Preface
"But the trickiest case - since it pervades the cultures of popular music, especially the culture of rock - is the self-identification by members of one cultural subgroup with the traits of another - or even not only with its traits but its actual texts; alternatively, an extreme symbolic sentimental valorization surrounds the traits and texts of the exogenous subgroup in the discourse and body language of the indigenous group. The issue arises acutely in the adoption by the American white middle class adolescent subculture of the musical (and linguistic) manner of African-American groups as well as other "outsider" groups (as, Native Americans, Asian Indians, British proletarians, Appalachian rustics, cowboys, Latinos, etc.) - sentimentalizing them much as high-culture groups appropriate and sentimentalize (and try to identify with) exotic peoples and phenomena which express their self-image and aspirations (as, emulating, displaying, admiring, advocating the manners, appearance, taste, and cultural artifacts identified with British aristocracy and Continental sophisticates, a process in which "great literature", the correct beverages, and appropriate etiquette such as behavior at a concert or a cocktail or dinner party or classroom discussion are all indiscriminately valorized as indivisible components of a seamless cultural texture)."
- Benjamin Boretz "Crossover Issues: A response to Angela Gilliam" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"
Texts
Streamed
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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/.
September 12, 2020
Blessed Blood (Rachel LeBlanc)
Intention Setting
Speaking
Folly, parts 1, 2, and 3
Speaking
Nothing Knows Me
Liquid Bodies
acoustically, the music portion hangs above where the fundamentals would be
found
making pitch play
intention setting vocals
variously looped
marching bass
buzz
bi-labial trill
electronics play with those aspects of sound files that electronics understand [signal, envelope, ranges of frequencies (bands) of], while our traditional music tools* are by and large designed to play with notes, not bands, except by pretty fancy collaborations with architecture
unten roar
the magmatic rumbleth under
*pre- wave-form transcription of frequencies
September 13, 2020
the open windows air sound
open the windows air sound
open windows
the air sound
open windows sound the air
open sound windows the
air
open sound the air windows
sound the open air windows
windows
open the air sound
windows air the open sound
etc.
the language in play
the key could be the pattern of shift of part of speech within the language in play
sound of empty space within peopled space
the filmy sphere of peopled
space
the bit in the third rung
the bit after the first long empty space in
the third rung
is awful pretty, Neal
September 15, 2020
Nat Evans - Still Just Sitting Out Back - Elise Blanchart, flute; Evan Smith, bass clarinet; Nat Evans, field recording & shruti box
We don't need to make music of it. Even the music doesn't need that. Breathe into pipes measured by pitch. Hearing only from within. From above it is inaudible.
Recorded
September 12, 2020
Chaconne for Solo Violin in D minor - Johann Sebastian Bach, transcribed by Ferrucio Busoni - Wolf Harden
effective use of octave doubling
Busoni doesn't modernize
but opens
us to what was modern in it
or to what isn't modern in us
a little Lisztian sparkle dust sprinkled into it
to bring those violiny
figures to life
Bach's Hammerklavier Sonata
what Busoni wanted Bach to have meant it to sound like
kind of a reverse
Lisztian maneuver
instead of reduction to piano
an explosion into
2 Pièces Froide - Erik Satie - Frank Glazer
could imagine a problem with the accompaniment pattern
but it isn't that
it is its
pliability
another figuration freak
proto neo-classical
Bombast be gone!
I will not be bothered by the likes of you, mister bombast
September 13, 2020
Turkey in The Straw - Billy Golden [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
those laughs are composed and jammed with intent
percussive
an act
that has been worked up
who was this for?
Gladiolus Rag - Scott Joplin - William Albright
a correct type of voice-leading operates within a narrow and self satisfied harmonic universe
Florida Rag - Fred Van Eps (or Van Eps Trio?) [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
rhythmic derring-do to do duettically
{Van Eps Trio in the book's index, Fred Van Eps in the book's text]
Sonata in G minor - Claude Debussy - Arthur Grumiaux, Istvan Hajdu
formally: this goes like hanging out with folks who just do this sort of thing
they set each other off
just drop a couple of notes in there
and listen how they sing
telling a story they've told before
Cosmopolitan Germanic Satie
but with straight lines
nothing that isn't effective
or he certainly had heard Rite of Spring by
then
but translated into plain German
theatrical like film cues
pre-talky
Foley artist doing an imitation of himself
I'd always heard that pre-theory Hindemith was pretty great. This is a winner! He pays his mind to number, count, meter.
another picture book
a Gothic Horror
The Crowing Rooster - Walter Rhodes [from Allen Lowe's Really The Blues]
the parts jam themselves together tightly in places as though they were jostling each other while performing
the firm evenness of the beat allows metrical offsets
Klavierstuck, op. 33b - Arnold Schoenberg - Paul Jacobs
perfectly understandable as a tonal type sequence of counterpoints, broadly understood
really lovely
no wonder these pieces seduced me so successfully when I
was in High School.
Mass in G Major - Francis Poulenc - Robert Shaw Festival Singers, Robert Shaw
Enter with an idea that is less musical than architectural.
The chorus
that sang Berlioz's Requeim for Berlioz has had a long retreat
and after
100 years they have come out with this.
2. more friendly not so scary as 1. was.
demon progeny of Balzac
the secret of this music is that it only exists
within architecture,
secret within secret
blueprint of our
understanding
it dives behind Haydn to see the older secret
clutched tight to sternum
solidifies
frozen
a bit
flirty even at the end
temptation to conversion
September 14, 2020
Der Weise der Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke - Frank Martin - ORF-Symphonieorchester, Lothar Zagrosek, Marjana Lipovsek
no room for decoration
or no stomach for it
diary entries set in minimally hued Debussian continuity scoured out by Weill
long tones or groups of simultaneous tones accented off pitch
very short
a snap almost
were it not so grim
more like a composed pluck
of string
war dark winter bleak
becomes bleaker and bleaker
long enough to
show there is no end to it
September 15, 2020
Toccata Concertante - Irving Fine - Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, Joel Spiegelman
marbled with business between notes in their groups and places where they kick off their shoes briefly
American Neo-Classical
feeling pretty darned good about itself.
Like a smarter Ruggles, if Ruggles had ever played as a child.
I'll Never Go Back - Louvin Brothers [from Goodbye, Babylon]
Is this the same bunch of blood harmony guys who did Rank Strangers? Nope,
those brothers were Stanleys.
Cousins perhaps
Day In, Day Out - Billie Holiday, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Ben Webster, Jimmie Rowles, Barney Kessel, Red Mitchell, Larry Bunker, Alvin Stoller [from Songs for Distingué Lovers]
opening piano plunge not only acts as a feint as to the eventual key sense but is also neatly echoed by some of Billie's melodic ploys. Her vocal seems to be getting more verse in than there is proper room for, but the music behind her is always right there to catch her.
September 16, 2020
Music for Four Pianos (part 1) - John Cage - Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer, Lise Mann [April 1985]
Neal assembled this crew and produced this performance at the Meany Studio Theater, on four pianos, with four headlamp clad pianists. Stu Dempster wandered the stage, as did much of the audience, as we played, and recorded us using a binaural stereo microphone. Each piece that each of us played was assigned to one of the four pianos by a chance procedure. The overhead lighting was determined by yet another chance procedure (hence the headlamps). Above us a dance class in progress commented.
the thunder dance from above jumps right in 4 pianists 4 pianos assigned by some chance method lighting above each piano on or off by some chance method head lamps on each pianist with no care taken to avoid conflicts of any kind a theater of an attempt to follow instructions
I don't recall how we timed it.
Ben says once more or less: the subject matter of John Cage is Western Concert Music (as opposed to extra-Western-culture musics to which it might apply) were they not so irrelevant to its discourse.
It could be something of a scuffle when we all had lots of notes to play on the same piano at the same time span - truly contemporary musicians.
Break On Through (To The Other Side) - The Doors [from The Doors]
The only words that matter are in the hook - the title - so you remember the song to buy it after you heard it on the AM radio.
Sing Me a Song - Vecchi-Harris - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [April 1972]
old (renaissance?) arranged for modern ensemble and in English to sell
Mess with Love - The Rumour [from Max]
message for mix tape
fade out for DJs to play with
September 17, 2020
Pastorale: "The Color of Water" - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Keith Eisenbrey [at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, December 1982]
the first chord and a few after, as they accumulate in unvarying sequence, are recognizable as part of a specific order of chords until at some point their track is lost. Proliferation, even ordered proliferation, unmoors us.
What's In It For Me - Bonnie Guitar [from Dark Moon & Other Country Favorites]
the backup plan song with backup singers!
Banned Rehearsal 282 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [January 1992]
is this good playing? irrelevant to what the playing is for and what it accomplishes. It is listening playing. It accepts the baby and the phone call message
cassette tape ghosting: the medium relies on magnetized particles, which by long nearness in storage will imprint themselves onto a field of like particles on the span(s) of tape adjoining in the cassette: Mesmeric Ghost Signals.
Keep Your Eyes Closed - Serotonin [from The Carlos Compilation [a Rescued Record]]
vocals with "REM" nasal projection, but it is the rhythm section that is advertising here. Hire this bass & drum duo! It has a feel like rushing as it goes along.
Track 2 - (Betty) Eisenbrey 2002 [a private recording my mom had]
a slower string quartet movement, believably Haydn, or at least -esque.
September 18, 2020
Swampled - The Tom Baker Quartet [from Look What I Found]
It is jazz because (or if Jazz is) a dynamic social construct concept created collaboratively so that as a concept it can be shared - designed biologically to be held in common. Ineluctably, no one mind can hold it. It only exists at all by being a shared concept among many minds.
Sonata - Aaron Keyt - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded by Steve Kennedy at Seattle Composers' Salon, March 5, 2014]
What is strange is that it doesn't look that strange on the page.
Rhythm is a trick played upon the meter at the behest of the trickster composer. Unwittingly, the pianist acts as the trickster's mule. Fragmented counterpoints of counterpoints or fragments.
To the extent that any of its figurations come across as original Haydn figurations, or something like them, the composition here shows just what odd things those Haydn figurations were, or are.
All these tempos are alarming
One On One - Benjamin Boretz - Hideo Kikuchi [from Open Space 39]
Hideo plays this, understanding that in playing it they are composing it. The composition (of the notes on the paper) is made exactly to allow that. The tempo-jumps between the sections, are not dramatic. That is, their intervals of tempi are not dramatic intervals. There is not any drama, exactly, about them. Something else. Way old school.
In Session at the Tintinabulary
September 12, 2020
Aku 200912 - Keith Eisenbrey
In 1981 I made an electronically realizable composition called Aku. There exists on my hard drive several versions of this made by several electronic methods. I squeezed one of them to fit with the others and then piled them all on top of each other, tweaking the balance and pan. Here is the result.
Wallace Book 8 - Aaron Keyt - Keith Eisenbrey
September 16, 2020
Chorale 7 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey
September 17, 2020
Wallace Book 9 - Aaron Keyt - Keith Eisenbrey
September 18, 2020
Chorale 8 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey
A few more weeks and I'll be able to start putting together a virtual recital of these recordings, as a dialogue between Aaron's recent music and mine. The working title of the project is "Wallace."
Postscripts
dark night and its happy traits
about which it begins to sing in
the second verse
fired with love's urgent longings 1 of the
muffled
oblique voice
circle voice
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