Playlist

Preface

"Most recently, I've developed a much more expansive sense of the possibilities of musical writing ('discourse' included), locating its value not so much in its aesthetic or philosophical modalities, or its phenotype, but entirely in the imaginativeness of its writing and reading. The limitless possibilities of imaginatively writing about something - something as compelling to some persons as is music - in any of the rhetorical, symbolic, formal, or synthetic languages one might invoke seem to be irresistibly inviting, infinitely more than the aspiration to 'authority'."

- Benjamin Boretz "On Reading Each Other"  from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020

Texts

Streaming

May 22, 2021

Choral Tapas - Seattle Pro Musica, Karen P. Thomas, director

"Behold, God the Lord passed by!" from Elijah, Op. 70 by Felix Mendelssohn

not my favorite big early 19th Century piece, but well sung

the smoking gun ad astra
was the cocktail
demonstrated herein

Welcome Table by Saunder Choi

text is
spoken word sung 

sung word music 

interesting tenor voice
really nice 

stray thought
the importance of poetry
of a certain kind
for the less powerful
or
for group identity

Abendlied by Josef Rheinberger

still awful pretty

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/.

May 22, 2021

Dick Valentine

we follow this sound in
hear what it hears
auditor
(s)
(ium)
electronique 

lofty chambers
for soaring birds
cavern critters
cloister songs 

our hosts
the guide bats
return 

or we have
back
to more like earth life
day and daylife 

where we were
when we first followed

May 23, 2021

Don Berman/D2 - Don Berman, Dick Valentine

And The Elephant - Don Berman
Simplest Possible - Dick Valentine
One for Milford - Dick Valentine, Don Berman
Take 19 - Don Berman

outfit for battle
out on the town
putting up the cool front
drumming in the woods
in the light rain
moving slow and certain
an internal conversation

May 28, 2021

Joshua Kohl

Snapshot Spring 2021
Skeleton Flower Audio Sketchbook

strum hum
zither buzz
inside
we find a place stabilized by cyclicity
but the walls vanish
so too the ground 

we float through
new masses
galleries might move us through
one of those times
sounds on walls
an alternate tour
nearer night
loose ideas

Recorded

May 22, 2021

My Little Cousin - Peggy Lee [from The Complete Recordings 1941-1947]

a song fit for urban nightclub
tables and drinks
a little vocal show-off move
at the end
shadowing the reed

I Just Keep Lovin' Her - Little Walter, Othum Brown [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

nearly rock & roll?
guitar and harmonica and voice
Allen calls it Swing Era
or early harbinger of the new blues changes

Monkey Motion - Houston Boines [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

blues with harmonica
was this that
that had been harbinged above?
but heavier on its feet, stompier

Bye Bye Love - The Everly Brothers [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

rhythmic enthusiasm spills into spare syllables

Anna (Go To Him) - Arthur Alexander [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

such a sob story

May 23, 2021

Selections from The Sound of Music - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, director, JoAnne Deacon, piano [April 1967]

as a story
TSoM deflects the horror of the Anschluss
by making it about an aristocrat and his political problems
the Nazis were simply too boorish for words
a gaslighting 

there's my Mom singing The Lonely Goatherd (with spirit) and Edelweiss

May 24, 2021

I Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody's Home - Ann Peebles

affect count
one
could be a Baroque aria

"...such words as it were vain to close..." - J. K. Randall - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded April 2016]

Keith Eisenbrey · J. K. Randall - ".....Such Words As It Were Vain To Close....." (160422)

a different viscosity than JK's recordings
the public this addresses
is a different animal
than his was 

the experience of listening back
is wholly different than the experience of playing it 

while performing
one is so constantly conscious
of the counting
that how the whole goes
or seems
is largely out of conscious hands 

quite a tender performance past me!

I Want Candy - Bow Wow Wow

potent
infantile
lust anthem

Banned Rehearsal 111 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [January 1987]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 111 870107

a gentle start
kalimba ocarina violin
then bugle? for kalimba 

we focus only then
the outside radio world intrudes
but we are equal to it 

preachin' brought in
a thing to be grasped
we are studying the great kenosis passage
it is helpless in our rude hands
of course we had the Funmaker Sprite

understanding the world through data scrambling
sure fire
a slow announcement of our present activity
with cow bells
6PM Wednesday of the first Banned Week
selected paper scores provided

Raccoon and Possum - Mike Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Penny Seeger [from Animal Folk Songs for Children]

tail ID
then a 'simmon line
disjunct word bits

May 25, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 445 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 445 970215

a gooey mass extrudes
slow
heavy
commingled
we'll never get that out of the carpet
grind it in
drill holes
press hard
incessant weather
weight on weight
density maximized
all the charm of a wailing toddler
a brief sniffling calm toward the end
may not last though
partial success

9:11 Blues - Toby Twining - Matt Haimovitz [from Please Welcome Matt Haimovitz]

a continually recurring fragment
ghosts through it all

Consider The Birds 39 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 2007]

dove cote murmurs

Joe Lies - Prom Queen [from Covers]

a shape of changes
like blues in mirrors

May 26, 2021

Gradus 305 - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 2017]

firmly footed
limits are a type of essence
likewise essence is a type of limit
a type
or an image

an example of a type
can be reduced to its type 

an image insists on its relatedness

from my blog post of February 4, 2017: 

Rich Trove struggling to cross Vast Emptiness. Pushing, spreading, expanding, more inexorably than the possibility of measuring. // Delving, pushing down against buoyancy.

Muscadin, Fvb 19 - Traditional - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzgerald Virginal Book]

short
a transcription?
made fancy for public use?

what
if ought
of the transcription's subject
survived the process?

Symphoniae sacrae II "Ich danke dir, Herr, von ganzen Herzen", Op. 10 #7 - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

sometimes a statement requires its own tempo
or always 

fond of direct repetition
of what is sung by the solo instrument voice
entwined

Suite in D Major, BuxWV 232 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella

two movements
neither long
not composed to be complete in themselves
or with each other as companion
incomplete in new ways

Fughetta super Gottes Sohn ist kommen, BWV 703 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Michael Chapuis

fragment
thing
on tune name
from Chorale
set to text
that begins

Troizieme Ordre (si mineur) - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert

sequences that part company midway
we wander to twig's end
each successive piece through the first three
is a more substantial plant part 

sunlight has descended

May 27, 2021

Sonata in D minor, Kk. 120 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

the appearance of continuity
through the mere fact
of pulse invariance

from within
is constructed
an improvisatorial hierarchy
to exponentialize
the counting to three

Arioso with 7 Variations, Wq. 118.4 - Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

intent on taking stuff apart
for his own investigations
not for entertainment

Sonata in A-flat Major, Hob. XVI.46 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

this is avoiding something
talking around it
loves its own distractions

May 28, 2021

Sonata in C Major, K. 309 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Mitsuko Uchida

one is in a suite of rooms
a set of personal relations
people have troubles to work out
the suite of rooms
is coercive to working things out
the structure as seen from above
key relations and figuration patterns on a time line
and the like
are at the service of a new experiential structure
as lived through
the long line emerges as an idea

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

had not yet far enough known with impunity

but if Titorelli had never known

it yet again for heart of his wife it

Reality Check::

monologue in the world

the ground wind sees

emphatically the sound of creaking house

Playlist

 Preface

"Experience: the origin site of every determinate feel. Trivially. The psychic substratum - a site of relatively prearticulate determinate feels - out of which every determinate feel is ontologized. But where is determinate-feel ontology located? What is a determinate feel the determinate feel of? Not clearly experience as such: without a volitional act of determinate-feel-making doesn't experience run just as an articulated continuum hardly even experienceable as content of consciousness? Aren't determinate feels just the nascendent being of the contents of consciousness? Aren't they the primal form in which consciousness is conscient, and aren't determinate feels so concscienced? Conscienced, that is, not as experience itself nor even as a finite flowtime of passing experience but as experiences, or rather as an experience at every conscioustime moment, which is to say, as a singular created particular sense of a particular quantum of experienced experience."

- Benjamin Boretz "Jim Randall: An Autobiographical Dedication"  from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020

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/.

May 15, 2021

Garrett Moore Quartet (Garrett Moore, Greg Kelley, John Seman, Jeffery Taylor)

groove in seven
lipid floats

rougher customer
plows a heavy furrow 

clean finish
mood for chill 

eight as an odd number
groundpull free zone
portable aphelion

later on in the gear store
a wearier chill settles in six

funkpunkdunk
wake up lunk

May 16, 2021

Ramen Trio (James DeJoie, Doug Lilla, Jay Weaver)

Resembling / The Hat Slips Under the Surface / A Priori / Absorbed / Cluster / Is Someone there? / Keep Your Eyes Peeled

shared language music
we might not speak it
but they clearly do 

a matter to start with
an axis
concerning which
we explore from 

ears to it
and each other 

a game base
floating meter

Recorded

May 15, 2021

Barafostus' Dream, Fvb 18 - Thomas Tomkins - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

brief
the beginning of an elaboration
(you finish it I have other things to do)

Symphony sacrae II "Ich werde nicht sterben, sondern lieben", Op. 10 #6 - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

statements given their proper affect and time
and repetition to be amply considered
expression in the tenor of the time

Suite in A minor, BuxVW Deest - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella

strands look to their beginnings
and their ends 

a textilian approach
the science of suspensions
and the long delay
indirectly deferred
response

Gott, durch deine Gute, BWV 724 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Michael Chapuis

the chorale tune
hides behind
what sounds like
it's going to be
in dulci jubilo

Quatorzieme Ordre (Ré) - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert

fine point script
for minimum ambiguity 

every turn it turns
turns it 

the mordants leap
from voice to voice
like monkeys in trees 

fountain of many pools
visit each one

Sonata in D Major, Kk. 119 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

the nearly motoric pulse
metrically mediated
binding agent 

on harpsichord
the various registers
each have their graduated volume of speaking
allows compositionally produced dynamics

May 16, 2021

Sonata in C Major, Wq. 62.20 - Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

what was happening to operatic arias at that time?
(1747)
Were they shifting
from single affect contemplations
of moments within a drama
but not of it
to
occasionally
moving the story along? 

even his prosaic bits
slide off their stable footing 

puts them in little boxes
ties a quick bow
what is in the next box?
only one way to find out 

you may think you've been here before
if so
how did you return?
is there a door
anywhere
to out 

yes
there you are

Symphony in C Major, K. 35(35) "Die schuldigkeit des ersten"- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Jaap Schroder, Christopher Hogwood

sweetness interrupted by a bully

Fragment in C minor - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

could be a friendly pastiche of CPEB

Symphony in D Major, Op. 36 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer

1
the slow intro
hangs above the stage
slides down onto it
just at the end
promptly getting into trouble
best start again 

2
is glorious

4
going on a nice picnic
to go see Beethoven
rassle with D Major
it's an even fight

Sonata in A Major, Op. 2 #4 - Muzio Clementi - Howard Shelley

an amusing fellow
this Muzio
not stuffy
but tasteful 

dedications patronage flattery
targeted ingratiation 

sure leave him with the kids
while we go rape us some peasant girls

Sonatina in G Major, Op. 88 #2 - Friedrich Kuhlau, Loredana Brigandi

designed to teach attitude and impersonation

Etude in G-flat Major, Op. 10 #5 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot [recorded 1942]

study in pianism surely
but also in composition
as in
both how might a time go
and
in how might we have established a key

Parsifal, Act III - Richard Wagnerr - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, Jose Van Dam, Victor von Halem, Kurt Moll, Peter Hofmann, Siegmund Nimsgern, Dunia Veizovic, Claes H. Ahnsjah, Kurt Tydl, Marjon Lambriks, Anne Gjevang, Helner Hopfner, Georg Tichy, Barbara Hendricks Janet Perry Doris Soffel Inga Nielsen

oh now you went and woke up the winds and brass
if we're careful they'll go back to sleep 

Wagner has his own patented slimy sort of syncopation 

they're just snoring
leave 'em be
yearning for that moment
blissed out to be German

May 18, 2021

Slavonic Dance in C Major, Op. 72 #7 - Antonín Dvořák - The Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi

was the extreme dynamic contrast used here
an aspect of the folk tradition
or did he pull that in from learned practice
the fast note virtuosity
is believable as traditional
the ensemble ain't

Russian Rhapsody - Serge Rachmaninoff - John Ogdon, Brenda Lucas

we'll have a Russiany tune
then we'll tart it up 

when in doubt compose loud

Don Quixote - Richard Strauss - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, Pierre Fournier

these tune bits
those that open
come across like slurred speech 

six notes can be clear
before it wanders off
cogitational mush of madness
idée sans fixe 

pictorial imitation
not tone painting
but more like
parody of the described world
contains its own sound-effects
but relies on these
and on RS's contrapuntal shenanigans
to hide the weakness of narrative a structural conceit

May 19, 2021

The Strenuous Life (A Ragtime Two-Step) - Scott Joplin - William Albright

squareness and clarity of the piano writing
the plain as day harmonies
as American as Billings ever was
un-elite
democratic in the anti-aristocratic sense
contrast with Griffes or MacDowell
for instances

Sonata in F-sharp, Op. 53 - Alexander Scriabin - Michael Ponti

underpinnings fall away
always the key remains elusive 

skittish upon approach

Daphnis et Chloe - 1st Tableau - Maurice Ravel - Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz

Pelleas without words
a meadowed glade made melody
whosoever arrives
is allowed their time
to prance and strut 

hints of Strauss too
tone sound-effects
liquid harmoniousness
harmonious with a suchness
few sounds
sound solo
descent rules

May 20, 2021

Sonata in G minor - Claude Debussy - Arthur Grumiaux, Istvan Hajdu

the thinking Frenchman's neo-classical
looking back at the 18th Century
over the heads
of the whole Nationalist Romantic mob
clearing a path for Stravinsky

St. Paul's Suite - Gustav Holst (arranged by Hogwood) - The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Christopher Hogwood

modernism for polite company
so as not to shock the British populace
dissonance kept safely at bay

even a little nod
to Scheherazade
exotic for flavor

Ash Can Stomp - Perry and his Stomp Band [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

amazing sound
piano guitar sand-block
(one of my first instruments
- Rhythm Band at 4 or 5)
oops red light came on
shut it down

When The Saints Go Marching In - The George Peach [from Goodbye, Babylon]

strident solo
over
male chorus 

calculated overblown

Suite from Merry Mount - Howard Hanson - Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz

incidental music from an opera
when in doubt add brass
then piccolos

In Session at the Tintinabulary

May 17, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 1026 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1026 210517

We had high hopes for nice weather but the drizzle set in. Aaron came over and we sat on the porch. The cry of the Otamatone is heard again in the land. 

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

affair included in any deduction

offer and before second breakfast

they in castorp might debt it and domestic

Reality Check::

be lost

the road is a map

facility is nothing

Playlist

 Preface

"Words matter. You influence what is heard by what you say. You influence what gets listened to and what gets bypassed, within and among musics. Politics trumps aesthetics, every time. Does this matter? If music matters (an open question) then this matters. But it should be obvious to everybody by now that the germination of alternatives which has traditionally been the source of aesthetic replenishment took place out of mass-public view, in relatively isolated cultural pockets, small-sized social environments far from the mainstream, such as don't exist anymore - the reach of globalized media is pretty total."

- Benjamin Boretz "notes for a string quartet that straddles a composing lifetime"  from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020

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/.

May 8, 2021

Beverly Setzer and Greg Powers

old friends improvising together in a space
various brass and winds
hollow columns organizing waves
in a space 

alumni of the 80s UW Contemporary Group Improvisation Ensemble (as am I)
though Beverly and Greg are, here, playing more in that UWCGIE mode of making music (than I do much anymore)
making music
being
what they are doing
as intent

playing instruments with which they are familiar
and which they play
as one playing well would
full of character and listening
response

I remember the first time I heard free improvisation in an ensemble setting I was struck by how immediately comprehensible it was, as it is here.

May 9, 2021

James Falzone

The Already and the Not Yet

prepped up piano
clarinet
flute (penny whistle)
a sequence of instrument sounds
a single ear guiding
high chops music 

the sequencing heightens the individuality of each segment
especially as in
comparing the various
solo piano segments
and clarinet solo segments
with each other 

they don't have to make a larger piece of themselves
that is not their purpose or problem

May 14, 2021

Red Fable (Rich Hinklin, Dennis Rae, Don Berman)

psychically synchronofied
under-surf 

nary what
nary how
nary whathow
nary howwhat
nor with
nor withwhat
nor whatwith
nor withhow
nor nowhow
now with
WITH.HOW.HER!
[Roar Nor!]
NORNOW
Roar
Nowwithhowwarn
Roar
Syn Psyc 
syc.pyc.nyc
dig it
wig it
wit dit
git 

g.w.i.
i.t.
getWiddit
(get with (it)) 

vowel shift happens
the withdrawer draws
(with pen)
why wig
how wig
fromwhere wig

H see E 

there wig
'ear wig
(UR)

[si]
[is]

WARn
wit'ra'er withroar
roar. 

makeout
takeout
laketrout

Recorded

May 9, 2021

Blue Turning Grey Over You - Muggsy Spanier [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

among those in the business
particular songs
such as this one
have a kind of identity
that is considerably more fluid
than what is acceptable
or common
socially
as is
a performance of a work
of the western written art literature 

the wide variety of acceptable ways to play it
and have it still be itself
clearly positions the song's
identity
at a remove from the written notes
if they were
written
or as they would be

Quatre Motets de Noël - Francis Poulenc - Robert Shaw Festival Singers, Robert Shaw

I'll bet these are even lovelier live
in a cathedral space
such as this sounds like it was recorded in
the recorded trace of it
puts it at the wrong distance from us 

His pitch sets are projected with melodies and harmonies that hint at older uses of cadence. 

The 20th Century sure saw a lot of hearkening back music. 

grasping back at tradition

Think - The "5" Royales [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

fancier than it lets on to be

The Sheik of Araby - The Beatles [from The Beatles Anthology, Volume 1]

this isn't
they're not taking this seriously
just having a good time making themselves laugh

I Second That Emotion - The Miracles [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

stereo!

Six Love Songs - Johannes Brahms - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, Joanne Deacon [from a private tape, ca. 1963]

sung by just the sort of community ensemble as this ensemble is here

I was 4
I'll bet none of those ladies would have imagined
that the director's then 4 year old
would be listening to this recording
nearly 60 years later

Pigs on the Wing (Part 1) - Pink Floyd [from Animals]

a man of few necessary words

Book of Windows (Text Only) - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded March 2005]

Keith Eisenbrey · Book of Windows - Text Only 050320 820625

composing with text
the words are place holders for syllables

composing with syllables
which is why this is not minimalistic 

I had these page/stanzas laid out in this form
with the time separation
the gap
between each page/stanza

the lengths of those gaps between

were designed
only so that I could easily see
where the gap was
on the waveform graphic
produced by the editing software
I used
and yet it works well
good enough is sometimes
perfect because it is relatively neutral

May 10, 2021

Statement of Purpose - The Total Experience Gospel Choir, Pat Wright [from Bits and Pieces]

it was to go to Africa (1987 or thereabouts)

May 11, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 289 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [March 1992]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 289 920327

at the Tintinabulary
test for a sound:
can it be recognized
as having been brought from elsewhere?
the instruments: certainly
these sounds and statements: unlikely 

arising from within
or imported from without
created or stolen
((use your own dirt))
you can't use your father's sword
if you're gonna steal it
then mess it up real good 

always lively
even if it isn't amounting to much
but then it does
of a sudden 

imagine how thin a written score of this would look
mere notes mere timeline 

what have you got in your mouth 

John gets a tour with a door in it
the tape ghost warns
Keith's gonna holler

Bach bust bangs black box
baby boy bangs bloody Bach
black box banged by baby boy
brandishing bloody Bach bust
blatantly
blissfully 

art is short
for Arthur
or Artemis 

just your general piece of crud

{from my journal entry of July 19, 1992: The humans advance}

May 12, 2021

White Writing - Mary Lee Roberts [from Open Space 9]

I. bird / II. night foxes

could be a location
several elsewheres
extracted codes of alternations
scans that pry and cut
readouts
reporting back
from
to
your alien planet home 

we are observed on desperate radio webs

Work / Architecture / Unity / And / The (solo demo) - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [January 2002]

an early solo attempt in the Tintinabulary on the Kingsbury 

the gaps between are the problem

these gaps were attempts at a literal solution
make them gaps
good long gaps
the problem
is that the gaps overwhelm
the concept
when they were only a solution
an attempted solution
to a problem
(or an attempt at a) 

the clumsiness of my piano playing is a plus here 

within each particular piece
different corners are turned
than are turned between the pieces

Have Yourself a Condoleezza Christmas - The Capitol Steps [from O Christmas Bush]

all she wants is to bomb Iran

May 13, 2021

Come Fly Away - Your Mother Should Know [live at Prospect United Church of Christ, February 2012]

heartfelt rock & roll dreamtime
from an early gig at a church fundraiser
||:dododoDO:||

Dream Butterfly for Julia - Yuji Takahashi - Julia Hsu [from Open Space 43]

a path traced
upon multiply planed space
polymetadimensional 

the planes traced
are not
any of them
within any possible common geometry

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

steps approaching the front by the end of

world war two he is permanent at last

he thinks he is mighty and down goes chiang's

Reality Check::

the stone track sits on a wool blanket

two dragons swallow each other

there are no other criteria

Playlist

Preface

"If there is anything outside of language

it cannot be said that there is.

But there is.

Is there?"

- Benjamin Boretz "(Postscripts)"  from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streaming

May 5, 2021

University of Washington Faculty Live Stream

Cristina Valdés

For Piano Alone in Four Parts (2009) -   Wayne Horvitz

Otra vez (2019) - Melia Watras

Shimmer, Tree | In Memoriam Jonathan Harvey (2014) - Kotoka Suzuki
I. Like a gentle wind

Mano a Mano (1997-2007) - Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez
I. Chorale
II. Bajo Punteado
III. Genghis 
IV. Ariles de Campanario
V. Ariles y más Ariles

méditations sur le piano 8 (carillon) (2019) - Eva-Maria Houben

Mística (2003) - Tania León

I must applaud enthusiastically
jumping up and down
shouting yes yes yes yes
whenever a performer performs music by people they have actually met and spoken to, and so, on top of her usual hyper-focused musicality, this program was a fine selection of her own music, fully owned.
heaven.

Horvitz -
groups relate to groups
across a boundary
a provisional thesis
concerning a way of thinking
abut how it might go
boundaries have flavors that form patterns

Watras -
like wasps
again
a domestic drama

Suzuki -
thimble thumbs
multiple independent motions
multiple independent still points
fingernails
without pressing

Gutierrez -
playful hands
full of playful
a figurational technician

Houben -
so bogglingly lovely
I wrote nothing down

León -
engaged in the physical gestures of the playing of it
the figures are actions taken

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/.

May 1, 2021

Sue Ann Harkey

12 strings
40 years
50 dollars

tuning strings and amplification to each other
or along with
each co-tuning explores potential fields
ringing traces linger
 the co-tuning is a strong stem
firm roots
we don our skates
oops fell over
a doubled wire
imitates the atomic nature of pitch
exposes its episodic moment 
that is
any pitch moment is an episode
metaphorically atomic
a pitch that is
itself
a dissonant relation
without effort

May 2, 2021

Jim Knodle and Kirill Polyanski

bounces on its haunches
while the music comes around
then gets right on
(a couple of pitch freaks)
(still a few of us around) 

a series of distinct conversations carried to completion
their own distinct completions
stay on topic

Recorded

May 1, 2021

Sonatina in D Major, Op. 36 #6 - Muzio Clementi - Howard Shelley

how to tell a story

Sonata in D minor, Op. 31 #2 "Sturm-Sonate" - Ludwig van Beethoven - Wilhelm Kempff

1
Kempff to my ears
is struggling to make the blatant subtle
just a bit too careful
too modulated
but it is clear
2
and it serves well in this movement
where the orchestration is so delicate
3
also at a careful tempo
which allows differentiation of touch
to be heard clearly
but that also gives us time
to not get lost
in the metrical hijinks
we keep our bearings
not quite violent

Die Winterreise, (1-12) - Franz Schubert - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gerald Moore

this time through I am reading along in the score
confined keys
resist
melody and accompaniment
conceived together
neither would be nearly what they are
without the care
with which support and comment is provided

May 2, 2021

Etude in C-sharp minor, Op. 10 #4 - Frédéric Chopin - Cecile Licad

music is no longer for polite company
the radicals are loose

Parsifal, Act II - Richard Wagner - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, Jose Van Dam, Victor von Halem, Kurt Moll, Peter Hofmann, Siegmund Nimsgern, Dunia Veizovic, Claes H. Ahnsjah, Kurt Tydl, Marjon Lambriks, Anne Gjevang, Helner Hopfner, Georg Tichy, Barbara Hendricks Janet Perry Doris Soffel Inga Nielsen

enchantments and curses and other mind games
yet another stupid knight climbing mountains to find an enchanted maiden
their big set number is lovely

as Kundry's argument becomes more expansive
the meter changes
from 6/8 to 9/8
reverts to 6/8
to 4/4
for Parsifal's regret
(K is in 3)
then reaches out to him
for first kiss day
in 4
Am4tas 

(I guess the kiss worked)

Slavonic Dance in B-flat Major, Op. 72 #6 - Antonín Dvořák - The Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi

lighthearted in a way that Brahms, e.g., could never manage
pleasant evenings at the bandstand in the square
everybody wears their fancy bonnets

Track 2, Selections from The Nutcracker- Piotr Ilyich Tchakovsky - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy

what was ever like this
before this?
what were those early 19th Century Parisian ballets
(from which this derives aspirationally)
like
as events
to be at?

Sonata in G-sharp minor, Op. 19 - Alexander Scriabin

pulls in the magic
before he manages to inform us
of what key he was ostensibly in
that is some pretty crazy keyboard figuration thing
he's got going there

Pelleas et Melisande, Act V - 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

this starts as though it will end well
will it
doubt it 

surely healing
oh ache
H as a pitch or key
(in H or h) 

Ahc Ach cah h a c cha cah

parenthesize freely
retreats into itself
the ache of grief
anticipated 

Balzac invented this sort of
only the French would understand
anguish
center of civilization
and all that claptrap
this music seeks that POV
exactly
of their spiritual joining

it is important as a fact
that no words were left out
the music is entirely subservient to the text
the music plays Kundry
to text's Amfortas 

as she approaches death
he listens
more carefully
he would like
to speak
to the little sister
death
himself 

Debussy and Berlioz may have been the only Frenchmen who, having read Balzac, lived up to his ideal.

Symphony in E minor (#2) - Sergei Rachmaninoff - Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin

1

I WILL B ImPORT Ant C?
royalty has forebodings
I must admit the big tune
as to how it goes by
without ever actually being
is somehow earned
or feels so
2nd theme group could be read
as a variation on a tune
that has been hinted at
I remember the dances
she was so lovely
the little violin on one shoulder
and clarinet on the other shoulder
hmhmhm
how Hegelian
it's in the oven now
cooking
everything is proceeding according to my plan
heh heh ehe ehe
and so triUMPHally is Brought Forth
:::
TUNEBIRD!
is that it?
it's a
(((egg)))
 well that was a bust
||
((send 'em out whistlin'
but by all necessary means
send them out))
||
2
let's try something completely different
let's have an Instragram Worthy Adventure
extreme sport
extremely sporty
ok that's fun
but what about
o that's it
ah
TUNEBIRD!!
[at his best Rachy rendered Hollywood unnecessary
(but the hats! oh, the hats!) kee kee]
how yearningly I wish to miss thee
did I just say that out loud
TUNEBIRD
(is LAST GAMBIT of KEY
is Key's Last Gambit)
3
[A VISION]
for clarinet and rapture
tunebird as a totally hot wench
high class of course
but hot
dance of the ten villion bails
get comfy
it will take time
we have the beginning of tune
I'll play it again
so as it will be rememberfied proper
several times
what I tell you more than three times
is more true
I thought this was over long ago
unless 4 has already started?
4
NOPE
public party time
tunebird's gettin' married!
the learned tune
working on its part
so that it can be put together
for the payoff
(tunebird from heaven)
best get back to work
shake it off
the tempi converge
such fun
a parade
(don't forget TUNEBIRD!)
Here we are!
TUNEBIRD so swan-like
is this a ripoff?
send 'em out forgetting

May 4, 2021

4 Preludes - Erik Satie - Frank Glazer

extreme registral separation
both vertical and structural*
(*sequence patterning)
discrete parts
treated discretely
oh so discretely 
has the urgency of sincere prayer
closest France ever got to Mussorgsky

Concerto in D Major (31) - Sergei Prokofiev - Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Jan Krenz, Shizuka Ishikawa

the key here
something fondly remembered
irrecoverable as a whole
it used to live here
1917 interesting times in Russia
conflicted ironic nostalgia

Little Waltz - Ruth Crawford Seeger - Jenny Lin

an attractive throwback
or more of its time
than one expects
of a later RCS
franco-russo-philicism

Symphony in B Major "To October" (#2) - Dmitri Shostakovich - London Philharmonic Orchestra, John Alldis Choir, Bernard Haitink

opens in a mood oddly reminiscent of Central Park In the Dark
but actually articulate
music such as Shostakovich or Prokofiev promulgated
and the internationalist world in which that music swam
even then
was something of a security leak
problem
one couldn't imagine the state
caring so much about it
if the world wasn't also aware of it
propaganda control
composing in Soviet-face
the culture of the bourgeoisie
was quasi-interpermeable
across boundaries
had to keep it going
to save face
mid-goal arrived at
by arriving at it
rather than
by getting there
but then it goes on
and undercuts
or what
celebrate and call it a victory

Preacher Blues - Henry Brown [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

what rock solid sounds
innocent of metronomes
of any time sense
that isn't internal to itself

May 6, 2021

Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion - Béla Bartók - Alfons Kontarksy, Aloys Kontarsky, Christoph Caskel, Heinz Konig

borders on heavyhanded
how it explains itself
what is related to what
and how
popular modernity
it shouts
its up to the minute cred
Fibonacci I guess
but who's counting
(and what?)?
balanced gestures are operative
[NB - my own A Cat's Life has a similar outlook, actually, come to think of it]
modern music as theater
clever by the full measure

Not Mine - Peggy Lee [from The Complete Recordings 1941-1947]

lovelorn dinner club tune
for those overseas
and those left stateside
something to look forward to

In Session at the Tintinabulary

May 3, 2021

Banned Telepath 75 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

May 4, 2021

Banned Telepath 75 Toad Hall "May the Fourth be with you" - Aaron Keyt

Banned Rehearsal 1025 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1025 210503 - 04

The weather did not cooperate for us to play on the porch, so we were back in the studio, to which Anna and Neal phoned from Outpost Lake City, and to which Aaron sent sounds from Outpost Toad Hall

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

-rections a poisonous black cloud boiling

with bolts of power and gouts and shrieks of

agony and blacker until over

Reality Check::

iris ask'd

solstice into

open olive lakes

Playlist

Preface

"But can there actually be discourse outside the core ontological space of music, but still in a vibrant metaphorical dance with it? And can music actually be present in the ontological space of discourse, as transmuted perception, speculation, imagination? Were they possible, might not such incarnations be promising candidates for participants in an expansive, and expanding, world of thought and experience - in which music has its unique centricity, uniquely personified, expressly intellectual, holistically aesthetic, where music is any kind of work or play you actually need it to be, as only music can be?"

- 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/.

April 24, 2021

Gavin Borchert

19 Two-Part Inventions

start plain as day
keep it clear 

latter day Scarlatti thoughts
(let us consider once again
the distinct pleasure
of technical pitch composition) 

post Bach
post Satie
(post Escher)

music as it might be
aware of itself
in building
what it ever was 

wanders far
into the tetrachordal latticework
placidly proceeding
no reason to get ahead of oneself
mind each step 

do not
connect
the dots
collect nor
correct not

April 25, 2021

Jay Hamilton

10 sound things
that start
and are
and stop
|
their stopping
and are-ing
and starting
occur in the normative ordering
but that isn't the point
of any of them
|
question of and for my ear:
is there an ordering underlying historical-repertoire metaphor
for how I put these together?
that is
do I approach these
as being more like solo, chamber, orchestral,
or something else?
rock band
jazz combo
or somewhere situated between these
perhaps something like
chamber/rockband/jazzcombo
with each member metaphor
being in determinate relative weightinesses
if this is what I do
why?
|
this one though
has a retro-Musique concrète appeal to it
(well, choral for sure)
|
DIY prog
a pretenseless tale
garblecast
sunny day evening glory land

Recorded

April 24, 2021

Hanna Won't You Open the Door - Sam McGee and Kirk McGee [from Allen Lowe's Really The Blues]

melody and its elaborations
echo the text pattern
and its elaborations

Na Pua - George Ku Trio [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

in addition to
and aside from
some fine guitar playing
those falsetto harmonies
are crazy wild

Liza - Benny Goodman [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

upbeat intricacy
for happy club time
show offs
who else is in the band?
(drums vibes & keys)
Gene Krupa
Lionel Hampton
Teddy Wilson

Concerto, Op. 42 - Arnold Schoenberg - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, Maurizio Pollini

the orchestra enters gradually as needed
its relationship to the piano is personal
character driven
on the same stage

a domestic opera
how Mozartean in concept

eschews sparkle
1942 not having been a year with sparkles

existentialist Buster Keaton
playing Petrushka
in a narrow globe 

||
pitch sets constructed carefully
to be easily relatable
on the fly
to congrue
in action
how they congrue
can shape the greater shapes

Don't Blame Me - Lenny Tristano [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

a dancer on the fantastic trip light

April 25, 2021

Satisfied - Blue Ridge Quartet [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

Paul Simon did something based on a bit of this "gone at last"

Anastasia - Pat Boone [a Rescued Record]

crooner after the Sinatra pattern
or theme song to a fantasy romance movie? 

the backing vocals should have been Theremin
he missed a good trick there
to beat The Beachboys to the punch

Searchin' - The Beatles [from The Beatles Anthology Volume 1]

creativity starting out as imitation
something like dues
overdoing the overdone
for fun and profit

24 Preludes, 21 through 24 - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey [December 2020]

1 still too machine-y
2 opening motive needs more dynamic shape
3 a little shape wouldn't hurt this one either altogether too piously to the score
4 this one's getting somewhere but could even be slower

Oh Girl - The Chi-Lites [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

instantly old-fashioned
strings and reverb heavy band
smooth throughout
and through
puppy dog eyes

("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...") - Benjamin Boretz - Keith Eisenbrey [October 2000]

the faster tempi
as marked in the original published score
give a higher
or more distant
viewpoint
its riverrun
more ample
of a shape

this take has some note errors but otherwise is reasonable
work on simultaneities
to make all of them exact
last part from the Chopin section is good
missed the last dyad
curses on PPP dyads beastly

Aphrodisiac - Bow Wow Wow

wants its video and dance

Banned Rehearsal 110 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [January 1987]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 110 870103

opens with ominous hum
the cat remains
Neal graces amazement
surreal for real
so real
fur real
so far
sew fir
a Tpath combined
[NB: no, but with Neal's Amazing Grace tape on the speakers]
nice guiro-ing
guitar scraping not a telepath more like a playalong
clearly we are hearing this as it goes
thus does the past
enter the present as commentary
FMaker
TeleFun
alternate tune-ing
tune shipping
tonal shipping
hymnody in its resplendent blatancy
all an album is = could be a multimovement work
a solution exists
they is life in that old boy arter awe
we play two hymns at once
how promiscuous
Distortionfarbenmelodien
improvisation can be composition
or it might sometimes be analysis
Aaron and I discuss
hymnody as a commentary
on Neal's hymnodic text
amazingly graceless remix
for production value
now with commentary
fine recorder marginals
quodlibet by incarcerationally induced togetherness
take a moment
think a moment
take a think a moment
think a take a moment
apre(s) reap pare
guiro is winning
long distance hymnodic wrestling
glorious bad sound
derived in the cruddy way
the true way
hymnody has breaths
clear points at which bodily requirements
intrude
modulation between tunes
on a pun of function
carp whistle
fipple flute
downright amazin'
under the hood
the whole nest of metaphor
between voice and wire
what exactly is it they have in common
a subservience
to the arithmetics of the physical universe
flute alone remains
and guitar string

||||

[from my journal entry of May 7, 1988]

a wall of grace
in self defense
an oboe 

I hear a purple trout

April 26, 2021

Over Me - T-Bone Burnett [from The Criminal Under My Own Hat]

serviceable enough songwriting
not overborne by the arrangement
nothing remarkable about it musically
relies on words and delivery

Banned Rehearsal 444 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [February 1997]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 444 970208

we make attempts to reed
there are bells
no doubt one of our last analog sessions
using Banned Rehearsal's
unpatented
direct to cassette mastering 

we plugged
we played

bodies move around the room
find sounds to play
cases open snap closed
the boundary between advertent sounds and inadvertent
is crossed freely
a beast bellows
fellow beasts bellow back
overdrive everything
a high din is strident in the land
not for tender ears
30 minutes in it calms down
a little
he has eaten the tuba
|||
digital recording would soon give us an option for much greater transparency
the sound would be less crammed 

we clang a suspended plow wheel blade

[from my journal entry of November 9, 2004]

a truly lovely opening moment
a big sneeze
continues with ample air around everything
wailing amplified saxophone
really beautiful
joined by trombone or cornet
what this is
is a grand piece of orchestration
every sound in its place
each distinct
each coloring the whole
to something quite other
building hugely
ala Shostakovich #7
to a big grand chorale march
then reducing to toys
the little piano and organ
loosening up
say scribbles
organ chords tentative
not moving forward against inner resistance

if drumming continues it could be ruinous
but it appears to have been momentary
not-moving-forwardness is continuing to wind us down
while finding new places to be
surrounding and re-clothing us
organ and toy piano
taking lead
great guitar entrance
flatfootedly oblique
almost Mozartean
and brings us back to ourselves
could signal end of session
oh no
he has eaten the tuba
beginning of new activity
we begin to play down to the baby
clearly the session has lost energy
too much rudimental rumpus
bells and cymbals stuff is pretty nice
once the drumming has stopped
could pull a nice session out of this
something to monkey with
[NB: I was beginning to transfer these to CD at the time and briefly considered editing them down]

April 27, 2021

The Sound of Music - Glenn Tate [from Some of My Favorite Love Songs]

from the songbook
with modestly flamboyant
extemporaneous ornamentation
[NB: Glenn was a co-worker of mine for a couple of years. My recollection is that he left Seattle in 2002 or so to work at a lounge on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. A really nice guy, enthusiastic about the music he was making.]

Consider the Birds Mix 08 - Keith Eisenbrey [2007]

I was constructing a piece
out of layers of chopped samples
in doing so
I found
that each layer
and the various mixes of layers
were fun to hear
so I kept them all 

the improvisatory irregularity of the original sample* persists
even through the mechanical regularity of the process
*recent Banned Rehearsal sounds 

burst speech
ambient in the sense
that any place is good to begin at
and to end at
sound as a still picture
transparent depth

State of Grace - Taylor Swift [from Red]

calibrated vocal production
the lowest pitch she sings
is her go-to
for pulling us
into intimacy

Banned Rehearsal 928 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 928 170123

a test upon interactivity
a self contained text spigot
addressed to the monotonous imaginary future
impervious to interaction
(ahem)
text as such
is too loud to be musical

April 28, 2021

Galiarda, Fvb 17 - John Bull - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

if the perceived complexity of a moment
affects our perception of the duration of that moment
however
and if
that perceived effect
is at odds
with the perceived durations
as any elsewise perceived
a roundness
in duration space
arises

Symphony sacrae II "Der Herr ist meine Stärke", Op. 10 #5 - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

an old use of the term symphony
vernacular sacred text
solo voice with small ensemble
organ continuo
clear short highly individuated bits of sung melody

Suite in G minor, BuxWV 242 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella

roundnesses packed and nested
only now and again
does the meter surface
best pay attention

Fughetta super "Nun Komm, der Heiden Hieland", BWV 699 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Michael Chapuis

short
for interstitial use

Dix-Neuvieme Ordre (Ré) - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert

more open-faced than Buxtehude
more social gathering
than private contemplation
it runs and frolics
graces and embroiders
it earnestly edifies
it constructs upon itself
reaching and stretching
it bides nervously
it gets some fresh air

Sonata in D Major, Kk 118 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

objects in hand
examined
upended into alternate modes
carefully replaced

April 29, 2021

Arioso with 20 Variations - Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

on fortepiano
variations are a form of compositional thinking laid bare
in these CPEB shows a fondness for checking in with the original
at the cadence points
and the point
is partly to see how crazy one can get
and still
clearly
not veer far
||
each generation* invents anew
while engaged in a quest to figure out
what the prior generation was up to
*loosely defined

Sonata in G Major, Hob. XVI:6 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

on harpsichord
tiny dramas 

on the harpsichord figuration and register composition
work their own dynamic shapes
dynamic articulation figuration phrases
an urgent need to amuse

Sonata in C Major, K. 309 (#7) - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Mitsuko Uchida

full of side comments
moves around the stage
one of those truly hairy bears
of a slow movement

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

case in a large hotel and slight

exactly built cards careful not to draw

as we passed and trembled workman come out

Reality Check::

or specific rational value

heap deep jam rut

sob brain solo stride