Preface
"What does the discourse of music have to do with the practice of music, or with the expressive or intellectual presence of music in our lives? Music as practiced locally is an expressive language - or, rather, a territory of expressive languages whose medium is normally sound. Writing is also an expressive or intellectual - the words are denotatively, if not connotatively, interchangeable - art form; and people who do and care about music are sometimes also verbally expressive; and their verbal expression tends to reflect their involvement with music - music, in one way or another, is likely to be a character or a presence or a looming spectre in their discursive novels, treatises, or algorithms."
- Benjamin Boretz "Text: (for the Graduate Music Forum at UCSD, 1/28/2003) Is Music Necessary?" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"
Texts
Streaming
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/.
March 27, 2021
Tom Varner's Sound Vespers Ensemble
Samantha Boshnack & Greg Kelley, trumpet; Ray Larsen, cornet; Jim Knodle, flugelhorn; Haley Freedlund, trombone; Tom Varner, French horn; Greg Campbell, percussion and tuba; Steve Barsotti & Steve Peters, field recordings/electronics.
ships at sea
night mutters
calls and songs
harbor
snooze
ice drums
thunder crack
|||
cyclic thwups
woodland walk
taut treetrunk carom
kissy shuff
spring twang
drum
!túk!
active surrounding
refreshed
recreatured
|||
horns
chatting quiet
wine veranda
chorus joined
lift
our voices skyward
ground rotation platform
where ice grinds
along
|||
a colony of bickerers by the surf settle into their feathered sleep
bring down the boats
pull the nets from their holds
lingering hue of their remains
Symbion Project (Kasson Crooker)
comes on like a landscape painting
ornate detail
into the
crannies
goes all epic grandeur
aerial sweep
channel sweep
groove out
quiet garden
Recorded
March 28, 2021
Pelleas et Melisande, Act II - Claude Debussy - Orchestre symphonique de Montreal, Charles Dutoit, Colette Alliot-Lugaz, Didier Henry, Gilles Cachemaille, Pierre Thau, Claudine Carlson, Francoise Golfier, Phillip Ens, Choeurs de l'OSM, Iwan Edward, Denise Masse
in Verdi
the line of song speaks the immediate awareness of the
character
(outs their in)
in Wagner
the line of song speaks the immediate intent of the character
(outs their desire)
in Debussy
the line of song speaks the immediate shape or form of the
character
gestures figure expression face clothing their living bodies
(outs their out)
in that sensibility
closer to Schumann
an exquisite pantomime
Sonata, Op. 53 (#5) - Alexander Scriabin - Vladimir Ashkenazy
deep draughts of fineness of expression
did inhale
sleight of
finger figuration
Concerto in D-flat Major, Op. 10 (#1) - Serge Prokofiev - Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, Antoni Wit, Kun Woo Paik
drama sweep opening
like Busoni's or Tchaikovsky's
then he puts on
the silly nose and glasses
here comes the grump
a lot of Busoni in
this
aspirationally
really quite a packed 16 minutes
a dense farce
Russian Peasant Songs - Igor Stravinsky - Gregg Smith Singers, Gregg Smith
to explain
what he was hearing
what a strange ensemble
french horns and women's voices
rarely ceases to astound
Wikipedia lists this as for female voice unaccompanied (I think, it is unclear), but the track listing in The Original Jacket Collection shows Four Russian Peasant Songs: For Equal Voices with Four Horns: I. On Saints' Days in Chigisakh (Revised 1954 version); II. Ovsen (Revised 1954 version); III. The Pike (Revised 1954 version); and IV. Master Portly (Revised 1954 version)
Little Poem - Alexander Krein - Jonathan Powell
posterized Scriabin
discrete layers
sinks back exhausted
Madison Rag - Gus Cannon [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
a completely fabulous country style banjo piece
and tune
with an
unfamiliarly inflected vocal
unfamiliar in the context of that fabulous
country style
Clanka A Lanka (Sleep On Mother) - Famous Bluejay Singers of Birmingham [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
vocal imitation of a guitar figure or drumming
Old Dad - John Rector [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
some fiddlin' has a highlands waft to it
March 29, 2021
Walking The Floor Over You - Ernest Tubb [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
recognizable even to me as country music
(Allen calls it honky-tonk)
guitar and upfront vocal
Symphony 3 - Peter Mennin - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz
1 Muscular Merican Music for Muscular Merican Movies muscularly going nowhere
but as it was taught
2 lonely night on the prairie a great deal of
gingham
3 industry stirs Stalin woulda loved it
::from my journal entry of June 15, 2002::
1 vigorous, "rhythmic" line: active in the poetic foot department city street
balletic quiet coda like a shadow
2 indoor opera solo slow soulful small
Kammer-mused
a waiting scene
passion under wraps
determination from in the face of
if you push it
it resists
3 something gathering party brawl battle parade storm vigorous honest
dance a contest
collects its surrounding as it goes
shake it off
live with it
the inner life
of what was collected
facing stern truth
abiding stillness
child's play
inscrutable chains
of let's say
these don't
behave like musical motives
they play like themselves
March 30, 2021
Violin Concerto (rough edit) - Benjamin Boretz - Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, Geoff Pope, Charles Castleman
already a complete net of internal instrumentals set against each other
and it's just a few notes on a few strings
what makes a concerto a concerto
discrete groups of sounds working with
each other
a collaboration
this is a tangle from the second note
parts move forward
parts
head sideward
start over
from where we weren't
do it again
exactly unlike before
standing
a discursive leap
to the side of the shoulders
of
the before
these forests are wide
no shortcuts
they aren't done with you yet
linear logic need not apply
Hey! Baby - Bruce Channel [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
mixed
for the 45
blatant
for bad speakers
24 Preludes, 21 through 24 - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded December 1, 2020]
21 too note-y doesn't flow
22 too correct needs more pizzazz
23
too slow needs to go places not plod there
24 too light on the dynamic
modeling need to overact more
Papa Was A Rollin' Stone - The Temptations [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
vastly more sophisticated mix
than Hey! Baby
whole other planet
irreproducible live
any attempt would sound bizarre
no hall
could hold it
"...such words as it were vain to close..." - J. K. Randall - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded April 19, 2016]
a bit too sprightly
nervous
somewhat better in the middle of it
in that the rhythmic flow
is nicely wrongish
turns pitch class on its head
doesn't mean what you think it means
not
here
in that it starts
and stops
without beginning fuss
or ending fuss
Know Your Rights - The Clash [from Combat Rock]
preacherman fails his song
March 31, 2021
Banned Rehearsal 109 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [January 1987]
we rub balloons with amazing grace
lame is allowed
we work to skew
our fellow intonation buddies
we now happen to be playing trombone
(see below, I heard incorrectly,
this was the bugle)
guitar ukulele and nasal vocal
just keep
swimming
input set to hot
I analyze the precedent
why
wouldn't
mutually exploratory improvised vocal harmonizations
not
be a soft pillow
upon which to wallow in the joy of liberated
intonation
we switch partly to new instruments
for new thoughts
after
intermission
verse 2!
the change
success not required
nor continuity
only keep at
it
modulates to Hey Hey Hey
in the Greenwood Big House (musta was)
bears may safely snore at the bottom
so preachin'
can
yaw
oh my darlin' oh my darlin' oh my darlin' Clementine
where is our friend
Hammurabi
is he your friend or is he mine
::from my journal entry of May 7, 1988::
balloons and Aaron
humming grace amazing
harmonica
instrumentation shifts through
to guitar bugle voice ukulele
struggling to _______
often the insistence on a familiar
could indicate a stance
unwilling to engage
in the
developing task at hand
on this drumming guitar string drone we
integrate our activity
a score to consider for an improv
recall an old standard
only play
play with
work at
its first note
lovely
we sing as three a moment
considering then
back in
re-instrumented new
ocarina-rapid
bugle-low
plunky uke (pp)
dulcimer
we integrate as a rule most successfully
whenever
the familiar is absent
familiar = resistance to forward
faith
deepening
new mbiru dulcimer flute
the room sound here
is
peaceful intimate
perhaps general to this and many other tapes
another new loud voice loud guitar and slap drum
as though all
before is finally cooked
breaks in middle to bring in a uke
and
bell
a new voice Hey Hey Hey by Keith
light version scat fun
bugle last word breath
some sounds still bouncin' around ala BR #9
oh my darlin Clementine where is our friend Hammurabi?
::from my journal entry of January 31, 1991::
hymn sing
it is better
to sing sitting solidly
on the broad
back of the world tortoise
than not
oh my darling oh my darling oh my darling Clementine will you read your Hammurabi
April 1, 2021
Concerto for Two Trumpets in C - Antonio Vivaldi - Canadian Brass [from The Essential Canadian Brass]
torches to light a space
arranging the strings' music for brass
oddly
makes the accompaniment
often
more spectacular
than the erstwhile solo trumpets
Banned Rehearsal 443 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer
soulful kazoo
case snaps
electric guitar scrapings
whistle
rustle
squeezing sound through a tight aperture
bug guitar voice
music in a long thin chamber
abrading the walls guitar
too
big
but sounds great
a problem with guitars
mine this time
pedaling stalwartly on violin
to keep the lights on
scrape
key
screeep key
cranking up the voltage now
our skin
stretches as we pull it through
Isaac objects
|||
a latching of cases
as we adjust instrumentation
we settle down
for a sit down and a snore
|||
the scrape wagon reloaded
the Mighty Wurlitzer peeks in on us
as
we cram ourselves through
a room exists to be saturated with sound
::from my journal entry of October 25, 2004::
opens with some obsessive fiddle playing
goes on past its welcome
quiets down finally
Isaac is a bit fussy
a diminishment of energy
weak
some low brass is heard
at
about 30 minutes in
the guitar comes back
with toys and some great
stuff happens by
very strong
in what is otherwise a fairly
off-night kind of session*
energy dissipates somewhat
*I vehemently disagree with my past self on this
Postscripts
::Consult the Oracle
have not yet far enough known with impunity
but if Titorelli had never known
it yet again for heart of his wife it
Reality Check::
the oak leaf jumps from road to puddle
the stone track sits on a wool blanket
two dragons swallow each other
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