Playlist

Recorded

May 20, 2018
Sellingers Rownde - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

differentiating between the strummy-beat stuff and the fiddly-bit stuff
each goes its way

but the strummy-beat leads the dance
the purpose of variations, here, is not to venture far far afield, but to delight in wit and subtleties
and oh the delight!

Death Might Be Your Santa Claus - Rev. J. M. Gates [from Goodbye Babylon]

Sprechstimme inverted
not song sinking toward speech
but speech lifting toward song

Rollin' Heart - Vaughn Monroe [a Rescued Record]

advice (mixed)
big voice
just enough electric guitar (?) for an awesome solo
and horns!
and backing vocals!
fanfare to end

Milestones - Bill Evans Trio [from Waltz for Debby]

a trio's trio
(not a piano solo with backing band)
a piece for trio solo with occasional spotlights

The Dangling Conversation - Simon & Garfunkel [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme]

for the benefit of the music biz
he shows of what he is professionally capable
can songwrite
can sing
can arrange
can mix
can even do a subtle bit of acting there in the singing, like Bowie made a whole career of

Unnamed Track #14 - Tillicum Junior High School Band [from my mom's tape of March 1971]

vigorously triumphal
a bit wooly in the composition department
pointless repeats
time falling flat

Killer - Walt Wagner [from Caprice]

audition sampler tape portfolio resumé
hire me
what I can do
goes around at least once too many times
trying to outcool Bernstein
please don't

Seventeen Prepuntal Contraludes - Keith Eisenbrey [from my recital of February 2018]

Me, back in the day, with what I thought was a nice shirt

I had more bravado in the tempos when I was younger
I play more carefully now
the piano writing is, if am allowed to brag, fab.
I divvied up the pieces so that I could turn the pages myself
this created an interesting set of mini-suites, new to this reading

Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring - J. S. Bach [from Hallmark's Listen to the Joy]

the arrangement is painfully awful
the instrumental sounds fail to earn their place
not even the harpsichord can save it, just sounds antique-y, not authentic

Banned Rehearsal 265 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [August 1991]

only way to get a large legacy
sounds like Toad Hall in the Age of Resin
crud-organ and violin duet
Russian Ouster Overture in light of this week's events
duet with distance
plain as it gets
dirt in the down down in the dirt
low in the crud effect like that of the butterfly but more sublime, universal
the sort of vintage sound one never hears on radio
what the 90s really sounded like
Gorbo's gone Gorbo's back just like that he rose on the third day
mocking percussion solo accompaniment by ROO
this is the other tune
the one not known by Harry Truman
becoming drum circle for comment and prophecy
Literary criticism Howl was the clearin' of his throat
oom ba baby slide whistle ghostings extended vocal duet in tongues
how timely, for Pentecost
buddha baby doo dah boobfood
discourse about scat
sitting up (the struggle)
some dirty limericks

Tombstone Track - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

darkedged beachboys highschool dragrace legendsong

The Magical Fairy Princess - The Bran Flakes [from Sonicabal 2001]

soundtrack for creepy animation film doll toy object person
like a puppy dog's tummy not its tail

Ballin' The Jack - Brad Anderson [from Dark Energy - Interstellar Pianos]

pianistic figurations as blunt object combat
structured like artsy mini psychohorror film with sci-fi tinge

Misc 110518 - Keith Eisenbrey [May 2011]

four seconds of sound scraps I found on my hard drive a few years ago. Two of them are the only bits of sound I was ever able to extract from C-Sound, one is a wee bit of Padme from Star Wars Episode 1, and the fourth is Microsoft Sam. Not in that order. You could listen to it several times in the time it takes to read this.

Alleyways - Ravenna Woods [from Alleyways & Animals EP]

Prince Costello as a baritone

(blogger's note: from Byrd to Ravenna Woods in a day!)

May 23, 2018
Munsers Alman - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

block chords given several species of spins and vectors
each vector and spin given its own several and back again

On Jordan's Stormy Banks We Stand - Seventh Day Adventist Choir [from Goodbye Babylon]

anotomical ecstasy song
prophecy and prayer commingled

Serenata - Walter Piston - New York Chamber Symphony of the 92nd Street Y, Gerard Schwarz

miniature Great Moments
by the book in the middle of the road

Porgy (I Loves You, Porgy) - Bill Evans Trio [from Waltz for Debby]

just one of those things
just one of those perfect things
he sings a song and opens a window and turns back to sing the song
he sings the song

Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall - Simon & Garfunkel [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme]

oh that ever so meaning laden last dissonant tkwhang #so #sincere

Unnamed Track #15 - Tillicum Junior High School Band [from my mom's tape of March 1971]

unidentifiably familiar accelerando dance from further Europe

Now Those Things Are Gone - Walt Wagner [from Caprice]

unable to not overplay his hand
unable to not overact the song

Unlabeled Track 4 - Empire Brass Quintet [from American Brass Band Journal Revisited]

bandstand in the park
of a Summer

May 24, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 75 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 1986]

unsightly clavichord hair

the dijeridu
was nu
now she finishes the muffin story
the dangers of conformity
Ashgrove
bran' new life
gonna have me a wife
itsa bran' new day
gonna go down
to Californighay
lots of pluck
Strum und Din
honing in on that perfect disintonation
Aku in the back (ground)
winding toys up letting go
Eccliastical Musings screeching away glorioso
all of the old odd faves
(liberated intonation)
sacrificing accuracy in favor of precision or vice versa
all those metronomes Neal and I recorded like a cricket field
vamp to close
never fade

Toast - Infamous Menagerie

pressed into descent
forced down
arm wrestle resistance
what they are saying is for tribal members only

Long Hair Lenny - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

novelty song pastiche
. . . with your wavy curls

Third of Thumbs - atlatl [from Sonicabal 2001]

big bee buzz the floor bass (disturbs cats)

In Session at the Tintinabulary

May 21, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 959 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Playlist

Recorded

May 15, 2018
Once In A While - Young Fresh Fellows [from Electric Bird Digest]

using post-production sounds as insert drum beat chord hit
falling apart

Double A Growler - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

music for the geeks of instrumental tracks
but as though made for being partial, never intended as a whole
a track to insert for hip hopping
hipping hop?
sample ready

The Last Train to Kosovo - Sinister Kitchen [from Sonicabal 2001]

state lines wander
cities remain
routes vanish

percussion skeletal public service flesh clinging

Gradus 98 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [March 2006]

A's two three five and six can be and are played all at once, but, when played all at once (several times) there are not four countable things but just the one and so are any played?
or, do any exist as individuals until they are shown one by one to so exist?

composition not a whole built of parts but parts emerging from within a whole
or a whole built of parts
so that
the parts emerge within the whole

long space

long long space

ppppppppp poco cresc. pppppp poco cresc. ppp

the tea kettle whistle pops off in the kitchen
only time for a few last long quiet notes

Tomorrow's Flower - Paul Kikuchi - Jesse Olsen Bay, Stuart Dempster, Bill Horist, Alex Vittum [from Portable Sanctuary, Vol. 1]

robust intonation
nothing fancy
nothing inexact
nor the rain
not inexact

May 17, 2018
Gradus 287 -Neal Kosály-Meyer [March 2016]

playing a flirtatious poke game partly coy partly forthright weight shift into thoughtful considerations
experimental, expressive without indication of it
espressivo senza espressivo
without show of it without the theatrical rhetoric of espressivo
that is
if one were to mark the sheet music espressivo then it would come out wrong
a shift in focus (from):: overtone sonorities ::(toward):: pitch sonorities
not exclusive shift, but point of view
crepuscular (late in the)

In Session at the Tintinabulary

May 14, 2018
Gradus 333 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

enough notes in play that we near an edge across which it would not be plain
that pitch-class limitation
is crucial to identity

::

by this activity we valorize set comparison
(and set creation)
(and set identification)
as the subject matter of music, which it may not be.
drawing circles around things
(distinction as the activity of listening)
"I heard that" as the sine qua non of consciousness
melody unashamed

Playlist

Recorded

May 8, 2018
A Fancie - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

like Spring weather
if you don't like it
wait a few minutes
it will wander into other segments

did Byrd ever write anything that wasn't fancy?

Mama's Angel Child - Papa Stovepipe [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

acoustically inflated at the mid/low guitar range
as though the recording set up created a virtual box
with a virtual hot spot
I was rather taken by the wide ranging tune and by how it was referenced between voice and guitar

Roll Over Beethoven (live) - Chuck Berry

more advertisement for the brand
reckless guitar

Some Other Time - Bill Evans Trio [from Waltz for Debby]

duples answer to start
then wander
but always with eyes fixed on each other

the bass player steps a great distance across the strings
one giant leap for a tune
one piece of cake for the plucker

The 59th Street Bridge Song - Simon & Garfunkel [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme]

moves along pretty quick for a song about slowing down
over just like that nothing to it

Unnamed Track 13 - Tillicum Junior High School Band, Bob Runyan [concert of March 3, 1971, from my mom's tape]

somebody playing their recital piece on piano

Someday - Walt Wagner [from Caprice]

a mood
you know
for the big screen

Pretty Words - Elvis Costello [from Trust]

hoisting voice up to the chorus from the verse
can't stay long
nor after

Banned Rehearsal 74 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 1986]
But first the Overture.
(hey kids let's play this piece I just wrote in Australia [Retrato de Euchababilla] I'll play the funmaker and we can all caterwaul along)
I had completely forgotten
and yet how marvelously grotesque!
We take pains to sort of match pitch
without being overly concerned with actual success
that is
heavy on the sort of
more like a game
Bravo

Neal's song Electric Garbage pickin' it up by the bushel

song to dance

In Session at the Tintinabulary

May 7, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 958 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Giddy. We were giddy. Aaron's rubber chicken only made it giddier.

May 13, 2018
Who would True valour see - Keith Eisenbrey - University Temple Chancel Choir, Chris Vincent, director

In the late oughts I wrote a number of hymn tunes to old texts. This one was written in January of

2008. The name of the tune is "Bianca Kaitlin," after a niece. The particular impetus was a conversation I had with our pastor at the time, Rev. Mary Boyd, concerning the well known setting "He who would valiant be." I don't remember anything else about the conversation other than that I decided to set John Bunyan's original words. I did make some effort to write the harmony as square and solid as I could. I was mostly successful, though the way the tune ended up going demanded some challenging internal cadences. Our little church choir sang magnificently. Thank you Chris Vincent for asking if I had anything we might perform and also for doing such a beautiful job with it.

Writing hymns is an interesting experience. As a composer you have to get yourself out of the way of so much. It really isn't about you.

Playlist

Live

May 4, 2018
Seattle Composers' Salon
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Prelude and Fugue in G Major - Jeremiah Lawson

J thought that there ought to be a slide-guitar fugue by now. And so now there is. We love how he uses our favorite hymn tunes for raw material. I kept wondering how many guitars he was playing up there.

My Muse and Equal Temperament - Jay Hamilton

tales told on the side
music from the performer's point of view (in that he played cello with his back to the audience)
which is the most interesting edge of this music/text piece as a theater: that we are never certain where within the personal we sit - we don't know the whole story, but we seem to be regarded as knowing the whole story, since here we are telling it.

Lyric Piece and Berceuse - Gavin Borchert

its past slipping under its present
the water closes tenderly over

lingers in languorous murk
languors in lingersome dark
each steps
out
at length

The Magpie's Shadow (excerpt) - Peter Nelson-King

A suite of aphoristic piano pieces embedded within a staged performance

that is, some of the inside-the-piano stuff, and even more of the outside-the-piano stuff, seem just enough outside as to no longer really count as piano pieces, or rather, that they don't seem to care whether that is what they are counted as.

or
some of these bits come to be like pieces and some stay bits

Recorded

April 28, 2018

He Started Building My Mansion in Heaven Today - Rachel Harrington [from Celilo Falls]

nearly straight, as though from the song book
adjusting her delivery just enough to own it completely, no more

Focus (demo of March 22, 2016) - St. Rage

St. Rage is the fictional band in my wife's novel The Gospel According to St. Rage. St. Rage is played in real life by Karen Eisenbrey (my spouse above-mentioned) and Neal Kosály-Meyer. A nice performance marred by some unfortunate technical issues with the recording.

Hughe Ashtons Grownde - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

terraced garden
tendrils twine
immersive aspects

the folks hereby dress well you can tell
and ample growndes they are too

I'll Fly to Hawaii - Brad Gowans [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Recorded in 1926, I wonder if they were still using a single microphone or not. Either way, this is a marvelously captured balance. They pronounce "Hawaii" to rhyme with "fire" (Fie-yuh). 1926. For how long had it even been possible to fly to Hawaii?

Rockhouse - Roy Orbison [from Sun Records Definitive Hits]

repeat name of song to fade
reminder as to what the name of the song is that you just heard on the radio
so you can buy it

My Romance (take 2) - Bill Evans Trio [from Waltz for Debby]

I was hearing the attitude they take toward the ostensible tune as distinctly Byrdish, playing off it, filling it out, illuminating it from all sides. This lends credence to the opinion that dramatic-arch-construction is a fatal infliction upon the lyrical. The harmonies act like vowels, making thick tunes that sound like sung lyrics. That aspect is all Evans.

The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine - Simon & Garfunkle [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme]

For all the ironic veneer of satirical intent, this comes across as a pretty effective advertisement. B/W Kodachrome.

Unlabeled Track 12 - Tillicum Junior High School Band, Bob Runyan [from my mom's tape of a concert given March 3, 1971]

orientalism for beginning band
the Hollywood sound track concept of exotic

Slide - Walt Wagner [from Caprice]

balanced in everything
stands on its feet knees stiff
dream sequence a la Gene Kelly

April 29, 2018
Mutual Arising - Mark Hoover - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Michel Singher [from a private tape, Spring of 1981]

somewhere between Shostakovich and Ruggles
(contrapuntal thinking is a struggle!)
so legato

Hey Now - Talking Heads [from True Stories]

The rhythm parts are allowed only the time for their pitch to register on the rest of the mix, then they are stifled, stuffed, allowing a more transparent area to remain for the color parts.

Banned Rehearsal 264 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [August 1991]

analog
recorded hot
so that we would distort

not quite like it was before
the time we got it right
finally!

(one of those sessions preceded by a span in which we thought we were recording but were not because I forgot to push record/play or (forgot) to turn up the inputs I forget which)

Aaron goes all Beckett

I haven't got a clue and I haven't got a cue
I haven't got a clue and I haven't got a cue
I haven't got a clue and I haven't got a cue
But I got you

(song that trundled in)

topic: now we are making a tape it is what we are doing
in this tape the dictum to play not an instrument upon which you are able is taken literally and the image of its having been taken literally is forefront

How can an instrument be criticized for the scale it plays?
Aaron drifts off in wordpairplay
rattle me bones
wake the dead

an improvised dada opera

DADA APARA :: the absence of orange

It was that I forgot to turn on the microphones. Now we know.

May 1, 2018
Mean Model A - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

music fashioned old so as to demonstrate how well old fashioned music can be played

Springs of Wright - TCOR [from Sonicabal 2001]

a bit from a batch of bits and pieces for mixing with

Eyes On the Prize - Bruce Springsteen [from The Seeger Sessions]

A retelling of Who would True valour see (Bunyan) sung in singsong whisper

Gradus 192 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 2011]

measuring musical distances : pitch (all A nats so PC doesn't come up as differential), dynamic, time between and/or time we have waited since the previous and/or duration of the previous overlain by each of the instant, each time (between and among waited-for durations)

gentle iteration up high pointy pokes down lower
then all out
low

not, first, to please, but, first, to do, to be, to be doing, to do being, if you please
measured to a distance at which it is not clear that what we hear isn't from several disparate times

The regularity of Gradus's appearance in my listening (live) affects my perception of its less regular recorded appearances, in that the recorded appearances do what the live ones also do: reset, recalibrate.

Takur Takur from Dilwal - Pritam [from Bollygood Volume 2]

lively subdivisions atop a pulse

In Session at the Tintinabulary

April 30, 2018
Gradus 332 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

single tones are outliers
as are the undamped
opening then into both
at once
flourishment
grip relaxed
wallowing sternly in the low notes
expanse and limit
refrain from going on
senza elaboration

May 5, 2018
Lamb Day A - Keith Eisenbrey
Lamb Day B - Keith Eisenbrey
Barn Wall - Keith Eisenbrey

Karen and I spent yesterday on Whidbey Island, which is why this blog is a day late. We attended Lamb Day at Sleeping Dog Farm, near Clinton, Washington, and I recorded two short segments of sound in homage to J. K. Randall's InterPlay cassette side Sheepshearing in Kingston New Jersey also geese and ducks of April 1982. Then we helped my brother, who lives near Greenbank, lift a new barn wall (just the framing).