Preface
"Take history: it is a determinate reification of the antecedence of our sentient existence, a demonstrated perspective on who we are, on where we are. Its truths are inescapable, and pervasively account for major aspects of the world that directly and significantly affect everyone's life. Nevertheless, persons do not perforce experience their conscious living as history, as historical events, or qualify their experience in the vocabulary of historical predicates. You could say that history proceeds, in a self-defined, self-contained way, on the outside of most people's lived lives, accumulating and accessible at any time by observations which can be perceived by anyone as true, without being, except in that sense, the actual content of anyone's experienced life-events."
- Benjamin Boretz "Prologue to ("Whose Time, What Space"): [A Seminar Talk at Eastman]" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"
Texts
Streaming
February 20, 2021
Choral Tapas - Seattle Pro Musica, Karen P. Thomas, director
Laudate Dominum from Solemn Vespers - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
western music cleaves to the linguistic model
notes
syllables
statements
making
language as beautiful as possible
to say what it says
in the best possible
taste
My Heart Be Brave - Marques Garrett
among other entries in a compendium of modern music types
what is this
or
would it be
choral
secular
inspirational
February 26, 2021
nevertheless, we persist . . . (a virtual concert) - Julia Lougheed, clarinet, etc.
music by Bill Clay, Jessi Harvey, Kim Farris-Manning, Gabo Champagne
hence few notes
but I would like to
lift up the piece by Jessi Harvey, formerly of the Seattle area,
involving
spoken texts
overlapping spoken texts
(I think,
we were eating)
and clarinet
percussion.
perked my ears right up.
stray notes about the set as a whole
::
euro
vision
re-canceled
there is an integrity about this event
that I truly
admire
this silence can not be imagined
it can only be done
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/.
February 20, 2021
Josh Medina
steady state
sounds exist together
like a river and a hill
exist together
neither moves the other
they keep their places
the light changes around them
through the hours
but there are no landslides
and if we move to a new
viewpoint
we have no qualms
any of it has vanished from continued existence
the mix is distinguishable from other mixes
clearly
just as one landscape is
distinguished from another
visitations occur
but don't change the river
or the
hill
larger changes may incrementally alter everything
but can only be
imagined
we are left with a sound
that analyzes itself acoustically
without
demarcated objects
syllable-less
phoneme bereft
sequence not confused
nor
fraught
just not possible
flow without motion
February 21, 2021
autoharp unzipping
reveal each chord
accept as such (familiars)
a chord change
sequence
is not
primarily
a method for establishing* a key
*or evoking one
is its own thing
more like 16th Century practice than 18th
Recorded
February 20, 2021
Camptown Races - Stephen Foster - the Gregg Smith Singers [from The Great Sentimental Age]
complete
with
carefully
enunciated
gwines
Largo for Violin, Clarinet and Piano - Charles Ives - Chamber Music Northwest, David Shifrin, Eriko Sato, Irma Vallecillo
violin and piano
kept in separate room
from the clarinet and piano
and from
the three together
no fraternization allowed
Meditation on a Theme by Claude Debussy - Zoltán Kodály - Jenö Jandó
we are conveyed on the dream stream through perfumed grottos
will-less
February 21, 2021
Images - Claude Debussy - BRT Philharmonic Orchestra Brussels, Alexander Rahbari
key click immediacy in recorded image
pitch structure is as essential to
hearing what's going on
with these music sounds
as the motions among
instrument groups
he's working with
each together and more
our shape shifts
different parts of our shapes
shift differently
the depth of focus
in the mix
of sounds
making up
that just so sound
it isn't that he's the best
orchestrator of his age
though that he may be**
but that he composed*
with
his orchestration
*lyric doubles of ravishing dance
**but then Stravinsky
Hungarian Peasant Songs and Dances - Béla Bartók - June de Toth
National Identity
was a thing back then
still a problem
arted up transcriptions
these sound like they were recorded in a small room
another
peculiarity in the production
with no reverb as such
small room
the sound
just stops
the signal clears quickly
so they squeeze the tracks together uncomfortably
Lisztian transcription for concert performance
such pleasant harmless games
must be a gas to play
everybody gets to sound
great
social orchestration
and a very nice hymn indeed
variations
everybody
comes out in a new costume every minute or so
hymnody in the background
Let's Misbehave - Cole Porter - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey
nice job past us
Gone Dead Train - King Solomon Hill [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
flexible tempo extreme
strict when it wants to be
generous with the surface of
time
upon which to spread
the blues are a prayer
Barefoot Boy With Boots On - Roy Cox [from Evans 78s]
a question
the blues is a particular confluence
of harmonic structure and
lyric slant
were there
are there
other such confluences
that never made the
big time
extemporary verses in a solid frame
Danses Concertantes - Igor Stravinsky - Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Neville Marriner
every move repercusses
and there are many moves
every pass
any segment
is a
slide specimen of music history
orchestration
sharper edges
brighter more
primary colors
{from my blog post of April 25, 1995: the sense of a set of pieces, without, somehow, the actuality. Overlapping of tempo boundaries/thematic boundaries/activity envelopes. more clearly: out of precisely sized fragments of pieces a sense of listening to a set of pieces is formed. Slipping continuously into a new piece: almost Mahleresque in the constancy of its shiftings.}
February 23, 2021
Ritmo Afro Cubano - Chano Pozo [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
fast multipitch drumming with cyclic punctuation
regularity presumed
as an
image
if not graspable
as obviously true
with vocals overlain
that may match up
with the cycles
or have their own
Symphony in C-sharp minor, Op. 131 (#7) - Serge Prokofiev - Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Neeme Järvi
back to the CCCP
because unlike in the USA
symphonic concert music was still a
vital cultural activity
here:
moribund
what was vital here
was alien
back to where people remember
what he remembers
why (won't you please me when you know you care (can))
let me count the whys
Baby, I'm In the Mood for You - Bob Dylan [from Biograph]
trying on another Bob Dylan for size
can't quit nail the yokel vocal
February 24, 2021
24 Preludes, 5-8 - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey [from Preludes in Seattle Part 2, March 17, 2007, University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle]
rushed
Tableaux - Milton Babbitt - Robert Taub
this music has a plenitude of corners for music to hang out in
and it does
jumps out like spiders
arachnid
xtuple-dimensional
speed chess
("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...") - Benjamin Boretz - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded at a home recital on February 26, 2020]
this music
seeks out
explores carefully
checks back in
fills
Wimpy - Orbaneja [from Orbaneja]
this music is on stage doin' a show
February 25, 2021
Prelude - Aaron Keyt - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded October 19, 2006]
nicely played past me!
nothing in this piece is overwrought
a lovely study in
figuration, melody, counterpoint, and harmony
all in a balance
quasi pastiche
Introduction to Grand Serenade - P.D.Q. Bach [from Music for an Awful Lot of Winds & Percussion]
that's it, just the introductory we're all in on it wink wink
Banned Rehearsal 442 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 1997]
recorded hot so drums have presence
even the light percussion is right there
drums electric guitar tenor sax violin light percussion
we are a large crowded painting
 |
| my journal page from September 28, 2004 |
in lively colors
we gentle out
slightly raucous
lurking cornet
the
era between the last Brechemin gig
(Banned Rehearsal 440)
and
Teach Yourself to Drive
(our CD)
banjo speaks dulcimer also
as
amplified
or perhaps tenor banjo
with steel slide
giant
belly
raspberry
jams
ticka ticka tickle too
some synth sound I don't recognize
the
Wurlitzer possibly
yes the mighty W
its
self
nothing will be turned down
play
it big
blast furnace
white hot
theme song for the decade of chaos
Mosh at Banned Hall
even the funmaker gets its jollies
we make this
noise because we are here
before we hung the plow wheel
from the rafter
In Session at the Tintinabulary
February 21, 2021
Banned Telepath 71 Toad Hall - Aaron Keyt
February 22, 2021
Banned Telepath 71 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer
Banned Rehearsal 1020 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer
As has been our practice while in seclusion, Aaron sent sound from Outpost Toad Hall and Anna and Neal called in from Outpost Lake City to where Karen and I were improvising at the Tintinabulary.
Postscripts
::Consult the Oracle
sint mecum ut maybe also may work
in the which I do by nature which is
looking out 11 tells you that that
Reality Check::
a such beetle like thing
spins the blades
of Jack the Ripper
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