Preface
- Benjamin Boretz "Language, as a music"
Texts
Live Streaming
The Music of Henry Eichheim
Peter Nelson-King, piano and voice
Seven Songs (1910)
I. The Heart of a Woman (Yeats)
II. When the Dew is Falling (MacLeod)
III. The Undersong (MacLeod)
IV. Across the Silent Stream (MacLeod)
V. Autumn Song (D.G. Rossetti)
VI. The Lament of Ian the Proud (MacLeod)
VII. Aedh Wishes His Beloved Were Dead (Yeats)
Oriental Impressions (1919)
I. Japanese Sketch
II. Japanese Nocturne
III. Korean Sketch
IV. Nocturnal Impressions of Peking
V. Chinese Sketch
In his discussion Peter raised two issues that are salient to this music and its continued cultural value.
First, cultural appropriation rears its ugly head. Eichheim's obvious influences are European and Asian, the European manifesting itself in his fairly sophisticated derivations of "Impressionist" sensibilities, and the Asian in his less sophisticated but not overtly unfriendly use of Asian folk-like material and "Oriental" modes. From this end, the European influence is clearly aspirational - until the mass exodus of European composers later in the century, Americans seeking to establish high-culture on their own turf borrowed extensively from what they could pick up from the only high culture they recognized, and/or they traveled back to Europe to learn at the feet of the masters. The Asian influence, however friendly, comes across as another color of exoticism - and joins the likes of Ravel's "jazz" influenced works, Stravinsky's "ragtime" and "jazz" pieces, Debussy's deeply unfortunate "Golliwogg's Cakewalk," and of course Puccini's flatfooted ventures into Japan, Persia, and the American West, among countless others. Seen in this light, it is yet another species of European stylistic affectation.
The other issue is anyone's cultural standing. Peter often wonders why, or is disappointed that, some music or other isn't as well known as it might deserve to be. Now I am far from thinking that the popularity, as such, of a thing among my peers has any particular relation to that thing's meaning or importance to me. The accidents of history, personality, the shifting economics of patronage, publishing, concertizing and (in the last century or so) that of the recording industry, as well as the ever shifting sands of polemic and cultural popularity leave few survivors. Peter's various antiquarian projects, for me, serve a vital service: they remind us just how rich and problematic our culture has actually been. Those we are more familiar with, Griffes and MacDowell, for instance, were parts of a larger community of voices. As too are we. Thank you!
Recorded
Teddybear - Steven Mackey, J.K. Randall (from Inter/Play - July 1986)
It is parse-able in theory
(they play notes after all)
but is it likely that doping out a deep structure
by parsing it
would help?
It gives the image of being understandable in all its parts.
There are all these parts right there laid out in lines.
Need more?
The sounds are pushing this around quasi-cooperatively. Where it goes only matters as to where it is when more pushing at it is happening. how does where we come from sound where we are now? We get to where we are and look around.
The point of all these notes in rows is to point out how notes sound if their pitch doesn't matter more than a few places back or forth. Notes are things we can share doing.
Daisy - Curtains For You [from After Nights Without Sleep]
Let's have a parade!
with fancy drumming
and fancy tune-smithing
Regulars - Your Mother Should Know
recorded on Karen's phone in December of 2016
Neal gets his chops on
playing guitar
the song parts go along easily
no flashing lights
BRIDGE AHEAD BRIDGE AHEAD
just goes where it goes
No Surrender - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]
fine indeed
Oh Maan - Full Toilet [from Full Toilet 7"]
broken song parts
ripped out
song book parts
Between - Ease [from Roots]
a typography
this music is a style of lettering
calligraphed
April 26, 2020
Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes - Paul Simon [from The Essential Paul Simon]
a song and another song that riffs on the words of the first
it continues to riff on riffing
Winter - Whitney Ballen [from White Feathers, White Linens]
circling lazily in bed for the day
Banned Telepath 51 Seattle - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy [December 2016]
speaking in cartoonish slide speak
otamatone (I want to spell it starting with an a)
and groan tube
that's me on the Silvertone
begin to make amends too soon
neither competitive nor cooperative nor unhearing either
lesson: adjust one's relative output to the size of one's charisma
proportion yourself inversely for social balance
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]
preacher talkin' testimony confessional hallelujah song
Circle Song (underlying electronic track) - S. Eric Scribner [from The Storm Sound Cycle]
the sound that circles pulses the partitions of their circle in an unstable tune whose shifting are pulsations, organically passing person to person
pulsing dance
Motorcycle Blues - Low Hums [from Shine Rock]
yup
that's exactly what it is
Graceland - Paul Simon [from The Essential Paul Simon]
at heart Paul was a studio musician
(a master and a compadre of)
he puts together a band that will make the engineers look really good to the other engineers
the record and the song become confused as to their birth order
I have an appointment over Jordan
Songs for Tourists - Courtney Marie Andrews [from No One's Slate is Clean]
the patterns animated within the guitar figuration
as characters
match the story teller's sophistication
introversion runaway
Kyuu - Paul Kikuchi [from Autonomic]
as it ascends
counterpoints arise
some persist not at all past
passed on persisting
others more so and exact
the swamp fills more slowly the more slowly we enter
strangely seamless
Jersey Girl - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]
this one's for the ladies
I've been on the shore
it ain't all right
though I do remember a nice smile
sunburn
white wine dinner
string weave swim suit
dancing wild life refuge
rebirth
or
remember your baptism
of or on or by
Make My Pay - SmokeStack and the Foothill Fury [from America's Freedom Death March]
3 unique letters: k e P
3 sets of duplicates: M M :: a a :: y y
in skewed symmetry: MaMyay
Banned Telepath 51 Anchorage - Aaron Keyt [December 2016]
toy piano in deep think mode
always a roar
invent a sound that we might do that this I invent would be a part of
retreat into the can
the can to which you have accustomed us
tonal implications rely
for their clothing
on their temporal nearness to those who will not disclose them
this is naked music
clunks and other ornaments
April 27, 2020
Grass - XTC [from Fossil Fuel]
groovy possibly coy or ironic mood I suppose
Don't Wanna Go Home - High Class Wreckage [from High Class Wreckage]
shoutsing
to get over what isn't there yet but will be
song structure is, here, a box of tools with possible word-blurb name-tokens only
Grey T-Shirt - Choke The Pope [from Emotional Material]
solid song with all the parts
lacks pretense
FS 1986 - [from a private tape]
Another set of students that Neal passed along to me. This might have arisen from either or both of our respective tenures.
familiarity with music can be a hindrance to invention
if one knows a desired outcome that's where the path will lead
has heard some lounge and some boogie woogie and some Joplin
then there is a story told to some kids, which is fun.
Somnambulismo - Yuni in Taxco [from Sanpaku]
big bright acoustic guitar sound dissolved into voices of stuff
Banned Rehearsal 924 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt [December 2016]
Aaron will join us from the outer darkness
(Anchorage in December)
while my otamatone prattles on
the secret weapon
a guitar
has
is the intimacy with which everything played is referenced to the open strings
whether those are allowed open or not
they are always there
and must be considered
Anchorage could be pulled up into the mix more, I think
I might I should redo this
April 28, 2020
Everyone Belongs to Someone - Shelby Earl [from Burn The Boats]
this here's your slow dance
star eyed
world vanishing
Rock Bottom - Robber's Roost [from Swallow Your Fears]
thudpucking done right
tempo control
Seal Your Sight So Your Body Is Gone - Operation ID [from Legs]
goes all crashing down
victory dance
way King Crimson
Gradus 304 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 2016]
G5 measured down
A5 measured up
the extent to which it then presents itself as a sequence of tones set into a time
is a problem
due to uncertainties about the various aspects of a tone and fuzzy boundaries between presence and not presence of it
the pitchness of a tone is like unto the wordness of spoken words
we are wired to hear it
with trainable ultra precision
more malleable than wordness of language though
less loud
infinitely more transparence
14 semitones of separate
number proportion pattern
Dinosaur Bones - White Orange [from White Orange]
the guitar figure features
in the opening 2 notes
closely intervalled alternating high low high low high low
with no duration identical among the six
except the first two
hi lo
hilo.
hi. lo...
everthing else hangs from this
rondo-ish-ly
Willow II - Tyler Daniel Bean [from On Days Soon to Pass]
||: [flat mi] [re] [do] :||
offsets grow from the shoot
Salty Baby - Yuni in Taxco [from Slow Charade]
empty room
at the far end of it
UTUMC - MCC Coffee Makers - Keith Eisenbrey [December 2016]
37 seconds of that Christmas morning in our church's basement
Invaders - Michael Cotts [from Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble Volume 1]
post Mancini credit music
without need of animated visual aids
stops on the verge of kaPOW!
Images - Lunas [from Over Me]
complaint
you you you
accusatory repetition
flangey film over it all
why? so that it can be excused as dream?
April 29, 2020
More Than You Know - Eddie Vedder [from Ukulele Songs]
line repetition and near repetition both within and between stanzas
an old trick, structural
blues does it
distancing? or leaving space for something else more slippery underneath?
Banned Telepath 52 Anchorage - Aaron Keyt [December 2016]
like clavichord this free reed instrument brings us into the intimacy of the sound maker's breath
we are near them
they are near us
this is is with us
immediate
the image of physical activity of making this sound
is naked to us
(poetry as I need it)
{{physical nakedness, due to taboos, distracts from its own face}}
April 30, 2020
Bird Without Wings - Star Anna and The Laughing Dogs [from Alone In This Together]
cyclic rhythm
cyclic changes
and their changes
operate as supplements to the unseen line breaks
Banned Telepath 52 Seattle - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy [December 2016]
excelsior intently breathing
piano even slower
light percussion in its wristy time
strings reeds and taps: an ecology, a sentient (partially?) economy
the flow of ambiance
but pulling inward
we are carried forward on our own river without hurry
will be 925 with Aaron's own reeds joining
excelsior, observing, breathes
luscious bells multiresonant incipits
we finish our year with tambourines
how fine!
Track 3 - High Class Wreckage [Live at the Funhouse - July 2011]
live punk tends to lean toward open insurrection against the vocalist, perhaps in order to offset the perception that everyone is looking at him (him here)
for example:
that guy (guy there) who talked into the recording mike at the Sealth v Stadium HS football game I recorded back in 1984
unaware of the particularly private use to which his emanation (some obscenity if I recall) would be put: engaged, but baffled.
The Sun, At The Final Rise - Ancient Warlocks [from Ancient Warlocks II]
same vocalist of course, Aaron Krause, but allowed here, among the skillful, to eloquize, be more overtly musical
a bit like an 18th Century Adagio movement
not hurried
but energetically decorative
every iteration inflected
Track 3 - Pouch [Live at the Funhouse - July 2011]
just the two of them, Sean Delaney and Jake Thompson
in control of what they're doing
almost demonstrating for educational purposes
MILF - Three Fingers [from Go Deep]
competitive bad girl
(I wanna be a)
novelty song
Flesh and Blood - Tyrannosaurus Grace [from E.P. 1]
the intro is where the composition is trotted out
showing each of all the parts of it in turn
its boots and hats and pants and top
vocalists match well, the female voice a bit more up front, takes the lead (she has the more interesting timbre)
any band is a negotiation in progress
No Jobs - Robber's Roost [from Live in Minneapolis]
not disaffected
never affected
Outer Space, Beyond the Sun (side A) - Koko and the Sweetmeats [from Sacrifice]
Allegretto
about its configuration
between instruments and voice
not like Haydn but like Haydn is
Never Go Back - SeaStar [from Never Go Back]
grease of the world
the rural and semi-rural maritime
long tendrils
the impulse to have another go at it,
where the it of it is just the it we have an impulse to take another go at
Where's My Bow - Goat Rodeo [from The Goat Rodeo Sessions]
To whom is this addressed? A fan base? The uptightly mobile?
Dia De Los Mortos - Chaotic Noise Marching Corps [from Zero to Lizardman]
pep band gone feral
they are,
by God,
here.
an embodiment of the absence of itself
that's exactly what it is
Graceland - Paul Simon [from The Essential Paul Simon]
at heart Paul was a studio musician
(a master and a compadre of)
he puts together a band that will make the engineers look really good to the other engineers
the record and the song become confused as to their birth order
I have an appointment over Jordan
Songs for Tourists - Courtney Marie Andrews [from No One's Slate is Clean]
the patterns animated within the guitar figuration
as characters
match the story teller's sophistication
introversion runaway
Kyuu - Paul Kikuchi [from Autonomic]
as it ascends
counterpoints arise
some persist not at all past
passed on persisting
others more so and exact
the swamp fills more slowly the more slowly we enter
strangely seamless
Jersey Girl - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]
this one's for the ladies
I've been on the shore
it ain't all right
though I do remember a nice smile
sunburn
white wine dinner
string weave swim suit
dancing wild life refuge
rebirth
or
remember your baptism
of or on or by
Make My Pay - SmokeStack and the Foothill Fury [from America's Freedom Death March]
3 unique letters: k e P
3 sets of duplicates: M M :: a a :: y y
in skewed symmetry: MaMyay
Banned Telepath 51 Anchorage - Aaron Keyt [December 2016]
toy piano in deep think mode
always a roar
invent a sound that we might do that this I invent would be a part of
retreat into the can
the can to which you have accustomed us
tonal implications rely
for their clothing
on their temporal nearness to those who will not disclose them
this is naked music
clunks and other ornaments
April 27, 2020
Grass - XTC [from Fossil Fuel]
groovy possibly coy or ironic mood I suppose
Don't Wanna Go Home - High Class Wreckage [from High Class Wreckage]
shoutsing
to get over what isn't there yet but will be
song structure is, here, a box of tools with possible word-blurb name-tokens only
Grey T-Shirt - Choke The Pope [from Emotional Material]
solid song with all the parts
lacks pretense
FS 1986 - [from a private tape]
Another set of students that Neal passed along to me. This might have arisen from either or both of our respective tenures.
familiarity with music can be a hindrance to invention
if one knows a desired outcome that's where the path will lead
has heard some lounge and some boogie woogie and some Joplin
then there is a story told to some kids, which is fun.
Somnambulismo - Yuni in Taxco [from Sanpaku]
big bright acoustic guitar sound dissolved into voices of stuff
Banned Rehearsal 924 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt [December 2016]
Aaron will join us from the outer darkness
(Anchorage in December)
while my otamatone prattles on
the secret weapon
a guitar
has
is the intimacy with which everything played is referenced to the open strings
whether those are allowed open or not
they are always there
and must be considered
Anchorage could be pulled up into the mix more, I think
I might I should redo this
April 28, 2020
Everyone Belongs to Someone - Shelby Earl [from Burn The Boats]
this here's your slow dance
star eyed
world vanishing
Rock Bottom - Robber's Roost [from Swallow Your Fears]
thudpucking done right
tempo control
Seal Your Sight So Your Body Is Gone - Operation ID [from Legs]
goes all crashing down
victory dance
way King Crimson
Gradus 304 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 2016]
G5 measured down
A5 measured up
the extent to which it then presents itself as a sequence of tones set into a time
is a problem
due to uncertainties about the various aspects of a tone and fuzzy boundaries between presence and not presence of it
the pitchness of a tone is like unto the wordness of spoken words
we are wired to hear it
with trainable ultra precision
more malleable than wordness of language though
less loud
infinitely more transparence
14 semitones of separate
number proportion pattern
Dinosaur Bones - White Orange [from White Orange]
the guitar figure features
in the opening 2 notes
closely intervalled alternating high low high low high low
with no duration identical among the six
except the first two
hi lo
hilo.
hi. lo...
everthing else hangs from this
rondo-ish-ly
Willow II - Tyler Daniel Bean [from On Days Soon to Pass]
||: [flat mi] [re] [do] :||
offsets grow from the shoot
Salty Baby - Yuni in Taxco [from Slow Charade]
empty room
at the far end of it
UTUMC - MCC Coffee Makers - Keith Eisenbrey [December 2016]
37 seconds of that Christmas morning in our church's basement
Invaders - Michael Cotts [from Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble Volume 1]
post Mancini credit music
without need of animated visual aids
stops on the verge of kaPOW!
Images - Lunas [from Over Me]
complaint
you you you
accusatory repetition
flangey film over it all
why? so that it can be excused as dream?
April 29, 2020
More Than You Know - Eddie Vedder [from Ukulele Songs]
an old trick, structural
blues does it
distancing? or leaving space for something else more slippery underneath?
Banned Telepath 52 Anchorage - Aaron Keyt [December 2016]
like clavichord this free reed instrument brings us into the intimacy of the sound maker's breath
we are near them
they are near us
this is is with us
immediate
the image of physical activity of making this sound
is naked to us
(poetry as I need it)
{{physical nakedness, due to taboos, distracts from its own face}}
April 30, 2020
Bird Without Wings - Star Anna and The Laughing Dogs [from Alone In This Together]
cyclic rhythm
cyclic changes
and their changes
operate as supplements to the unseen line breaks
Banned Telepath 52 Seattle - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy [December 2016]
piano even slower
light percussion in its wristy time
strings reeds and taps: an ecology, a sentient (partially?) economy
the flow of ambiance
but pulling inward
we are carried forward on our own river without hurry
will be 925 with Aaron's own reeds joining
excelsior, observing, breathes
luscious bells multiresonant incipits
we finish our year with tambourines
how fine!
Track 3 - High Class Wreckage [Live at the Funhouse - July 2011]
live punk tends to lean toward open insurrection against the vocalist, perhaps in order to offset the perception that everyone is looking at him (him here)
for example:
that guy (guy there) who talked into the recording mike at the Sealth v Stadium HS football game I recorded back in 1984
unaware of the particularly private use to which his emanation (some obscenity if I recall) would be put: engaged, but baffled.
The Sun, At The Final Rise - Ancient Warlocks [from Ancient Warlocks II]
same vocalist of course, Aaron Krause, but allowed here, among the skillful, to eloquize, be more overtly musical
a bit like an 18th Century Adagio movement
not hurried
but energetically decorative
every iteration inflected
Track 3 - Pouch [Live at the Funhouse - July 2011]
just the two of them, Sean Delaney and Jake Thompson
in control of what they're doing
almost demonstrating for educational purposes
MILF - Three Fingers [from Go Deep]
competitive bad girl
(I wanna be a)
novelty song
Flesh and Blood - Tyrannosaurus Grace [from E.P. 1]
the intro is where the composition is trotted out
showing each of all the parts of it in turn
its boots and hats and pants and top
vocalists match well, the female voice a bit more up front, takes the lead (she has the more interesting timbre)
any band is a negotiation in progress
No Jobs - Robber's Roost [from Live in Minneapolis]
not disaffected
never affected
Outer Space, Beyond the Sun (side A) - Koko and the Sweetmeats [from Sacrifice]
Allegretto
about its configuration
between instruments and voice
not like Haydn but like Haydn is
Never Go Back - SeaStar [from Never Go Back]
grease of the world
the rural and semi-rural maritime
long tendrils
the impulse to have another go at it,
where the it of it is just the it we have an impulse to take another go at
Where's My Bow - Goat Rodeo [from The Goat Rodeo Sessions]
To whom is this addressed? A fan base? The uptightly mobile?
Dia De Los Mortos - Chaotic Noise Marching Corps [from Zero to Lizardman]
pep band gone feral
they are,
by God,
here.
Postscripts
these things must be uprooted i took
it from her and I saw beads made out of
bones spine of a fish reason in sight neither
*******
the world is figment of music
pitch in a swamp is a bird on a cattailan embodiment of the absence of itself
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