Playlist

Recorded

October 20, 2019

Sonata in C minor, K. 48 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

the phrases, sometimes, come in threes
so that they seem to have gotten stuck

but the third iteration
is free to move

a game mechanic

Danzon Cubano - Aaron Copland - London Symphony Orchestra, Aaron Copland

tourist exotic
how colorful

decked out

for our
entertainment

Kyrie - Franz Schubert - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey [April 1966]

It is either in, or it is played back at a tape speed so that the result is in, F-sharp. There is a soprano solo in the Christe eleison, if that helps.

Every Grain of Sand - Bob Dylan [from Biograph]

I presume this is from his Gospel days. Musically it is about as strong as anything else of his. I'm not sure what all the fuss was about.

Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band Live 1975-85]

This song tries too hard. It fills space to little effect. Then it goes on and on. He wanted to do a particular dramatic thing in his set, and inflicted that particular dramatic thing on the song.

Six Crooked Highways - Bob Dylan [Key Arena, October 2006]

Never sure of his song titles. This also has it's a hard rain so that might be it. This is a recording made live from the board. The sound guy messes it up just to juice the ending.

Gramma's In The Cellar - Train Case



Train Case is Karen Eisenbrey and Neal Kosály-Meyer

this was
recorded
by me

also

the spoons
were played
by me

In Transit - Arbor Towers [from In Transit EP]



The mix has a loudness problem, but the song is strong. It has lots of guitar.

Sonata in C major, K. 49 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

I love those "hey why did he stop playing" breaks between phrases. They are exactly not any kind of Grand Pause.

This doohickey does doohickey stuff
like that

Messiah Part 3 - George Frideric Handel - Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chamber Chorus, Robert Shaw, Kaaren Erickson, Sylvia McNair, Alfreda Hodgson, Jon Humphrey, Richard Stilwell, Layton James

The vocal line is supported, re-interpreted, developed by the lines of the setting and by how the harmony re-interprets the lines by re-balancing them upon other centers. It's gloss all the way down.

Over-the-top hype of the trumpet solo entrance masquerading as eschatological theology.

Oral history, at least, has the King of England finally arriving just in time for the Hallelujah Chorus, which immediately precedes Part 3. So, did Handel know that, that is, ahead of time? Would it allow him to compose Part 3 so that his vocal stars could strut their stuff for Royalty?

October 22, 2019
What Is a Woman - Harvey Schmidt - Mary Martin [from I Do! I Do!]

"That's why a woman is only alive when in love."
Well that is a pre-feminist statement for sure!
or: Until she is in thrall she is dead.

Heart of Mine - Bob Dylan [from Biograph]

a tired song that wanders into hook and cliche.

Our Food Our Lives - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey

This is the table grace I wrote to Karen's words, for use in our married life. The score was presented to her as my wedding present. Simple, pentatonic, and quite elegant I think. In practice we hold the last note of each phrase. I made this recording recently.

Ratchet - Aaron Keyt [from November Choses]

treacherous
maze to
echo through

in the dark
with mudmonsters
and possible traffic

Here I Am - Operation ID (Ivan Arteaga, Jared Borkowski, Rob Hanlon, David Balatero, Evan Woodle [from Legs])



meter and rhythm adhering closely to an image of machine time

Several Months Have Passed - Karen Eisenbrey [Common Good Cafe, Seattle, August 2016]

"far from my normal Thursday"
Karen was reading from her then just released first novel "The Gospel According to St. Rage." This section is in the voice of Barbara, the protagonist. This evening she'll be reading from several of her books at the Neverending Bookstore in Edmonds. In costume no less. I'm going to the party disguised as Barbara's dad.

October 24, 2019

Sonata in F minor, K. 50 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

here I am

let it sink in
for real

disruptive markers
knotty

Sonata in A Major (#1) - Gabriel Fauré - Pinchas Zukerman, Marc Neikrug

Neal dropped by in the middle, and we agreed that as a Violin Sonata this makes for a pretty fabulous Piano Quintet. Under cover of Late Romantic noodliness is some subtle tunesmithery and some solid and imaginative contrapuntal thinking.

Fauré for me is largely an unknown. I am familiar with the Requiem, but that's about it.

This gobsmacked me.

He also had a fine mustache, handlebar style.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

October 21, 2019
Gradus 357 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

composition:
the art of guiding the process of coherence

one among the many practices of rhetoric

a swaying of the ear

perswaysion as it were

We can analyze what we have been persuaded to hear

or we can analyze the process, the rhetoric

of how we were persuaded to hear it
as such

acoustic phenomenon, chord of nature, etc.
are only some among many common tools with which one might -suade an ear

in and of itself they (acoustic phenomenon, chord of nature, etc.)
are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for music to be heard as such
they are an enabler, not the sole basis, of composition

October 25, 2019
House Rain - Keith Eisenbrey



A squall passed by so I recorded some of the sounds it made from inside, then from outside, then

not playing spoons

again from inside the Tintinabulary.

Postscripts

mechanics trades flying marbles the on

stops beneath a way to drink the round and

you have time to breathe again i was the

just sit there

be lost

the road is a map

Playlist

Recorded

October 13, 2019
Sonata in E Major, K. 46 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

It introduces material profligately, but only gradually begins to work it, or to draw it together, except in as blockishly obvious way as could be. It is about the varieties of betweennesses and mediations. He is the sequitur whisperer.

The Unanswered Question - Charles Ives - Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin

so why not follow up on it?
overlain block prints upon each other
a colored box with idea tokens in it
or why did I write this?

Father of the Bride - Harvey Schmidt - Robert Preston [from I Do! I Do!]

father the clown

Donnerstag aus Licht, Act 3 -

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Rundfunkorchester Hilversum, Peter Eotvos, Robert Gambill, Michael Angel, Paul Sperry, Markus Stockhausen, Annette Meriweather, Suzanne Stephens, Elizabeth Clarke, Matthias Holle, Mark Tezak, Alain Louafi, Majella Stockhausen, Michel Arrignon, Hugo Read, Simon Stockhausen, Chor des Westdeutschen Rundfunks Kolne

If this is serial music
crucially serial
then ordering must matter
crucially
to it
in order for it to be it

How might that sense of ordering be experienced within our experience of this episode
or atmosphering our experience thereof

How is that different from just the sense that sequence
as a process
is distinct

things follow former things
each before another thing
another soon to be former thing

::|| American Academic:
design the ordering so as to produce effects among otherly experienced matrices
that is
order things in order
to produce an effect ||::

More Ives in Stockhausen's approach than I had considered before

or Wagner, of course
things represent other things in order to mean

one could order things
to represent other meanings
in order

***

the smaller it gets the more I like it

***

dreizehn
spoken last word of repeated line
listened to on this 13th

***

evocation or representation
opera as
sci fi sexual fantasy
overexplained

referenced image
crass
as on a slab

October 15, 2019

Resistance Side A - Chris Cochrane and Doug Henderson [March 1986]

Two composers/improvisors/music doers from (from when I knew them) the Bard scene in the early 80s laying out some sound in an acoustic space familiar to me from earlier of my days.

They have or name songs, presumably repeatable in some sense
words and everything, I had forgotten
songs with names like Goat and Stove

noisy electric guitar, an activity sometimes called playing out guitar
and short bits of twisted sung tunes reminiscent of Eno in Tiger Mountain by Strategy days, but less placid
certainly proggy
prog out guitar and saxophone and radio talk and junkyard drums (always a good idea - genuine cans to bang on)

Intermission
entertainment provided by Banned Rehearsal
we play the board upon which the PZMs were taped as they taped the proceedings
whispered: Bickleton Burger
a gift to Resistance from Banned Rehearsal

Totem Dance - Robert Tree Cody and Will Clipman [from Heart of the Wind]

Is this evidence of the cultural hegemony of Western Pop? Doing it up like Bollywood?

I could get into the drumming, which is highly competent

Ask Your Question (mix of 110903) - Your Mother Should Know [August/September 2011]

There are five tracks of this song in the folder, but only four entries in my index. The titles are not much help. Your Mother Should Know is Neal Kosály-Meyer and his sister, my spouse, Karen Eisenbrey. I was acting as recording engineer, making it up and learning as I went along.

Put the Guns Away - No Rey [from Contradictions]

breaks between lines (he stops singing) (they stop playing)
and no breaks between lines

Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 47 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

stuffed with extra notes in quick runs
articulation with surprising joints
too many notes to fit
is an image that points
to the size of the what
that it
is too many
to fit within

Carmina Burana - Carl Orff - Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Leonard Slatkin, Sylvia McNair, John Aler, Hakan Hagegard

what is not the point
hope
future as progress
discovery of any outside this circular being

perhaps it's the hereweareagain and herewegoagain that has made it a New Year's Eve staple
celebration of the cycle

book of woodprints haphazard
in order to not matter much as long as the pages don't fall out or get ripped or smudged

at worst
a museum display of medieval spirit life

Bucket T - The Who [from A Quick One]

They're having fun, but it's amusing for about three quarters as long as it lasts

Don't You Want Me - The Human League [a Rescued Record]

icky fantasy of presumed power over another
showing its insecurity
thin and blind

even calls in reinforcements from the distaff to echo his excuses back at him

Grant Us Sleep - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey

One of the house prayers I wrote for Karen as a wedding present, 33 years ago. We made this recording a few weeks ago just before our request was granted.

October 16, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 710 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer


not moving much
from our original
locations

trying

(from which initial locations we are not moving much)

to get a bead
on how our initial locations
align

until someone breaks loose

a hinge poised to turn

turning not to sink in more comfy
but to unsettle incrementally

a solemn plodding in the dark ceremony

(You've Got Me Undone) - Shelby Earl [from Burn The Boats]

verse construction:
lines repeat without or with amended words
keeping each verse wrapped back toward itself

Q&A at the Common Good Cafe - Karen Eisenbrey [August 2016]

At the end of the book launch for Karen's novel "The Gospel According to St. Rage" for its original publication in 2016, Karen answered questions taken from the audience.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

October 14, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 991 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer



Our amusement at the outset was with the notion of dialing 991 in cases of normalcy. I got stuck re-composing the C Major triad. Karen discovered the joys of milk can, cymbal, and ping pong ball.

October 15, 2019
Jesu, nun sei gepreiset - Keith Eisenbrey



October 18, 2019
Jesu, meine Freude - Keith Eisenbrey

These are two more of my set of 12 chorales, composed in 2017, as the 12th part of Études d'exécution imminent.

Postscripts

life john words are spirit and life and life

ears hear and but seek other tastes savory

and loving language god speaks within them

a small road in the nether regions

an edge more or less complicated

by the motions of the whole distance between

Playlist

Preface

windows

"Text #5 'utility, quality'

'masterwork art, definitive formulation, validated method are among the crotchety gluttons at the feast of brotherhood; not its hosts'"
J. K. Randall - "Fontainebleau" News of Music May 1985

Texts

Live

October 5, 2019
Orchestra Seattle 
Seattle Chamber Singers
William White, conductor
First Free Methodist Church, Seattle

Vast Array - Carlos Garcia
Changer Story - Roger Fernandes, storyteller
La Création du monde - Darius Milhaud
The Earthmakers - Carol Sams

Roger Fernandes told us a story about how Beaver made the world.

Carlos Garcia's piece seemed, to me, underdone, full of color and full of color, but dearthed of payoff.

I believe this is my first go at the Milhaud.

Carol Sams pulled out all the stops and then some. A huge piece for masses of folks. I might be able to get a better bead on it if I were to hear it alone. That is, I'm having more and more trouble these days with masses of folks performing for masses of folks. Much of this problem is simply personal to me: I am less and less comfortable being one among a large audience. It stresses.

Prom Queen

October 11, 2019
Prom Queen's 5th Anniversary 'Midnight Veil'
and
Gala w/ Von Wildenhaus
The Triple Door, Seattle

For our 33rd anniversary Karen and I went out on the town to hear two extremely sexy singers in pretty dresses, each backed by bunches of dudes with pretty guitars and other gears. There was also a film made of music videos from Prom Queen's album Midnight Veil. We had a grand time.

Recorded

October 6, 2019
The Purposes and Politics of Engaging Strangers - Benjamin Boretz - Benjamin Boretz, John Peel, Penelope Hyde, The Barrytown Orchestra, The Goleta Anarchist Music Ensemble

Jim (Randall) says

public art

starting now from here a question arose
that's where quality was thrown (into consciousness) like trash in a can
oy
impervious to analysis or discourse
the very purpose of structure is an alienation of expression
how might one describe a word

the difficulty in producing masterwork art, is that it, as a thing, was never there in experience to experience

to refer to any particular creative expression as a masterwork necessitates the activity of pretending the existence of the class

bridge parts

do we believe in the presence of masterworks
the utterances of the knights of most worship

ontological angst
expressive coexplorer

context can not be a method
stubbornly nonverbal facts

should problem people
logically be ostracized altogether

Humoresques - Antonín Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

silent movie music
a story teller's music
its enchantment

Banned Rehearsal 797 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer
speaks in communal percussion tongues

the sound is delicate
and directionality is surreally specific

transgressory tom tom

top to bottom

hear this message from your local bodhrán
Neal ponders the train 16 coaches long

there are characters representing a rhythm section
and chord changes and song lounging not on stage

Helluva Mountain King - Chaotic Noise Marching Corps [from Zero to Lizardman]

pretty darned fun neighbors! punkassgrieg.

October 7, 2019
Sonata in D K. 45 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

full of   hesitancies
catches

like clock cogs

Messiah Part 2 - George Frideric Handel - Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chamber Chorus, Robert Shaw, Kaaren Erickson, Sylvia McNair, Alfreda Hodgson, Jon Hmphrey, Richard Stilwell, Layton James

to his credit he is clearly concerned with being certain that the words are understood, in every syllable of them

but why do we like sheep?

glorification of the kinginess of Christ
expedient in a monarchy

Lift Up Your Hearts - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, director [April 1966]

Outside The Rain - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

another one drifts off
none listen to the end anyway

boat

October 8, 2019
Kosály-Meyer 3 - Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 1986]

five thousand seven hundred and forty seven
flies on the wall

a quiet dripping measures the conversation
a guitar is plucked
two strings alternating irregularly, open, framing a sung tone

later a conversation in fowl or wee critter talk

names of the actors
Romeo
Juliet

October 10, 2019
Nightingale Whistle - Aaron Keyt [from November Choses]

I was going to listen to the whole set of choses this night
but realized after a few seconds that it was too intense far for that sort of nonsense

bales and whirds

wall

their calls submerge
us

languid and shrill jungles joined at the solvent

Bake Eyes - Yuni in Taxco [from Sanpaku]

the jangle of it, bright, overwhelms

a tiny careful tingly shape

Loser - St. Rage [at the Common Good Cafe, August 2016]

a determined loser
powers attitude through to level two

Postscripts

begins to sing in the second longings

1 of the first stanza concerning this

dark night and its happy traits about which

everything cold

is colder

the blankness of my walls

Playlist

Recorded

September 29, 2019
The Memory of All That (pre-release version) - Benjamin Boretz - Megan Berti, mezzo-soprano, Zuzanna Szewczyk Kwon, piano



the setting

if such it is
attends the rhythm and structure of the argument
as much if not far far more than the meaning of the words
or of the whole, of its sentiment

the rhythmic structure of the argument being
as much if not far far more what it means
as what the words end up saying

Huge Guy In The Mosh Pit - St. Rage [live at the Common Good Cafe, Seattle, August 2016]

the words
mosh pit
sung or shouted
as a single word
moshpit
equal accents or nearly so

Sonata in G minor, K. 43 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

the rhythm of its formal discourse
patterning its procedures

formality concerned with formality

El Salón México - Aaron Copland - New Philharmonia Orchestra, Aaron Copland

our own unearned exotic
Northern European derived culture in a clash with Iberian derived culture
mixed with our collective unspoken sins toward our native cultures
North and South translated to the New World
which is as old as ours was

the tell: the folk elements treated as primitivistic color

When the Kids Get Married - Harvey Schmidt - Mary Martin, Robert Preston [from I Do! I Do!]

sax and violin
the oldest team in Vaudeville
(nothing else holds fashion)

Donnerstag aus Licht Act 2 - Karlheinz Stockhausen - Michael Angel, Paul Sperry, Markus

Stockhausen, Annette Meriweather, Suzanne Stephens, Elizabeth Clarke, Matthias Holle, Mark Tezak, Alain Louafi, Majella Stockhausen, Michel Arrignon, Hugo Read, Simon Stockhausen, Chor des Westdeutschen Rundfunks Kolne

waiting with stagy impatience
for something

occupying itself
thumb twiddling
left to its own devices
a(n) [insert collective noun here] of practice rooms

din?
dreariness?
sanatorium?

everybody is in their own individually packaged muffle room

bordello?
grindhouse?

penance?
cloister?
nunnery?

woodshed?
cord?

Just a Touch - REM [from Life's Rich Pageant]

perfect example of what the 80s sound could be
I wrote the word "ouffit" and then "ooffit"
I might have meant "outfit"
not certain
nor what I might have meant by it

String Quartet 2 (Quasi una Fantasia) op. 64 - Henryk Gorecki - Kronos Quartet

incremental disbetterment
something is always still, always hard, scarred
repetition disrupts

who can pen the most dire quartet?
big accordion chords wheeze in the warm strings
all those little wooden boxes set a quivering

always heavy
a weary ever so weary load

those noisy obfuscations are really noisy
its narrative is a jumble
and then he practically plays Silent Night for us

Hallelujah - George Frideric Handel [from Robert Shaw Master of the First Art Vol. 1]

repetitions in stepwise increments
a bit of Scarlatti's formalism as formalism game

"Strummy Song" - Bob Dylan [Key Arena October 2006]

tangled up in blue?
a rhythm section is only as valuable as the freedom it allows

October 1, 2019
Gradus 196 Part 2 [at Chapel Performance Space, August 2011] - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer

some foreign agent is making clanky sounds
perhaps they were outside the Chapel
knocking pipes about

learning to press the keys one mechanism at a time

in all the combos of key mechanisms there are

the nearly infinite machine

first rung (of these two): two notes - low and mid

second rung (of these two): one high A

laughter in another more distant sounding space leaks in to this one

throughout of course the fluctuating hish of people-moving machines, their engines, their tires on pavements

the goal is to learn to play piano

by playing this piece which is a piece for learning to play the piano

but only in the sense that this piece and the piano are the same

playing anything else isn't playing the piano in the sense one is learning to play by playing this piece

Siberian Delirium - Crystal Beth and the Boom Boom Band [from Yugen 3]

a hard tight wad in the high back nasal space of the mask
as though robotic

October 3, 2019
Sonata in F Major, K. 44 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

Scarlatti is that fellow you always knew or suspected was worth chatting up
and really was

listening is a life hack
reckless with trajectories

Les Eolides - César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck - New York Philharmonic, Kurt Masur

about the downbeat
before it
after it
just above it

buoyant beat
no beat without an essential qualification (not a beat until qualified) (only a beat in that it is qualified)
predicates an invisible bass line
surreptitious line logic

the itness of it is deeply concerned with the preceding and succeeding its of its itnesshood (Daseinsheit?)

Batman - The Who [from A Quick One]

popronicity badge achieved
television and rock and roll
reverse engineered for flavor

Moon Over Main - Dead Kennedys [from Plastic Surgery Disasters/In God We Trust]

close interval yodel echoed by guitar
benefits heavily by being indecipherable

gamer music
each segment a play level
playing with what would be fire in firmer hands

That Was Your Mother - Paul Simon [from Graceland]

bar talk story
and the science of the groove-like groove

In Session at the Tintinabulary

September 30, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 990 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer


As we were playing I noticed that the tiles on one edge of the drop ceiling my Dad and I put up 25 years go were sagging alarmingly next to where some had fallen several years ago. Now I need to decide what to do about it. In the meantime we rattled around the room.

Postscripts

morning and the sun was mounting willingly

and the time arrives which laechelnd winkt und

19 sinnend kind betrueben fleht hat

but the troll said (and hungrily
too) I'm going to eat you
the sound