatty has become sharply focused, a model of formal balance and precise contrast.

Sonata in B-flat K. 281 - Mozart - Mitsuko Uchida

Now we know what was inside that opening trill.

Little Liza - Men's Quartet from Bellevue First United Methodist Church (?), ca. 1965 (?)

Always a bit off-kilter

As I child I knew this song (mistakenly) as "Little Eyes". It was one of my favorites when I was 6 or so, and I had no idea my mom still had a tape.

November 14, 2013
Banned Sectional 12 KEE NWM - Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Meyer - September 1985

In the left channel is an attempt (surprisingly successful) to duplicate the right channel (recorded earlier that day) without being able to hear it. Some sudden songs, including I Want a Girl From Venice California, (twice of course, once on the right and once on the left) - and the audio guest list from our first concert (the previous January) - including cameo appearances by Neal's family of origin and the Chez Sleaze Reserve Section.

Banned Rehearsal 693 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Meyer - December 2005

Xylophone provides context while we attempt to squeeze radio noise out of a balloon. One of the major arguments of which Banned Rehearsal consists is that between "making a tape" and "recording an improvisation". In practice this often comes down to how cognizant we are of the microphone in our midst, or of the other mechanical aspects of recording sound, or of the mere fact that a sound we make now will be a recorded trace later (See BS 12 KEE NWM, above). Here we come down decidedly on the side of "recording an improvisation", working out a soundscape communally until each constituent is precise and distinct.

November 15, 2013
Reflektionen mit Christine Schornsheim und Clemens Goldberg

My German is only good enough to gather the topic of conversation (the various keyboards used in Ms Schornsheim's omnibus recording of Haydn keyboard works), and the patina of articulate consideration, but not the gist of it.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

November 11, 2013
Banned Rehearsal 847 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt

November 12, 2013
Silvertone 131112 - Keith Eisenbrey

An experiment - overdubbing a Silvertone hollow-body directly through a Fostex MR8.

November 14, 2013
Mitchell 131114 - Keith Eisenbrey

Last weekend an acoustic guitar walked itself over to my house. I think it has a bad pickup, so my attempt to record directly to the MR8 resulted in some heavily distorted noises that I rather liked. The link will take you to one of three quick riffs I made with them.

Sonata in C (Partita) Hob.XVI:1 - Haydn - Keith Eisenbrey

I still have some work to do.