"But it may be imagined, and I do imagine it, that the chaos of incommensurable and perhaps not even mutually intelligible musical ontologies that live invisibly (because they have no culturally defined conventional identities) in the cracks and below and even apart from the surfaces of "normalized" music actually embody the primal origins of the lust for music, the source of its creative power, of its capacity for penetration to the very personal souls and minds of its makers and receivers. Possibly it's why no one deeply involved in a musical practice seems to feel completely comfortable with anyone else's performance, composition, description, opinion: because the ontological imperative is to represent all performances, compositions, descriptions, opinions, theories, pedagogies, as candidates for definitive and authoritative - it's psychically imperative because the universe of one has never identified itself as the origin of the intuition of alienation, and thus ontological diversity, which I've claimed is inexorable, is experienced not as potential richness of experience but as a lethal threat to the secure, comfortable, institutionalizable reality provided by cultural convention."
- Benjamin Boretz - "The Universe of One, And the Music of the Other"
from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020
Texts
Streaming
Star Anna
Live from The Green Room
she put something extra on the guitar sound tonight
we image ourselves
as those being damaged
kind of a new one
fine
haven't put it
on yet
the falling sky
quite a fine song truly no joke
5
years 5 minutes
back to Bowie
let's not kid ourselves
the
strumming hand is a dance theater on a guitar screen
a holy thing here
around supper time
wherefrom from within the self does the voice arise?
pretty much new song
I know where to put my face
we're glad
you're here too
she owns that Bowie cover
Moonage Daydream
moon dream
day age
space face
wishes were horses
||
strumming down on guitar is from low strings to high
strum down is power
stroke
strum up is tender
|| a brand new song practically
saints
a voice is a template
and so are we valued for our
specificity?
not the big cheese
we're just the hungry mice
paradise
live -ish
tone hole
totally brand new
not even finished yet probably
cigarettes and double gum
tip
of my tongue
tastes like blood
From Recent Arrivals
Merce and Baby - George Lewis - Ensemble Dal Niente [from combined. speak.]
bird chatter back and forth
makes a virtual bigger bird
round out
the parts
new episodes
where the last note of the phrase goes
new episodes
every minute or so
a different sort of party
A Five-Note Chord (seen from the porch of a curious mind) - Garrett Schumann - Latitude 49 [from Curious Minds]
it comes into view as the sun lights it
Partita in C for Piano and Small Orchestra - Harold Shapero - Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose
not a Baroque partita in any recognizably tonal way
nor in spirit really
except that one wishes every such Baroque partita
was half as much
fun to hang with
from some realm of cultural obsession common to Busoni
I think
when tuneful
as it often is
the tunes play feinting
games among deceptive trees
not malevolent
playful
the trees
are in on the game
and the play
gnaws it right down to the bone
December 10, 2021
Take Pictures - Steve Layton [from Próxima Estación]
crickets or frogs and the greater chorus snoring
scanning in progress
periodic reports
dregs of broadcast voices washing in
stuck
in the frog muck
the haints ain't pleased
You're The Top - Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga [from Love for Sale]
got the pizzazz and the personality to spare
Babydoll - Mariah Carey [from Butterfly]
there is commercial potential in telling men what they want to hear (I'll cop to being game) what to do with a voice
I Don't Wanna Be Kissed (By Anyone But You) - Miles Davis [from Miles Ahead]
tutti to clear the air
for further insightful commentary
lovely
final chord
Recorded
Monsieurs Alman, Fvb. 61 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
at the cadences he does a little dance
which little dance is elaborated
upon
like everything else
but in its own little closet
Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1, Prelude and Fugue in A-flat Major - Johann Sebastian Bach - Sviatoslav Richter
each voice has a figurational color at all times
and these are combined
to compose elaborately mixed figuration color textures
Sonata in A minor, Kk. 148 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
one could model a melody as a list of notes
notes with a structure of
repetitions of all kinds
likewise one could model a structure of figures
figures with their own structures of repetitions of all kinds
might these distinct structures of repetition bear a relation to each
other
such that we might call what Scarlatti does:
writing melodies
of figurations
Kurze und Leichte Klavierstücke, "Allegretto in A Major", Wq. 114/9 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi
also uses a little cadential curtsy in spots
especially the major
structural cadences
Il mondo della luna, Act III - Franz Joseph Haydn - Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Antal Dorati, Chœurs de la Radio Suisse Romande (chorus master: André Charlet), Domenico Trimarchi, Arleen Augér, Edith Mathis, Frederica von Stade, Lucia Valentini Terrani, Luigi Alva, Anthony Rolfe Johnson
featuring a lovely duet indeed!
Sonata in D minor, Op. 31 #2 "Tempest" - Ludwig van Beethoven - Stephen Kovacevich
1
story of the arpeggios and recitative
and story of the storm
in parallel
a sonata movement with its own literary conceit
S.K. makes the connection with the arpeggios clear to the opening of
2
identical touch care taken
3
gets into the Scarlatti hand over hand leaps
a figuration
freak's movement
Etude in C minor, Op. 10 #12 "Revolutionary" - Frédéric Chopin - Cecile Licad
the chorale tune clarifies the torrent of notes
and the tumult of times
If I Had My Way - T.T. Rose and Gospel Singers [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
tells a punch accent story
with a piano pounding it out on the bag
and singers along for the ride
Everybody Loves My Baby - Miss Lee Morse and Her Bluegrass Boys [from Evans 78s]
this most emphatically does not come across like a bluegrass band
far
more what?
jazz?
Well, Git It! - Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra
big band in its party glory
every solo is a way to dance
Grey Goose - Lead Belly [from Where Did You Sleep Last Night? - Lead Belly Legacy Volume 1]
a figure from the guitar accompaniment
intrudes into the lyrics:
Lord Lord Lord
Dream Girl - Jesse Blevin [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
quintessential crooning
the sax player floated in with the guitar player
classy in an early suburban way
Death to Van Gogh's Ear - Allen Ginsberg [from Holy Soul Jelly Roll]
statements as facts
tripping from idea to idea
prophetic in its
awful silliness
Van Gogh's ear on the currency
clenched
nearly gets away from them
heading North
a few
points in between
up the East Coast
It Be's That Way Sometimes - Nina Simone [from Silk & Soul]
lots of bump to bounce her voice off of
no need to clench
54 45 (Was My Number) - Toots and the Maytails [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
bass drums
light percussion and vocals
guitar essentially doubling
the bass
a keyboard at the end may have been there before
talks to
the band like James Brown does
Dogs - Pink Floyd [from Animals]
points for style
as instruments are added
there goes Gilmore
not their first song to feature a dog howling
a song with adjunct
parts
commentary annexes
room for spacing out
time to think
Say You Do - Janet Jackson [from Janet Jackson]
something back there makes a big old thunder boom
lots of ingredients
before the star appears
big hype
some of that tight ass funk about
it
ala JB
parts peel away
big ol' flabby thunderboom
Sonatina - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [January 19, 1987]
I was somewhat obsessed with letting things go on just a bit too long
but also sensitive to how one might escape the loop
it allows a
peek into how the thinking is going
if you can tell an activity is going
on
then changes within and upon that activity are plain
not a bad
performance
though some notes are out of tune
and there are some
slop-overs
but the gist of it is there
I still like about
clavichord what I liked then
the extreme dynamic range
the aching
clarity
the noisy clumsiness of its delicacy
Wake Up - Guthrie Clan and Guests [from Woody's 24 Grow Big Songs]
join the day kids
play with all your toys
and girls and boys
Banned Rehearsal 459 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer, Heidi S, Lynn W
Banned Rehearsal does its best to mystify out of town guests
that's a
lot of folks in a small space
the expression of our cacophonous lives
was cacophony
we calm down
bubble comfortably
the drum keeps
on
but Isaac is fussy
{guests from CompuServe's MusicArts group,
of which I was a part back in the day}
December 8, 2021
Sunday - David Bowie [from Heathen]
accumulating verse
accumulating tracks
composition is the
smoothness
with which tracks and verse enter
so far
one
internal articulation point
one final addition
then fade
Consider the Birds 42 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]
widely separated episodes of chatters
Daughter - Byron Au Yong [from Yija]
breathes with the singer
You Ruined It When You Hugged Me Back - Your Mother Should Know [demos of February 23, 2017]
there is a problem with heroes and emulation
Variatio, Fvb. 62 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
all and each aspect is measured and rational to the meter
thought:
the moment of any metrical node might be less than instant
as
though with a complex sound a form of ordering is required
the precise
beginning of any plucked sound is so granular
that factual precision may
be impractical
Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1, Prelude and Fugue in F Major - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jacottet
there is a vast difference in the sense of what articulation does and means
between harpsichord and piano
it isn't just a timbre difference
if it's worth listening to
it's worth listening to upside down
and
with squinty eyes
and with silly hats
Kurze und Leichte Klavierstücke, "Andante in C Major", Wq. 114/10 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi
at the cadences
time is kept by means of appropriately neutral
figuration
a pause to breathe
short "easy" and extraordinarily
elegant
Sonata in G Major, Op. 31 #1 - Ludwig van Beethoven - HJ Lim
intrusive thoughts hide within the figures
but they will out
Nocturne in C minor, Op. posth. (#20) - Frédéric Chopin - Claudio Arrau
internal fantasy brought back
but what of those opening preludial
measures
strange plagals indeed
Finnegans Wake, Chapter 6 (end) - James Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer [from the streamed performance of November 21, 2020]
. . . my knowledge is fructose
a woman of no appearance
all her
myriads of drifting minds in one
but the river tripped on her
I so
silly to be flowing
the irony of the stars
the farce of dustiny
a period of pure lyricism
teaching his infant majesty how to make
matters verse
the right woods by the road's order
The Shout - Art Tatum [from Classic Early Solos]
ok so that is a lot of notes in a hurry
but he announces the subject
matter up front
quite simply and never veers
Tea For Two - Cassino Simpson [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
much a similar approach to Art Tatum's
but more dangerous and raw
Red Cross - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes]
in the head
if that is the correct term
the parts of the measures
are clearly defined
rhythmically and registrally
honk honk
allowing us to get a clear sense of the phrases
before they are
given the treatment
a malleable format
easy to keep one's place
Juke - Little Walter [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo's Milieu]
as were the various blues formats
though in blues the conversation
is only loosely contained within the particular instance at hand
Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On - Jerry Lee Lewis [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
gives the dancing teens a thrill
even calls it
talking to said
teens
Listen to the Lambs - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [April 10, 1962]
spiritual arrangement
good ol' four-part singing
Boris The Spider -The Who [from A Quick One]
going for the novelty market
otherwise pointless
in slogan mode
instructive but thin
dressed up with a raucous band
more than flirts with false moral equivalence
Love You Till Tuesday - David Bowie [from Starting Point]
the voice and characterization are all there
just not much song to work
with
nice boy was far too narrow
too cute for cute
After P*** T***! - Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [from A Cassette Player December 1982]
this sounds like the University of Washington Contemporary Group Improvisation
Ensemble or an unofficial subset
poorly recorded and/or
transferred
synth sound squeezed out of a balloon
some clarinets
and percussion
Vitrum nostrum gloriosum - Tielman Susato Krummhorn Gesellschaft, Georg Forster [from The Glory of the Krummhorn]
I think this is an amateur ensemble somehow connected to the recorder groups
my Mom was in
{NB confirmed: I found a picture on-line and I recognize
them}
Psalm 23 (meditation, responses) - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 22, 1992]
this is the final version of that time
and was included on an early
Banned Rehearsal cassette production
first Neal reads the whole Psalm
which is followed by my clavichord responses
much later
once
I could edit digitally
I took the original tracks and intermingled them
more to my liking
that version was on
Psalms, Songs and Sarabande
a limited issue CD
this piece
might be worth another stab come to think of it
with better microphones
and more careful tuning
something about this is just off
the size
the clean production
the balance
all of the above
tries to be dramatic
the
vocal is hiding in the back
good reason
lame in all but his own
eyes
Gradus 3 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [February 4, 2002]
he says February 5 but I have marked it on the 4th
which was a Monday?
{NB: the 4th was a Monday, so I think that is correct, Gradus having
been pretty consistently a Monday evening project}
starting over with
the lowest A
quiet slow
listening toward space
the
progression through the pitch classes is
so I am told
based on the
theoretical harmonic series
bent to fill in a diatonic "Major"
collection
and then to fill in the gaps for the full chromatic 12.
I wonder if an analysis of the actual harmonics of the actual lowest A
on that piano
would have yielded the same series?
and moving from
the Yamaha to the Chickering a few years later
would it have yielded a
different series?
the moon tonight is a waxing crescent
Jupiter to
the right
If the progression had been by circle of 7 (or 5) semitones
or by circle of single semitones
the maximization of interval
content would have occurred with the addition of the sixth pitch class:
G-sharp for the circle of 7 semitones
(one semitone being the last
interval class added)
or E (or D) for the circle of single semitones
(5
(or 7) semitones being the last interval class added)
(5 and 7 being
equivalent because pitch classes have no up or down to them by definition and
so being co-classified)
I was not yet making journal entries for these
sessions
I'm not sure why not
I seem to have been only noting
music from the recorded sequence and from live shows
I wonder when I
changed tactics?
a traveling one-man-band for hillbilly blues
when we saw him he played
his own drum kit
(as well as guitar)
with a foot and knee operated
contraption
it sounds like that is what he's using here
full body
music
What's Wanting For - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The High Dive, Seattle, April 6, 2012]
the guitar is too big for the song
too easy to hide behind
raffle
and prizes!
Ryan and Dan - Wang Lu - Seattle Modern Orchestra, Julia Tai [from the streamed concert Dissolution, November 19, 2021]
emerging from intonation
a wide field
set with fearsome scribbles
and tender lines
electric guitar and saxophone I think
quite
lovely
In Session at the Tintinabulary
Banned Telepath 79 Wallingford - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer
Neal is in deep rehearsal for Chapter 8 of Finnegans Wake. Karen has a part to play upsetting the blue milk light so we attended his rehearsal and recorded part of it as a Telepath
Banned Telepath 79 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey
After supper we made one our selves
December 8, 2021
Banned Telepath 79 Southend Stuff - Steve Kennedy
Steve played some drums for us on Wednesday
Banned Rehearsal 1040 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer
and we put it all together
December 10, 2021
Two-Part Invention in C-sharp minor - Gavin Borchert - Keith Eisenbrey
Two-Part Invention in E-flat Major - Gavin Borchert - Keith Eisenbrey
The next two of Gavin's Inventions, recorded on clavichord
Anybody's Fingerbook, 2x2 (transpositional) A (A) - Keith Eisenbrey
My 2020 composition, first of many in the set
(8 2x2; 10 each of 3x3,
5x5, and 7x7)
conceived as a set of perverse finger exercises
Much of my musical energy during the first year of the Pandemic went into producing this virtual recital of recent solo piano music by my long-time collaborator, Aaron Keyt, and by me. There are 9 reels total in the playlist, ranging from 10 to 20 minutes or so each, the whole stretching for just under 2 hours. I am quite pleased with the results, especially with how well I manage to illuminate the extraordinary "in-your-presence-alone" intimacy of Aaron's compositional voice.
Postscripts
::Consult the Oracle
crying the Kolya begin his neck the
policeman approached note his face genuine
sympathy Ivanovna took it and
Reality Check::
a bird flutters through the sun
the dragon
is language itself
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