Playlist

Preface

"Postmodernism in music is premised on the idea that people have to compose, perform, listen to, and review music no matter how useless, pointless, rootless, disengaged, culturally archaic those practices have become. Business, after all, is business. And what is called minimalist music, in postmodernist talk, strenuously and overtly celebrates the pervading poverty of our cultural spirit, and the mechanical functionality which has increasingly become what passes for our relations to one another."
- Benjamin Boretz "Interface Part V: On Thinking About Various Issues Induced by the Problem of Discovering That One is Not a 'Composer' And That the Space which One Inhabits Musically is Not 'America'" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streamed

July 22, 2020
The Staycation Festival #8 Hosted by South Hudson Music Project, The Royal Room
Solos: Drummer Session
Bonnie Whiting, Juan Pablo Carletti, Dio Jean-Baptiste, Greg Campbell, Bobby Previte, Andrew Drury

impressions as they came along

blue rhythm sticks
pot lid
dinosaur in the next room on a shelf
a conversation between RH and LH illuminated by variant lid scrapers

from an overhead light fixture
drums visible and hid
frame rate can't keep up

tempo and all it takes

Duck Island

advanced sticking for Roger Stone
w/ Uke and Tuba and backdrop

a stick is not the head alone but also the hand that holds it
melodic unsnared snare drum

dance
masked drum

more Duck Island with singing snare

soccer ball on top of head
(frame rate can't keep up with that either!)

Bonnie (again) with thunder drum
renders Nascar nugatory

metals

drum rock bay with wind

Wayward in Limbo

"With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series now moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is curating and commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of exclusive material. Many of these will be essentially 'live' performances recorded at home for this occasion. Others may create a mix of pre-recorded material that has not been previously released elsewhere."
- from the Wayward Music Series website at https://www.waywardmusic.org/.

July 18, 2020
Robb Kunz - In the Days of the Long Forgotten

from a collector's selection
the sounds are meant to be the sounds they are
though sometimes their origin is uncertain
mostly we can make a guess as to what is making the sound and in what originary context
- not always -
- and probably not always correctly -
but the correctness of our guess is not as crucial as the relative self-certainty of that guess

birds are birds
shouts are shouts
drums and shakers are drums and shakers

ah the fair!
how we miss it!

very frequently more than full

words engraved upon ironic remove

July 19, 2020
Eric Lanzillota

tone-like sound with pulse-like behavior
no room down here for contrapuntal weavings
it only just rises to near awareness

we bend our ears
down to get closer
to that membrane

something of a rubbery tone to it
inner-tube material stretched across a lake sized frame

its vibratory movements arise out of deeper instabilities
something big feeds back

whispers glimpsed for a moment only
or two
joined in near overlap
boots crunching snow

July 23, 2020
Kelsey Mines

No Rhyme No Reason
thoughtful reconfigurements
the greater chaconne
a thinkers music
composition improvisation synonomy
no sound wasted
in no way not approachable

Tell Me Everything
Inside
Do The Right Thing

helpful tool

Let Me Check My Calendar
Reparations

all the debts
all the way down

Recorded

July 18, 2020
Die Geburtstag der Infantin (Der Zwerg) - Alexander von Zemlinsky - Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Gerd Albrecht, Inga Neilsen, Beatrice Haldas, Kenneth Riegel, Dieter Weller, Olive Fredricks, Marianne Hirsti, Sheryl Studer, Frauenstimmen des RIAS-Kammerchores

a small cast one act opera from somewhere in the style flow of Debussy and Mahler

an icky strange tale dressed up like a Disney Princess

(the evil queen as a child)

the mix of voices as they develop is quick and exciting

In a very strange corner of the Märchen space opened by Lohengrin

a (sort of) song contest, no less
a singer's opera in the first person

dancing in the next room

July 19, 2020
Well of Salvation - H. C. Gatewood, (D.D.I.M.R.A.) [from Goodbye, Babylon]

a sung sermon is a collaborative endeavor
something deeper than mere collaboration, socially
psycho-theologically speaking
collaborating in tongues
sermonizing on the shoulders of the children of God

but it isn't what you think
what this is can't be thought

Ancient Airs and Dances for Lute, Volume 3 - Ottorino Respighi - Philharmonicia Hungarica, Antal Dorati

factoid: these are transcriptions
Respighi put his name on notes written by others
factoid: his work is to rescribe the notes to enable a different instrument to perform them
given: he did it well
but: in doing so, the social interaction among the notes has changed
the lute is a puppeteer's instrument: one brain many strings for multiple sound paths
transcribed: far more many brains brought to bear to imitate a single person's music
(it is refreshing that he refrained from gargantuating them)

a politics of a prior social order
a shade from the long dead

Piano Quartet in G minor - Johannes Brahms, orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg - Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Simon Rattle

same trick of transcription
though the kind of thing a Piano Quartet is, socially, is different than solo lute, as is a string orchestra (as in Respighi) different than the whole state-of-the-art symphony orchestra (as here), socially, politically

also however, an analysis

(going back to the Brahms that hadn't quite escaped his Romantic youth)

this has been said: Brahms's best symphony
may be that, but if so also: his best tone-poem, best opera, best ballet
such expanses
this has!

Circus Polka - Igor Stravinksy - London Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas

revisiting Petrushka
thumbing his nose at Ravel's La Valse

No More, My Lord - Jimpson [from Goodbye, Babylon]

ax and voice root song

Structures pour deux pianos Book 1 - Pierre Boulez - Alfons Kontarsky, Aloys Kontarsky

how many?
how are we to be counting here then?

the piano is not treated as a percussion instrument, but as a synthesizer
things have now broken

Control Freak as French Beat Poet
this is a clinical environment
lots of fun though

fooled you!
now I didn't

School Days - Chuck Berry [from The Best of Chuck Berry]

ventriloquistical ad man

She Thinks I Still Care - George Jones [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

be the most romantical sappy clown you can
don't forget to pronounce it all real country-like
Stan Freberg would eat this for breakfast
[ultra big fab fun factoid from Wikipedia: George Lucas interviewed Stan Freberg for the voice of C-3PO. Stan recommended Anthony Daniels]

24 Preludes (9 through 12) - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey [from a recital in June 2009]

9 - rushed, but the idea is right
10 - without lingering more than is written - clearly a long cadence
11 - so clear!
12 - weird, man

Superstition - Stevie Wonder [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

pitch and weight tightly bolted together
so it won't shake loose

("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...") fragment - Benjamin Boretz - Keith Eisenbrey [from a recital in May 1986]

Neal recites the Joyce passage inaudibly
I was obsessed with nearness
cuts off when the tape ran out

July 20, 2020
String Quartet 5 - Milton Babbitt [from Erik Carlson - Slowly Expanding Milton Babbitt Album]

attention must be fluid and quick
stick with it
quite a ride
hop on anywhere
follow the lines
however you fancy
many paths are adequate
if you stick it out
even if inarticulable

Seeds - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded July 2010]

it is strange how the size of an idea is different: in the inventing mind, on the page, as performed
as invented: tiny, enclosed
on page: no more than a short line of staff
extended into performance: extremely varied but each significantly larger somehow than any of the expressions of it

these don't move outside of themselves
they circle around
like ideas do

Take This Ride - Ken Chambers [a Rescued Record]

set out the four square parameters
so that the game is clear

charisma, sadly, is a cruel mistress

Res Roll - Isaac E, John E, Holden K [ca. 1997]

some of our local young folks when much younger filling a tape
types of taps are demonstrated
with captions

Sometimes You Have To Keep Short - Anorak [a Rescued Record]

an assembly of junk sound, self done
resists building into much
happy to assemble without a goal
happy to find

Through All the World Below - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded July 2015]

a hymn
hymn writing is a discipline
a melody that tracks the structure of the strophes
a harmony that stays out of the way

Hona Hai Kya - Ram Sampath [from Bollygood Volume 1]

money sounds like money

Figure Study - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [January 2017]

many fingers in several similar tempos

July 21, 2020
Fantasia, Fvb 2 - John Mundy - Claus Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

canon, fugue-oidal
is a species of Fantasia
the tune wanders through the voices
but isn't fixed

L'Orfeo, Act III - Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi - Ensemble La Venexiana, Claudio Cavina

all of our instruments are defective
where are the Krummhorns of yesteryear?

3 Bransles de la Torche - Michael Praetorius - New London Consort, Philip Pickett [from Dances from Terpsichore]

this music is for a social activity, not for itself

Courante Zimble in A minor - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella

this music is for enjoying while playing and while listening to
to get inside of
not concerned with any greater architecture

Sonata in D minor - George Frideric Handel - Michala Petri, Keith Jarrett

like the curtains, the furniture, the dresses, all the costumery of social hierarchy

a certain tone must be maintained to demonstrate excellence of skill and taste
for long evenings

July 22, 2020
Douzieme Ordre (mi) - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert

the ornaments trace a path or several
but there are others

the rolling hills of its more obvious melodic profile hides things
hidden fingers explore your pockets
there may be hierarchy among the voices
but they are of the same stuff
any, as a type of thing, could serve for or in any hierarchical capacity
and probably do

July 23, 2020
Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band I, Prelude and Fugue in C minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Sviatoslav Richter

Prelude: the shape of the fiddly stuff morphs and the pointy stuff subsides
Fugue: legato kept away

Sonata in B-flat Major - Georg Philipp Telemann - Michala Petri, Elisabeth Selin

a lesson in comportment
for good children

vast tracts of music of this era are, and were never thought by any to be more than, decorative entertainment for genteel elegance. Often interesting, but stuck, paralyzed

Sonata in A minor, Wq. 49/1 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

for an audience of as few as possible
as each additional person would reshape, in totality, the sense of the music for each of the others
private, but not exclusive

the space it shares is too far interior, too intimate a room, to inhabit

we visit

Postscripts

sensory night length the spiritual

rare since this base manner lead lowly ex-

ercise turning back the time sweet john says

the cat sleeping on my ankles

the fox crisscrossing the field

my shadow on the down road

Playlist

Preface

"The ultimate act of musical creation is the auditory-mental activity by which alone a musical identity is brought into being, in the only way in which, epistemically speaking, it has being: as a consciously experienced determinate feel; that is, as an awareness-state of the whole perceptual consciousness of some one experiencing person, an awareness-state which is cognized by that person as a distinct experienced-sound entity within a certain range of such entities, and which is retrievable in principle and therefore in principle - though not necessarily in practice - intersubjectively shareable."
- Benjamin Boretz "The Logic of What?" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streamed

July 15, 2020
Summer Wind - Songs of E. J. Moeran
Peter Nelson-King

I got to thinking about chords
chords of stacked thirds
extended past 7ths or 9ths
but without the structural underpinnings of the blues such as give jazz a fresh path forward
exposing the limits of Rameau-based thinking
the root progressions are all lost in fog

Wayward in Limbo

"With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series now moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is curating and commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of exclusive material. Many of these will be essentially 'live' performances recorded at home for this occasion. Others may create a mix of pre-recorded material that has not been previously released elsewhere."
- from the Wayward Music Series website at https://www.waywardmusic.org/.

July 11, 2020
Erin Jorgensen - Walking Down The Stairs

cushioning wood yarn resonance
overlay of mesmerization
as text experiment: sharing experience in processing
a suggestion game:
suggested image enters
(as language enters)
(as titles enter)
(as intentions enter)
(as specificity enters)

[Analysis of the set of suggestions, while it happens, is defensive, evidence of mistrust (mine)]

we are led
to descend to
a fantasial pleasure pool
(internal euphorial access)
in line at the bank

lines and lines

July 12, 2020
Tamara Zenobia - Creating Our Stories

music with texts that concern themselves with healing

Why do I have such trouble with it?
(just what kind of jerk am I?)

A. when provided with a text as part of a music I seek to engage with it as an object.
B. I don't want the message, it gets in my way
C. Intrusive Dogmatic Assertion: Sentiment Kills Art, i.e. author's messages disrupt.

[If you have a message, out with it. If you are making something, make it. - I have trouble getting those two activities to play well together in my experiencing listening.]

D. If I want music to be healing of me then the text will distract, I immediately turn critical on the text - I resist suggestions from outside, I prefer to be in control of my own response.

But: If it isn't my healing that's at issue?
However: I need to take it personally - that's what I need music for.

So: would it help if I didn't know what the text was about?
OK: her singing voice is quite nice and she enjoys making it and hearing it.

Why do I persist in going forensic? (Observation has been my most productive listening mode.) Clearly I am not the target audience and still have some work to do.

July 16, 2020
Jen Gilleran - Flat Felled Seam

doings
distant and near

NEAR! > [      ] ? ::

quartile patterns now holding
]door shuts[
parts hold quartilely
(we count to four)
to measure out a slow shift
)we lost someone back there(
[but continue]

shuttle shuttle

> hear! {they come} somewhere

shuttle shutter

tire sirens
[boom, drum]
fire sirens
DRUUM (DRWM)

song bit
just the tune and its water wiggles

send 'em out wiggling

Recorded

July 11, 2020
Symphony in D Major (#8) - Felix Mendelssohn - English Bach Festival Orchestra, William Boughton

Haydnesque slow introduction into a D Major with dark corners in it. The single tones shining lights in that slow introduction appear here and there embedded in the matter of that which ensues thereafter. Its Sturm und Drang is all carefully schematicized for your safety. It treats the old forms in the spirit in which the older forms were intended to be treated: to bind chaos, to forestall annihilation, to keep in hermetic isolation. Chaos in quarantine.

I keep hoping the fugue subject will suddenly go all killywonkus, but it won't.

Trio in B-flat Major, D.898, Op. 99 - Franz Schubert - Josef Suk, Jan Panenka, Josef Chuchro

a treble part || a bass part || the rest of the orchestra
a complete orchestra with quirks, perks, and limits

Some of the balance of power issues* could be eliminated with an earlier form of piano possessed of a lighter sound.

Janus-faced melodies
straight and prim [flipface] graceful and tender
pull down the scrim of dire portent

sequential polytonality
but more radical than in the Mendelssohn above

The literary Romantic notion of human psychology is so familiar to us that we forget sometimes it isn't ours.

the imitation games he plays are unlike anybody else's like games
these are no imitation imitation games
they have their own purpose to pursue

*a piano with lid down is not an adequate substitute for an early 19th Century parlor-sized piano, or so I suspect.

6 Intermezzi, op. 4 - Robert Schumann - Peter Frankl

addle brain
fancy free

swift winged swallow
fancy free

(just as flashy in the fingers as Chopin or Liszt
but his flashes are
more structured than Liszt's orchestral emulations
more keyboardy than Chopin's operatic Belliniisms)

He's the whole puppet show

July 12, 2020
Grande Messe des Morts - Hector Berlioz - Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Radio France Choir, Leonard Bernstein, Stuart Burrows

upward motion
downward motion
forward
backward
stasis

motion mixed (still stepwise)
the words are set to a music
dwarfing space

into the day of wrath we progress inexorate
text repeated small
text repeated big

music extends the reach of text's meaning
it can hold the word together
(though bruited about)
through multiple readings
set within a huge tonal framework

this text exists
only here

Royal Fanfare
big old cadence
pomp and pageant
all that is below
passing in procession

another singular text brought to you here
on this page
(though the chant on a single pitch in word sized rhythm has a resonance with just such a figure in the first movement

reconciliation
vs
terror

it has it all
here in one spot

we come together beloved children
to celebrate
a good cry

motion is no longer straight nor singular

Stuart Burrows floats it up there so easy and light!
The crown jewel of this recording
outshines all of it
breathtaking

homophonic chord change: vowel shift
the whole shebang as a study in melodic motion
upward, downward, forward

It ends when we get back to where we started, cyclical.

All the cadences in a specious list
(cadence order matters not)
each would work

July 13, 2020
Stabat Mater - Gioachino Rossini - Wiener Philharmoniker, Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor, Myung-whun Chung, Luba Orgonasova, Cecilia Bartoli, Raul Gimenz, Roberto Scandiuzzi

bears
at the opening
a resemblance to the above

must have been a real market for the wide-screen religious spectacle

a soloist's showcase
because, well, Italy

Berlioz composed a cathedral
Rossini composed an opera
would his audience have understood anything else?

also a rhythmic/metric wonder

These texts have a point of view
they are characters in that opera

If he has a grand scheme for this he has beguiled me from caring what it is.

Rossini says:
The way for opera to survive is to hide it in other things

wrap it up
return to start to finish to return

made you jump!

_____ says:
The way to survive is to hide in other things.

July 14, 2020
Tannhäuser, Act II - Richard Wagner - Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Josef Greindl, Wolfgang Windgassen, Eberhard, Waechter, Gerhard Stolze, Franz Crass, Georg Paskuda, Gerd Nienstedt, Anja Silja, Grace Bumbry, Else-Margrete Gardelli, Chor der Bayreuther Festspiele, Wilhelm Pitz

the stakes :: the challenge :: the trial
you're being hazed my friend

at this point our boy is probably (should probably be) thinking it's time to go back to Venusburg. They seem friendly there. This place is bonkers!

to paint as unlifelikely pious a picture as can be daubed, unearthy, comforting

uh oh
he said a bad word

:: the failure ::
the males hound him out of town

Benediction de Dieu dans a solitude - Franz Liszt - Stephen Hough

Orders of magnitude more sophisticated as composition than Tannhäuser. Every note carries itself as essential, even the filigree is designed - so civilized! His keyboard writing is so natural it's difficult to work past the enraptured awe of it to see what its limits are. A living, breathing Balzac character.

Tenting on the Old Campground and Marching Through Georgia - Walter Kittridge and Henry Work - Gregg Smith Singers, Gregg Smith [from The Great Sentimental Age]

the beginnings of the lies we told each other

Night on Bald Mountain - Modest Mussorgsky (orchestrated by Maurice Ravel) - Philadelphia Orchestra, Ricardo Muti

an illustrated volume
(this performance is by the book, phoned in, a mimeograph

I want to hear the venom in every note
otherwise the dawn is a ho hum

Symphony in C minor "Little Russian" (#2) - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Wiener Philharmoniker, Lorin Maazel

Tchaikovsky, playing the National Composer, had to compete with that particular slice of civilization hovering at the edge of France & Italy, and with the upstarts of Germany arising. He had to do it all better, and all he had to work with was spectacle: A Single Combat Hero for the Orthodox Empire.

So: He invented cinema. Those aren't movements, they are reels.

**

hyperdigital recording
all the keyclicks
surreal, but works for this piece

July 15, 2020
Symphony in D Major, op. 73 (#2) - Johannes Brahms - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Claudio Abbado

Rather than become the National Composer by beating the operatic nations at their game, he stays on his own contrapuntal turf, pretty much undisputed.

he seems
now and again
to relax his grip
but we drop in a little further

there is no lyric effusion that can't be packed into a stretto-fied package

Once he learned a thing about music he couldn't not use it always. Every line must have its completion. All the D Major that can possibly be is crammed in.

July 16, 2020
Messe in E minor - Anton Bruckner - Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Eugen Jochum, Josef Schmidhuber

you'll get no help here
you must simply follow where it goes
no other path is possible
no hand rails either

tender severity
this music is not an easy theology

Requiem, op. 48 - Gabriel Fauré - L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, L'Union Chorale de la Tour de Peilz, Ernest Ansermet, Suzanne Danco, Gerard Souzay, Robert Mermoud, Eric Schmidt

[this recording sounds like a radio broadcast from another time line]

opening
the voices are together but their voices voice at different times

not Romantic not Nationalist
what then? what is it trying to do?
something personal, not public

[its popular masterpiece status is accidental: it isn't so difficult to sing, and doesn't require such extravagent forces that a mid-sized church choir couldn't do it creditably, so they do.]

unostentatious
intimate
for real

July 17, 2020
Italienische Serenade - Hugo Wolf - Melos Quartet

nervous
unsettled
uncomfortable in its key
looks to the side
every bar or so

Symphony No. 1, op. 13 - Sergei Rachmaninoff - L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Walter Weller

another National Composer wannabe
ended up as the National Composer of Czarists in Exile (keeping the sugar plum dream alive)

How old was he?
(when he was able, being an aristocrat, to exploit the resources of such a huge orchestra, in public)?
24?

a novel with too many pretty phrases
forgets to get along with it
wanders into a room and falls asleep in a corner

(a music of first-world problems)

he even starts the finale
with a glorious fanfare
to introduce: himself
an abject symphony begging for applause

The Weepy Tragedy of the Thwarted Megalomaniac

the anti-Scarlatti

A Breeze from Alabama - Scott Joplin - William Albright

this is instructive
it makes a case for Joplin's careful keyboard writing
not Scarlatti, but certainly not the anti-Scarlatti - far from it!

Sonata in F-sharp minor, op. 53 (#5) - Alexander Scriabin - John Ogdon

Not the National Composer of anything ever. Scriabin was actually interested in the music, in what makes it tick. And he had the most original ear for intricate keyboard figuration of anyone since Schumann.

This music has music stuck in its hair.

Red Onion Rag - Ray Spangler [from That Devilin' Tune]

an underlying clarity
tin man mechanized puppet-machine show

That Funny Jas Band - Collins & Harlan (Byron G. Harlan, Arthur Collins) [from That Devilin' Tune]

I'm not sure I want to imagine the visuals of the actual stage act. The text is uncomfortable enough.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

July 13, 2020
Banned Rehearsal 1005 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1005 200713

Once again we gathered in semi-distant sociality. Karen and I were on the porch, Steve and Aaron were in the yard under the maple tree, and Neal narrowcast his sounds from Outpost Lake City to a tiny speaker held in front of the recording device, each device on its own tripod.

Postscripts

herz schon brennt den kann ich lore lay ich

bishof treibt nicht so bösen spott and für

mich den lay o ritter lasst mich gehen

***

blows on the bass drum

muffled

oblique voice

Playlist

Preface

"In music, as in everything, the disappearing moment of experience is the firmest reality; but the fictions of permanence, invented for the benefit of discourse and contemplation, are so much more firmly graspable by the conscious minds whose invention they are, that they, rather than the vanished traces of elusive experience, are the referents on which the firmest conceptions - intuitions, even - of reality are built. And thus do sanity - that is, the fact of sanity - and rationality - that is, the sensation of sanity - come into mortal conflict, threatening to dissolve the sensible integrity of existence. Music is what people can do to work at harmonizing that contradiction: to save significance while still sustaining identity as a continuous mental structure."
- Benjamin Boretz "Interace Part II: Thoughts in Reply to Boulez/Foucault: Contemporary Music and the Public" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streamed

Wayward in Limbo

"With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series now moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is curating and commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of exclusive material. Many of these will be essentially 'live' performances recorded at home for this occasion. Others may create a mix of pre-recorded material that has not been previously released elsewhere."
- from the Wayward Music Series website at https://www.waywardmusic.org/.

July 4, 2020
Wally Shoup
in the I-90 Bike Tunnel

the long enclosed space splits sound into pitches that hang
the horizontal lingers as vertical
the order of notes linger as chordal balance
(voiced thus and in no other way)
the song keens and careens all the way out the ends

(music in architecture)
it likes that note
it presses back
it selects
it refines (audio alchemy)

July 5, 2020
Leanna Keith
flute improvisations

Completed thoughts fly straight, in continuing they don't turn to go in another direction, not turning just going. Clear thinking.

Our breathing can be our thinking, joined to language
how thought gets out of our heads
it finishes and starts again in the middle of what it is still thinking

solid

July 9, 2020
Gust Burns
"a subsequent iteration of deferral, like m said"

I gather: using the stylus and cartridge of a turntable playing (a) blank dubplate (great word!) record(s) as a microphone to record a piano being played.

Its opacity is made transparent
that is, it is opacity and transparently so

or: the sound of abstraction occurring in real time

I am for myself
the whole of myself
hidden behind myself
and the machinery of self

this was deeply intriguing
touching on some of the idea nodes that Christopher DeLaurenti has been known to work with

Recorded

July 4, 2020
Banned Rehearsal 280 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [January 1992]

We play with John's rattles, not yet one
cow bell, shakes
might gel if it didn't have that nasty backfire

a baby is in the room and someone says "ick"
best to turn aside if you're not going to help

rhythm band (I took the class)

we move on to flute, drum, and clangor
the instruments are portable
and the piano is not mine:
this must be at Toad Hall

I go all jazz chordy on it
(one of my finer moments, I say)
pre-ghosted sound gives us clues as to what to do
prompt provision
vintage cheerful baby babble

July 5, 2020
Trio in G Major, Hob. XV.25 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Philharmonia Virtuosi, Mela Tenenbaum, Alexandr Tenenbaum, Dorothy Lawson, Richard Kapp [from Musical Evenings with the Captain, Vol. 2]

when we catch onto the repetitions
we don't expect identity
we expect the difference
it is just that
it is a different difference than we thought we had expected

Track 1 - Unknown Ensemble [from Eisenbrey 2002 (Archives)]

this is from a CD my Mom had, presumably from some chamber music camp she attended, ca. 2002. If it is not Haydn, it isn't far

Comes Love - Back Burner [from Simmer On]

the science of underplaying it to perfection.
how. to.

Sonata (Edit A) - Aaron Keyt - Keith Eisenbrey

Instructions to myself: you have to play it as though it wanted to make sense.
It is its own resistance, vive le!

nice job, past me
a truly twisted tonal space, I'm honored to have had a part in it

Sleeping Awake - Noah Creshevsky - Dorota Czerner [from Open Space CD 37]



the percussion of words that break stones
how rhythm means meaning's inflections
is it only these three present?
damn! that's fine!

Walsingham, Fvb1 - John Blow - Claudio Columbo [from Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

the major/minor contrast of later music is so crude in comparison to the play of poly-modality at play here

fellow figuration freak, Hail!

Gaude, Barbara a 5 - Pierluigi da Palestrina - Chanticleer, Kenneth Fitch, Joseph Jennings, Christopher Fritzsche, Corey McKnight, David Shaler, Kevin Baum, David Mudnerloh, Douglas Wright, tim Krol, Chad Runyon, Frank Albinder, Eric Alatorre, Louis Botto

sinuous twined, thrined
sensuous breath rhythm

Palestrina Counterpoint (I took that class too)
we didn't, couldn't learn a thousandth of this

the study of musical notation is a valid and instructive discipline within the study of music

July 6, 2020
L'Orfeo, Act II - Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi - Ensemble La Venexiana, Claudio Cavina

no slack
nothing marks time
nothing hurries

La Bouree - Michael Praetorius - New London Consort, Philip Pickett [from Dances from Terpsichore]

an arted up version of a dance
for keeping track of social movements
social bodies in motion

Aria "Rofilis' in D minor, BuxWV 248 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella

indoor music for long nights
with the smallest of time spans
and adjustments

Sonata a 3 - Allessandro Stradella - Opus4, Vicki Boeckman, Dorte Lester Nauta, recorders; Mogens Rasmussen, viola da gamba; Viggo Mangor, archlute

a variety show!
amuse the masters

La Descente d'Orphee aux Enfers, Act II - Marc-Antoine Charpentier - Les Arts Florissants, William Christie, Patricia Petibon, Monique Zanetti, Katalin Karolyi, Sophie Daneman, Paul Agnew, Jean-Francois Gardeil, Steve Dugardin, Francois Piolino, Fernand Bernadi

classical fan fiction music
draws us in
the melody tracks character's states
stays in character

July 7, 2020
Or, dites-nous, Marie - Pierre Dandrieu - Marie-Clair Alain

even the plain is fancy in its way
designed to impress

Sonata in F Major - George Frideric Handel - Michala Petri, Keith Jarrett

designed to amuse those in the know
or those who want to fancy they are

(This piece is familiar to me, I wonder if I accompanied somebody once?)

Ein Kindelein - Georg Philipp Telemann - University Temple Chancel Choir, Chris Vincent, Howard Wolvington, and strings

I had forgotten this, but there I am in the tenor section! If I am not mistaken Chris told us that he had been poking around in the UW music library looking for a Christmas cantata, and this score fell on his head.

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band I, Prelude and Fugue in C Major - Johann Sebastian Bach - Sviatoslav Richter

such a light touch!
he doesn't Romance it up, it speaks for itself

Sonata in A-flat Major, Wq. 49/2 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

This music finds itself distracting.
It stops to look again, asks the questions beneath its glibness.
It is theatrically aware of what it's doing.

Sonata in A Major, Hob. XVI.5 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

he never loses track of his place in the scheme of things
the Jeeves of composers

This harpsichord either has two manuals or a stop for the piano and the forte. It might be explained in the interview that comes with the set, but my German is not that good.

Symphony in G Major, K. 129(129) - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Jaap Schröder, Christopher Hogwood

mostly orchestral fireworks and toys
splash and flash
Mannheim crescendo, check
heard it wanted it took it
strong orchestration, but he's not yet the obsessive opera aria composer he gets to be later

July 8, 2020
Sonata in G minor, Op. 8.1 - Muzio Clementi - Howard Shelley

fig 8.1

[NB: This is the first time I recall experiencing any Clementi since I played some Sonatinas when I was 10 or so]

One can easily hear what Beethoven admired so much - flamboyant virtuosity under tight reins of tonal thinking

the front door to B's brand of pianism

a keyboard figuration geek's keyboard figuration geek
(see Blow above)

July 9, 2020
Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 16 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Soni Ventorum, Neal O'Doan

Neal was my piano teacher for several years at the University of Washington. I wasn't turning pages for this piece, but I did for the piece on the flip side of the record: Mozart's Quintet K. 496 (also in E-flat).

stylish concertante thinking (sound is grouped: piano in one group, winds in another, the music is concerned with how they infiltrate each other - like in a concerto)

mostly polite, patio party appropriate
more comic opera or intermezzo than high drama
the scary bits are more to wake us up than anything more profound
hey! listen here!

then a lovely song so that winds can show their stuff in turn

a bit of melodrama to finish it
light in spirit
"I am a merry shepherd lad" sort of thing

Polonaise in G minor, Op. posth. - Frédéric Chopin - Peter Katin

square but pretty
this is pegged as having been composed in 1817. Chopin was born on March 1, 1810, so he would have been 7. What is the evidence for such an early composition date? I have the Paderewski Edition, which states "Published in 1817, reprinted from the only known copy in Z. Jachimecki's book F. Chopin et son oeuvre, Paris 1930, pp 45-47. . ." So is it true that the early attribution stems from 1930? Is there another source for that information? Composers have been known to lie about their precocity, especially so soon after the Mozart thingy.

Postscripts

and talk and tell a buddy slick-tongued in

albany not guy had a couple thigh

backwards he didn't say blindfold throw back

a chessboard and a chairback

a monk on a prone wheel

yet another Monday morning

Playlist

Preface

"We cannot afford to deprive ourselves of our own expression by conventionalizing or institutionalizing our talk, or our thought, or our music; not because that is wicked, but because it deprives us of what we most need from those outlets, what we lusted after in the first place so as to find ourselves energetically engaged, for life, with them."
- Benjamin Boretz "Talk: If I am a musical thinker. . . " from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streamed

July 1, 2020
Free - Kaley Lane Eaton, Jesse Myers

lesson plan
shaped like a wave in a mirror
with commentary
in both vid & aud

language and shadow

Wayward in Limbo

"With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series now moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is curating and commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of exclusive material. Many of these will be essentially 'live' performances recorded at home for this occasion. Others may create a mix of pre-recorded material that has not been previously released elsewhere."
- from the Wayward Music Series website at https://www.waywardmusic.org/.

June 27, 2020
Young Scientist - James Husted, Marc Barreca

dawn on the sea of electric doohickies
weather mild
breezes wafty

gentle bells clang the hull
solar cells upcharging
we start to move

we may be further out there
than we had imagined
in no hurry

escape assured
contact intermittent
inconsequential

the ministrations of the maintenance mechanisms cleanses our solitude

June 28, 2020
Rae - Abbey Blackwell, Ronan Delisle, Evan Woodle

bass, guitar, drums
moods with rooms to wander into
or that wander through
solos supported with care
(early Renaissance Fancies with Points go similarly)
(see Fitzwilliam or My Ladye Nevell)

compositional idea:a strand that stays throughout, though decorated and melodically and rhythmically following a set of stylistic/structural guidelines. The delight is in just how subtle one can manage to be.

July 3, 2020
Haley Freedlund (w/ Kyle Bruckmann, Evelyn Davis, and Phillip Greenlief)

chattery introductions to start
get an ear for the room

now we are all looking in the same direction, at the same body, on the same slab
our activities congrue
we are shown elicitations of phenomena
arcane potions aerify
in the billows of which refractions of light configurate
the results are discussed

see here
one says

some issues are well known
so we can scroll quickly through them
to show the larger shape of the argument

this one has a squeaky wheel
what can we do about it?
it is counterexemplified

episodes are punctuated from each other with episodes of silence and relaxation of attention
(the social cues for one piece then the next piece)

pre-planning is allowed, score-like
another social cue for this is a piece:
a piece: the set of all physical objects, inscriptions, episodes of sound, episodes of production activity, and episodes of experiential activity, which congeal into a mental image of itness or thatness

{stray spontaneous spoonerism: Teeming Power of Leeza}

we've played this game before
and play it again
because it is a fun game to pleasure our time with

a performance practice is a shared concept or set of concepts

game-based, as in play a game of piece making
(blessed are the)
this one may as well have written down notes
probably does, without problems, they are perfectly fine notes for this game

when musicians gather to listen to each other wonderful things happen often

Recorded

June 27, 2020
Sonata Fantaisie in G-sharp minor - Alexander Scriabin - Michael Ponti

The fantasial introduction finds an uncertain path to a key region with restless portions, not just working out how Chopin's fingers felt, but also how meta his use of tonality was.

Symphony #2 - Charles Ives - New Philharmonia Orchestra, Harold Farberman

The National Composer of Cranky New England
(counterpoint was not his forte)
with an overlay of americana scrapbook and library paste
inert

Try as he might, and try he does, there is no way he is capable of constructing a tonal process that doesn't strangle itself immediately. His mind wanders in dreary slogs. Music is above him, hence his cantankerous defensiveness.

modulations in gray
prose and dull prose at that
the plod thickens

patriotic sentimental quod libet
try some fire works to finish it off

Symphony in C Major (#3) - Jean Sibelius - Grand Orchestra Symphonique Radio Television USSR, Guennadi Rojdestvenski

Now there's an ear for vital tonality, we're with him all the way. So sly! The ground here is alive with urgency, vistas open and come alive. Virtual head rush.

Those folk-like tunes: (he owns these, knows where their weaknesses lie). Duration games to distract us as the eruption prepares, strung out along the motor chain. Triumph so proud!

June 28, 2020
A Winter Landscape - Charles Tomlinson Griffes - Michael Lewin

an apassionato landscape
some particular painting?
or a music as a painting?

4 Canciones Campesinas - Igor Stravinsky - members of the Orquesta del Teatro Nacional de la Opera de Paris and Coros del Teatro Nacional de la Opera de Paris, Pierre Boulez

bespoke ensemble
two brass instruments and women's voices
sharply drawn

a set of matching greeting cards
the balance or ratio between what matches between the cards and what kinds of details count as identity

Finnegans Wake Chapter 1 - James Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer (December 2014)

spacious opening
long spaces between word groups
word groups of numerous lengths and complexities.
It's a while to go so it's a while in getting going. I think he'd rehearsed himself hoarse.

grace before glutton

echo heh.
active audience noise is never in the way, but sudden, repeatedly

thing mud

A story is a kind of thing that might show up in this string of text. Was I holding it? Chapel ghost in fine form

||:||: thing :||: mud :||:||

the hub bub caused in Edinburough

June 29, 2020
Háry János Suite - Zoltán Kodály - Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz

five-note melodic groups

amplified mandolin or dulcimer?

cimbalom

I looked it up
the amplification of it is a problem

there is an issue with non-standard-issue-orchestra instruments, having to do with cultural supremacy. noted. but also they need to be hired special under the current regime. which is more a reason to avoid orchestras than to not use the instrument.

Bugle Call Rag - Elmer Snowden [from That Devilin' Tune]

hop the beat
keep it tight
keep it hot

21 Years - Carson Robison Trio [from Evans 78s]

relic of a slice
of america outside of blues & broadway
small theater variety show early radio
non-threatening folksy

My local colleague Nat Evans recently shared a collection of 78 RPM records that his grandfather had collected.

June 30, 2020
Symphony #1 - Bohuslav Martinů - Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Vaclav Neumann

maximum lush
everything is choral
a joint effort
no sound is made alone

there are not trees
only forest
ritmato tunes bounce off the geologic shelves of other tunes
bouncing

everybody is dressed alike
sinking back behind the curtain soon

The Minotaur - Elliott Carter - New York Chamber Symphony, Gerard Schwarz

a shift in point of view
this is witness music, not hero music
newsreel post cinema music
a new mimesis of time
not opera scenes, ballet works better
bodies without words

July 1, 2020
Castor & Polux - Harry Partch - Gate 5 Ensemble

robust

These are people making these sounds for those gathered in a real room.

full frontal

Peggy Sue - Buddy Holly [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

I think the drummer left their snare on.
or an echo that responds differentially to each tom tom tom

the guitar solo comes on a bit strong, over done

Reap What You Sow - Billy Stewart [from The Best of Billy Stewart]

"a what a"
echoed by sax

Eye Myth - Stan Brakhage

caught in ecstatic webs
the device is deactivated

nine seconds goes by fast
watched it 5 or 6 times

When Children Pray - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [from LWS Betty's Picks]

low hum constant relic, artifact

God Save The Queen - The Sex Pistols [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

carefully arranged and recorded with nothing left in that doesn't sneer

July 3, 2020
Hi Ho - Aaron Keyt - Jill Stroming, harp; Monique Buzzarté (members of the UW Contemporary Group (ca 1982))

Aaron Keyt, seated, with guitar and case

asks the unanswered question
rubs chin (avuncular)
starts to really look
at the question

what else is it asking?

that spaced out harp rhythm is making it for me tonight

could it be arranged for piano solo, or clavichord? I'd like to play it.

Totus Tuus - Henryk Górecki - Robert Shaw Festival Singers, Robert Shaw [from Evocation of the Spirit]

wallows in it
a souped up anthem with pretensions of big A Art
for cathedral, but honestly, kind of tacky in comparison

the ending keeps on ending without end

this could go on all night

and he signals the actual end
at far too long last at last

with yet another

presumably written out

in rhythms

ri-

tar-


dan-



do




In Session at the Tintinabulary

June 29, 2020
Banned Rehearsal 1004 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1004 200629

It was the 36th Bannediversary. Karen, Steve, Aaron, and I gathered in the yard and porch, masked, and Neal phoned in from Lake City Outpost. It was our first session together since March 9.

Postscripts

eighty-seven slim nil and none

incredible that she should perform her

work of love in god effects how comes it

remove quantification

focus on reality

for a change