Playlist

Preface

"Being a work of art is being perceived a certain way, i.e. being noticed (experienced) as an instance of the disposition of instances of certain types of instances of certain types of elements. That the 'same' entity or phenomenon is susceptible in a distinct perceiving as constituting a different such instance, or an instance of a different type, is located at an epistemic level distinct from that on which the identity of a given work of art is determined."
Benjamin Boretz "1972: Two Notes" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 1: 1960-1978"

Texts

Recorded

December 21, 2019
Finnegans Wake Chapter 6 (start) - James Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 2019]

ceremonious, stately :: so

He begins to query the quantity 12 in questions
aunt sirs.

things to eat and
things to drink

sing song
on occasiong
looked earish with his eyes shut

The small functional words
parts of speech
are left alone for the most part.

The multisyllablical words or polyrunic single pulse words are taken with more license.

A man is spread out among the city
sounds like a rude word . . .

Strawberry Fields Forever Take 7 and Edit Piece - The Beatles [from Beatles Anthology, volume 2]

extended version for maximum weirdness trademark

We've Got a Bigger Problem Now - Dead Kennedys [from Plastic Surgery Disasters / In God We Trust]

cool number
under the bottom of it

sneer would be satire
the most imaginative song on the album so far I think

Banned Rehearsal 106 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [December 1986]



bells and small whistle bamboo or tin and clacking as a backing

composing: the art of changing one's tune

over time

an aspect of recorded sound worth more careful attention: the recorded image of the size of the places in which these sounds abide

Aaron and I, singing, find places to unsettle our intonation
we do not blend

more cowbell than many musics dream of
cowbells in a big way

We're so glad.

organized sound, as a concept, presupposes an organizer [?]
at one end or another

beta rhythm sets in
long dim
model airplane motor
turns over now
not exactly a wake
nor a sleep

it continues long into sleep
far down

Untitled (Slow Waltz) - Gavin Borchert - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, February 2002]

The second simultaneity: a dissonance off the get go that no amount of Satieesquery nor warmth can resolve.

pebble in a shoe
thorn in a side
eagle in a liver

Gradus 108 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [November 2006]

Each A-nat of these six A-nats foliates or refracts into acoustic's proper parts. One can trace a hocketish tune among those proper parts on one or more of each of those six A-nats. Is there a downwardgoing quality to any of those proper parts' sequence upon time imparted only by the downwardgoing quality in some sequential atom of the music, otherwise irrespective of the more literal motion among their own pitches, arising from the respective roots of foliations. But these must be sought out.

My role: I am its conceptual soundboard.
(I've heard it all) :: so far

In resonating space do partials also foliate, fractal-like?

Always two there are, the player and the listener? but which is which and why?

Can't Keep - Eddie Vedder [from Ukulele Songs]

That is a fine sounding ukulele. It is interesting how the vocal part, at the start of each verse, starts right there in the room with you, then sets off somewhere to howl at the moons.

Shucking Corn - Keith Eisenbrey [August 2006]



I recorded the squeaky kiss sound of it.

How Still My Love (alternate version) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

throwing curses around: you won't forget me
this song (and others of hers) go around in a circle
never get up and be gone

Raise Your Hand - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band Live 1975-85]

I'm curious as to what kind of preaching he had heard. He picked something up somewhere.

"Mrs. Ramsay rose. Lily rose." - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, February 2002]

The beginnings of things abrade upon the ends of previous things. Surely among the prettiest of my compositions.

Serenade in E Major - Antonín Leopold Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

firmly within the ritual of tripartite ABA Menuet Trio Menuet land

The end of a piece must take great care to not intrude too rudely upon the beginning of after.

December 24, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 800 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 2011]



recorded on the 25th Anniversary of Karen's and my wedding rehearsal dinner -pizza and beer

Neal echoes into the bellsphere imitating looplike technology.

a stroll through a soundmake
regions of events
at distances
in places

actual loops
an accumulating pool of announcement
as Neal counts up to us

All the critters celebrate and lift a song.

Energy envelope waves pass or are passed through.

Some of our former noise sloshes around at the bottom of the pool.

Groundhog Day - Three Fingers [from Three Songs]



Everybody's groundhog day over and over
working isn't fun but tacobell ain't free

December 26, 2019
Sonata in D minor, K. 64 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

let's gavotte
out tonight
(slam dance)

La de Chamlay - Jacques DuPhly - Christophe Rousset

Ben's phone booths metaphor :: evidence of, or support for oppression. Or nostalgia.

Finnegans Wake Chapter 6 (continuation one) - James Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 2019]

words/breath
words/phrase
phrase/breath
line/foot
clause/line

... sounds like a rude word

one analytic performance might simply be to explode the paragraphs out onto the page in pseudoverse.

The old stock collar is coming back.

Answer: Finn MacCool!
Two: Answer: a song
Three: which title? thine obesity.
Four: What Irish 6 letter 2 syllables. Harmonize your responses in the ribs of your resistance.

No-one expects the Irish Inquisition.
a predicatement
Five . . .

In Session at the Tintinabulary

December 23, 2019
Gradus 360 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

A D then a D and an E
Same D

pitch matching: Does the pitch of a note necessarily match the pitch of the reverberating harp resonance arising out of that note? Of course not!

3rd D down, and 1st E down: 26 semitones - midway between is a note D-sharp/E-flat not yet in the sequence.

Postscript

from all that is the yet understanding

not for this is not done call it which works

fancies of things but inasmuch as

was alarmed to be walking barefoot

but the lion turned away

no causation

Playlist

Preface

"As my explanations here are probably above your understandings, lattlebrattons, though as

augmentatively uncomparisoned as Cadwan, Cadwallon and Cadwalloner, I shall revert to a more expletive method which I frequently use when I have to sermo with muddlecrass pupils. Imagine for my purpose that you are a squad of urchins, snifflynosed, goslingnecked, clothyheaded, tangled in your lacings, tingled in your pants, etsitaraw etcicero."

James Joyce - Finnegans Wake

Texts

Live

December 14, 2019
Finnegans Wake Chapter 6
Neal Kosály-Meyer
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Neal performs this in the dark, except for some spotlights during the Mookes and the Gripes episode, for one spotlight of which I was responsible. I therefore did not take notes. However, in an accident of my system for choosing the next thing to listen to, my recording of this will come up shortly. I'll probably listen in short bits, rather than all at once. Stay tuned.

December 19, 2019
Extremity
Lu Evers
Jo Anderson, voice; Keith Eisenbrey, piano; Lu Evers, voice and clarinet

I am grateful to Lu for inviting me to join in this intriguing collaboration. I was so involved in the doing of it that I don't have much of a sense of what it is from the audience side of the stage. Lu and Jo read some texts that Lu had written. For some of the texts Lu played clarinet. For some of the texts I played piano. Lu had written scores for me to play from. For one of the texts Lu and I played together.

Recorded

December 15,1019
Leather and Lace (Alternative Version) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

message music
tell you something

outing a conversation with a known actual person
or fantasy of a conversation with a known actual person
or providing a soundtrack for another's life moment

throwing words, nonspecific events and particularized emotion laden words
in hopes that some of a set of them will hit home

All Around the World or The Myth of the Fingerprints - Paul Simon [from Graceland]

This song is a body dancing in many frames.

Jeremiah 17:5-8 - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [from Continuity in Small Things, February 2002]

hiss noise heavy in the mix
and yet we hear the music signal as though it were pristine within it

Karen sounds great
I flubbed some notes but was otherwise right on

nice song writing, past me!

Turtle Island Waltz - Robert Tree Cody, Will Clipman [from Heart of the Wind]

Who is appropriating whom indeed?

Can appropriation by appropriate?

The whump of the drum is preceded each time by a quiet whoosh
a soft fabric sound
very like the wh of whump

Gradus 198 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 2011]

Among these pitches, the A-nat in the middle of the range, where we would be speaking in terms of pitch register, is easily felt to be the focus of the activity. The purpose of our hearing is, partly, in order to hear our selves.

How is one supposed to hear?
Why is one supposed, exactly, to hear?
Why not overhear what one is supposed to not hear?

piano pedal technique: as one slowly releases a reverberation the dampers won't quite each engage with absolute unanimity of time

result: the possibility of a melody of the sequence of apparent tones as they linger differentially, as they arise as others are stopped, as others are withdrawn

Swallow Your Fears - Robber's Roost [from Swallow Your Fears]



So articulate!
So fast!!
clawhammer hardcore?

DK should hide in shame

Sonata in G Major, K. 63 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

a tinkerer was Scarlatti
which is why
he is such a composer's composer

La de Guyon - Jacques DuPhly - Christophe Rousset

solo music

not intended for multitudes

much more private
for among intimates
fellow wizards

Sonata in B-flat Major, Wq 65/45 - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

strays into other tonal regions
as though losing itself in bookstacks

follow carefully now
you may have to find your own way out

3rd movement is more than a little tipsy
this is W.C. Fields juggling drunk
a mimicking wit
a puppeteer

In Session at the Tintinabulary

December 16,2019
Banned Rehearsal 995 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Postscript

saying that allow for the always living

but because of this effect it makes the 

soul live without knowing why his voice was

arranged my tapes in three neat little stacks)

carrying a sack of gold

a bird flutters through the sun

Playlist

Preface

"

NOW ADVANCING ACROSS AN UNROLLED SOUNDSCROLL.

ALL OF IT - FROM START TO FINISH - IS PRESENT NOW. FROM BEGINNING TO END. THE WHOLE STORY. A PRESENCE NOW FROM BEGINNING TO END. --: PAST PRESENT & FUTURE PRESENT (,: ALL THE TIME :): PLAINLY VIVID. (EQUALLY. ((& UNVARYINGLY; - ALWAYS. &) EVERYWHERE.)

QUALITY OF HERE:?- :(EACH WHERE INDEXES WHOLE STORY 0F.). THE SAME FULLNESS OF STORY OF. -- (-: THE SAME OLD STORY. _ &

NOW? -:(,RELEASED FROM START) ADVANCES;-& PASSING AS A POINTER PASSES (,___ AS TIME MIGHT PASS-), DIVIDES PRESENCE NOW (,ALWAYS) IN TWO PARTS: THE PAST PRESENT FUTURE PRESENT PART (,BECOMING SMALLER & SMALLER) ACROSS WHICH NOW HAS YET TO PASS. :PASSING AS A POINTER PASSES (,- AS TIME MIGHT PASS-)-: NOT TOO FAST (-& NOT TOO SLOW EITHER -), BUT JUST RIGHT.- (CAREFUL NOW. )-. EACH NOW (.!PRECISELY) POISED HERE ON ITS NEXUS.-. -OF? CONGEALED;)-) TIME.

(: WHAT HAS NOW BECOME?

"

J. K. Randall "a soundscroll" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 1: 1960-1978"

Texts

photo by Betty G. Eisenbrey, altered by me

 Live

December 12, 2019
Kathy Moore, Crystal Beth, Guitar Cult
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Kathy Moore

paradigm: solo stage act in the small
quest: how big a sound can be made alone
clarify: not loud, big
tool: loops
types: pre-made / on the fly

elaborating environs
for voice and persona
to project
shine

Crystal Beth

power suit
constant core
accreting immersive braids
to be released and spun out
into out
places other
places outer
places
presumed still to be still spinning

self replication
on an outing
sonic super suits
to allow
an outing

final dissipation
spinning
out

dissispination

Guitar Cult

elders, circle of
lensing

call forth mind join peer power grid link
(disindividuation to amplify intent)

led
(it would seem)
by the pulse keeper

circle stomp (dance)

care taken
on where it gets to
but is less concerned with how to get off the horse

disintonation corps

Recorded

December 7, 2019

Sonata in A minor, K. 61 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

move as little as possible
attend minutely

The figuration contours replicate into the ornament contours, and no doubt into the phrase contours as well.

Médée - Jacques Duphly - Christophe Rousset

repetitions for branching chronologies
muscular
like wrestling

This House - Harvey Schmidt - Mary Martin, Robert Preston [from I Do! I Do!]

And that's the end of that!

Nazi Punks Fuckk Off - Dead Kennedys [from Plastic Surgery Disasters / In God We Trust]

lots of words not intended to be understood

December 8, 2019
Assembly Rechoired 10 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [November 1986]



drums, organ
(Bickleton?)

some odd disturbance in the recorded cymbal sound - grated, or sliced off at a near buzz of a tempo

carousel waltz
but wanders quickly to a slower space
seeking a lively stasis
something that will build of its own accord

which we do find
and which does never quite lose the lingering flavor of that carousel waltz

a ukulele is picked up
the electric organ is dropped

we are good about getting quiet as easily as we get loud
moreso mayhaps

the piano
playing quietly

the quiet
playing piano

:blogger make little joke there:

sounds like Karen at the drums
me on piano

clearly I was on to some thread to follow

my thinking is clear here
and I love what Karen's ultra soft cymbal sheen does to the overall

at what point in this process does recognition of a thought
as a thought
occur?

Untitled (Slow Waltz) - Gavin Borchert - Keith Eisenbrey

nice pedaling Keith!
strong piece, too.

I remember what drew me to it at first was how carefully each note must be balanced, both vertically and horizontally, and the multiple long lines that never drop, but that articulate each other out and in.

[NB: this was a version I recorded at the Tintinabulary in July of 2004. I then proceeded to apply various reverbs to it, some subtle and some not. Those versions will show up here over the next weeks]

Sahn Sun - Aaron Keyt [from November Choses]

cheerful!
It's darling!

Solo Set at HeckFest - Lori Goldston



fiddle

cellofiddle

woodpecker on maple tree in Maple Leaf, December 14, 2019

sound seems invisible
to the social chatter

treated as a servant

one rarely thinks of cello figuration in the same sense one thinks of guitar figuration, but Lori treats the cello like a outsized guitar

that is:

guitar seems to be a polyphonic instrument by default, occasionally playing single strand tunes
*
while cello seems to me single voiced by default, occasionally playing chords

(Lori begs to differ)

and there may be a tam tam

Second Thoughts - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [Chapel Performance Space, March 2018]





The Chapel spirits were lively that evening

order passes through for a visit

short high contrast forms

December 10, 2019
Keyboard Sonata in A, K. 62 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

Domenico deigns not to modulate - he just is there (elsewhere).

The radical discreteness of parts in stark contrast

allows other parts to bridge the gaps
at points far distant from either

Les Graces - Jacques Duphly - Christophe Rousset

A hot house flower
from the center of civilization
perfumed with ornament

The Owl and the Pussycat - Igor Stravinsky - Karen Eisenbrey, soprano; Keith Eisnbrey, piano [University Temple United Methodist Church February 2002]

and the light of the moon

not well recorded, but Karen nails it.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

December 12, 2019
Jesu, der du meine Seele - Keith Eisenbrey



The 12th of my 12 chorale settings that together constitute the 12th part of my Études d'exécution imminent, recorded on 12 12.

Postscripts

any more than what is works are fixed what

know how to live with spiritual

or temporal things as substance passive

hung there from another mind

dyes gray violet

blows on the bass drum

Playlist

Preface

"In any case, the trouble with regarding works of art as primarily about the world is that they are in the first place of the world. And in the sense that the world is what communicates through language-dependent perception, art works surely add themselves to the world and use the ways that the world communicates to communicate themselves."

Benjamin Boretz "Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art, From a Musical Point of View"
from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 1: 1960-1978"

Texts

Recorded

December 2, 2019
Elephant Bells - Aaron Keyt [from November Choses]

music
in plain sight

unhidden

sound groups :: each a hinge of others

we move from one group
bells for instance
to another bell group
through the hinge of the synth tones
or through the hinge of string plucks

or all the vices versas among them

Solo Set at Nocturnum - Lori Goldston



an amplifier played by a cello played by Lori

The loudness is not the point of the amplification so much as the largeness of it, our nearness in relation to it, getting our ears right up there next to it.

An amplifier setup is a malleable ear mechanism with a malleable output, a virtual soundboard, a scrim, or filter.

the granular tracing of an intently listening ear

The Drink I Didn't Have Last Night - St. Rage [August 2016]

This song is the whole reason for the fringe-y shirt.

Sonata in G minor K. 60 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

a crowd talking through mirrors

so fully of its texture that there is no reason for it to be coy about stopping when it's done, without letting on about stopping until it does

La Louise Wq. 117/36 - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

a finger puppet show that keeps trying to peer out of its box

Chaconne en fa - Jacques Duphly - Christophe Rousset

a receiving line
everybody is a bit tipsy

hic

December 3, 2019
Doctor, Doctor - The Who [from A Quick One]

near rhyme: floor | jaw

Dog Bite - Dead Kennedys [from Plastic Surgery Disasters / In God We Trust]

too slow he says
in order to show off

Swan Swan Hummingbird - REM [from Life's Rich Pageant]

falling off the psalmtone into the harmonic soup
half a song

G---- Melodies #4 - Antonín Leopold Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

the struggle for authenticity through appropriation

("That trick never works!")

December 5, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 799 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [September 2011]



unpitched sounds rarely are
really

photo by Betty Eisenbrey - adjusted by your blogger

none of these opening sounds are pitched
as such

but this sound is about nothing but
pitch

when the piano comes in it only proves the point

bigfeedbacksqweeel

Someone Pay My Student Loans - Choke The Pope [from Emotional Material]

stuck anthem

In Session at the Tintinabulary

December 1, 2019
My soul doth magnify the Lord - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, soprano; Keith Eisenbrey, piano



We presented this as part of the morning service at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle. Not too bad for a live performance.

December 4, 2019
O Mensch, bewein' dein' Sünde gross - Keith Eisenbrey- Keith Eisenbrey, piano

Wahkeena Falls, photo by Betty Eisenbrey

This is the eleventh of my twelve chorale harmonizations, composed in 2017

Postscripts

happened her entire honored so would

have scorned her or at the very least sent

her ball awry and it had her mightily

(today is not it)

no rules apply

just sit there