Saturday, January 29, 2022

Playlist

Preface

"You compose. You perform. Your own music. Other music. You hear it. You think it. You imagine its being heard by receiving others. What others hear is indisputably the outcome of what you do - but what is your relation to their experience? Is it to imagine what it will be? To desire it to be a certain way? To enforce what it is? In different episodes, don't you yourself as receiver register your own output differently? Sometimes as cognition, as a syntactical/structural 'understanding'; sometimes as perception, a semantic identification; sometimes as a determinate feel to which no abstract signifier applies: experience as itself, an indivisible, internally absolute but externally indefinitive holistic ontological blob?"

- Benjamin Boretz - "inside in, outside out"  

from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020

Texts

From Recent Arrivals

January 28, 2022

Silly Boy Blue - David Bowie [from Toy]

lifted by balloon
though
of waxfeathered wings
waxy wings
with feathers
feathered waxwings
Bombycillidae
Silly Day Bomby
(Icarus)

I Don't Want to Throw Rice - Dolly Parton [from Hello, I'm Dolly]

clever album title Ms. Parton 

fascinatingly violent image
throwing rocks at the bride
dynamite! yikes!

Three Roses - Florence Price - Lara Downes [from Florence Price Piano Discoveries]

something like a Duke Ellington song
but without that swing
certainly has that salon piece warmth to it
how the chords fit in the hands
sophisticated conservatism
in the stylistic not political sense
or Chopin to Price to Ellington
specifically in the way her melodies are presented (sometimes) as though they had been taken apart and glued back together

With Douglas Ewart - George Lewis [from Rainbow Family]

electric sounds behave like a puppet of the saxophone
but one that is more nearly worn than manipulated
like the orchestra vis a vis the voices in Pelleas et Melisande

Recorded

January 22, 2022

Sidewalk Blues (Take 3) - Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers [from Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers - Chicago Days]

one imagines a whole act worked out for this
a show
orchestra inventing showbiz

Stardust - Art Tatum [from Classic Early Solos]

turns everything into his trick

Soon in the Mornin'- Sid Hemphill [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

how the fiddle and banjo parts fit together is not clear
until you pay close attention
the words part only shows up in bursts
a song ripped from life
not sequestered into a nicely formed bundle

Meandering - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy and Dial Sessions]

an ample meter for elbow room
stops in middle

You Go To My Head - Bob Graettinger, Stan Kenton [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

that is one crazy reed arrangement to get it going
like a stiff headwind
wild

That'll Be The Day - Buddy Holly and The Crickets [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

how many times does he say
that'll be the day
many

January 23, 2022

Ain't Nothing Shakin' - The Beatles [from First Live Recordings Volume 2]

brief as punk
the roar of them
liquefaction of the room

Bonnie Kellswater - The Irish Rovers [from The Unicorn]

a traditional song made stage ready
scrubbed and shiny

Don't Worry Kyoko - John Lennon and Yoko Ono [from Live Jam]

loose tuning and Yoko yelling
the band is a megaphone
making noise is its purpose
frustration expulsion
as long as evacuation is accomplished
function is fulfilled
any other qualities are extraneous
the band
being pros of the business
can't no how let go their knowhow
jamshred notwithstanding
everybody says
make more din
than everybody
as for Yoko
well she found a way to try to get a message to her daughter
seems like a reasonable use of her time

Serpentine Fire - Earth, Wind & Fire [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

big band funk
funk ain't punk
funk is invested in professionalism
one imagines gyration ready costumes
for go go

Second Movement - Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [from A Cassette Player]

two pianos pounded upon 

Just Sit - The Young Fresh Fellows [from The Men Who Loved Music]

shred band and a reported dialog
I said she said I said
men song
men get
last word

Banned Rehearsal 307 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Key [October 9, 1992]

dijeridus and cow bell
John is amused
a shaker
a tattap drum
tin cans with nylon lids
Toad Hall
dijeridu duo
only competent in part
but sounding
new regime
piano twiddles and whistle
have a nice brisk walk with drum
The Trumpeter in the Moon
a scary story
told in hushes
time all of it
we have only that of it
that consciousness can experience
forever emptying
forever filling
but since consciousness invented time
it has power to reshape it
at will
but only to the extent
that consciousness
can experience it
music is the means

sounds full of dark quiet colors
qualities of nervous energy
dance with other qualities of nervous energy

the dus are back
now many have wandered off
probably into the virtual kitchen
the sound stopped
then a flute peeped
we're back

calendars are a form of written music

it is not socially acceptable at all
to chew on microphone cables

a sonically engaging easy going social session
with toys and dus
John fusses in another room
bell time
Kuru the Cat
Trumpeter of the Moon
metaphysics

my journal entry of May 1, 1995

My Excuse Is All but Classic - Artist Not Listed [a Rescued Record]

bar braggadocio
talk cool
be
talk brags
cool
actually pretty entertaining

Diapsalmata - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church on February 23, 2002]

its subject matter
is the quest to forge a new sense of the lyrical
while still recalling the old
in this new mind 

minor 9ths are sentinels
music boxes
and algorithms

January 24, 2022

Mano a Mano - Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez - Cristina Valdés [recorded from her live stream on May 5, 2021]

1
drums of a type pitched cumulant

2
infiltration tracing veins underground mycology moves out 

3
these are squirrels
nervous ground foragers 

4
early one morning
a single ripple
a stern command
a quiet response 

5
otters! bears! big splash!
I'm here now
so peaceful
ah

Gradus 210 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [April 16, 2012]

proximity
number quantity-count
these divide experience
parts from other parts
circumscribing moments
quantity proliferated beyond immediate apprehension
into many moves
through episode
into character
or presence

too many to count
and too many to apprehend
are different sorts of numbers

Earplug Girl - Alone in Dead Bars (John Maiello) [recorded live at Victory Lounge on April 27, 2017]

gave me a really bad hug?

Magnuson Park 220116 - Keith Eisenbrey [January 16, 2022]

I thought I had lost this recording
made on my pocket computer
but a search later in the week revealed its hiding place
great frogs in a wetland area in Magnuson Park Seattle

Chi farà fede el cielo, Fvb 78 - Peter Philips - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

ample park
with many gardens

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1, Prelude and Fugue in E minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Sviastoslav Richter

a wind blows in and through

Sonata in E Major, K. 162 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

repetition groups moments
quantities apprehendable
apprehendable quantities
within meter space
generate apprehendable durations

Rondo in A Major, Wq. 58.1 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi

self-inquiring music laid bare

Symphony in A Major, Op. 92 (#7) - Ludwig van Beethoven - London Symphony Orchestra, Edouard van Remoortel

starts up again and again
power up to shout to the skies
in 4 just before it winds up for the end
there is a moment
when the voices subside
to sort themselves out
and regroup

Impromptu in G-flat Major, Op. 51 - Frédéric Chopin - Claudio Arrau

clearly this is for singing
but tracing the path of the song is problematic
it branches

{from my journal entry of February 19, 1996:

three-part
A dance will-o-wisp ends PP
B from below ariosos baritone
A ends F}

January 25, 2022

Midnight Frolic Stomp - Williamson's Beale Street Frolic Orchestra [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

music enables dance
a social lubricant
the idea is
to dance crazy
as the music sounds
oh the roar of the 20s

Dead Shrimp Blues - Robert Johnson [from The Complete Recordings]

falsetto "oooooo" talks with the high guitar strings 

is this really in F-sharp?

Stormy Weather - Ethel Waters [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

between the high notes and the low notes a song is inscribed

Moanin' - Lead Belly [from Where Did You Sleep Last Night, a Lead Belly Legacy]

wordless melody in the raw

Goin' Down Slow - Billy Wright [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

blues band has a purpose
be the singer's greater gestures
see George Lewis above

Dark Moon - Bonnie Guitar [from Dark Moon and Other Country Favorites]

is a rock&roller's vaunted distaste for Country Music a response to the absence of irony?

Sherry - The Four Seasons [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

yodeling in the new world

I'm Waiting for the Man - The Velvet Underground [from The Velvet Underground & Nico]

after the chord changing bit
it pulls right back into line
no straying for a single minded mind
no nonsense tambourine

Elderberry Wine - Elton John [from Crocodile Rock B/W Elderberry Wine]

my copy has genuine 45 rpm vinyl crackle on it
wieeen (wine)
tieeems (times)
England land of diphthongs

Bodies - Sex Pistols [from Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols]

these guys cling to their single mind doggedly
it has no attractive force of its own
would fling them off in a heartbeat

Motel Room In My Bed - X - [from Under the Big Black Sun]

post punk
using punk single minds
as affect
within songwritten song
country punk?

Dear Karen - Neal Kosály-Meyer [February 22, 1987]

Neal talks about rock and roll
Bruce
Cream Magazine
stuff
and more about Bruce
music through words
a song I Don't Know How to Write Songs
songwriting as
first
a poem that is composed with a melody
as opposed to my practice
the lyrics are a given
a score
a stimulus
and the music is crafted to engage with them
or
sudden songs
all at once with barely a notion with which to start
another song in the same key You Wanna Cut My Volume or You Can't Turn Me Down 
then he plays a cover
lots of preface
a long involved preface
to
yup
a Bruce Springsteen song
of the Spring Stine Clan
of the Phili Stines
Fire
a Sunday night
Anna was in Milwaukee
Neal was in San Diego
it sounds like there was water dripping somewhere

Lucky Town - Bruce Springsteen [from Lucky Town]

I wonder if it might be the incessant machismo that rubs me the wrong way
perhaps its projected gender annoys me
if gender is the right word here

Banned Rehearsal 463 side a - Isaac E, Anna K, Aaron Keyt [August 29, 1997]

piano plus percussion and pipeshrills
brief but they come back
rumble in the toms
ukulele
outside John can be heard
reeds and strings
shaker
A. Bundler sneaks in
Isaac babbles happily
having the kids join us in session was an experiment on several fronts
among them
was an experiment upon session doing
it certainly stressed the system
but having children stresses all the systems
how did it effect what we became
dunno
there was no control group

{from my journal entry of June 2, 2005:

less compositional more musical
flute tunes
unfortunate distortion from the rattles and janglies
what sort of work?
fish charming perhaps
this toy-organ violin duo is lovely though
a dense thicket
last few minutes really deteriorate though}

January 26, 2022

One of Those Days - Whitney Houston [from Just Whitney]

interesting in that this is not
at least apparently
addressed to
or concerning
a man 

multi-layered production
mood song

Consider the Birds 6 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]

5 seconds long but packed
all of the sound is in the first 2 seconds

Division - Ian Bell, John Teske [from Embers of Discontent (original mix)]

a winding wad of string sounds
contained

See You At the Next Show - Your Mother Should Know [from demos recorded February 23, 2017]

epistolary song
it had been awhile
but mostly remembered the words

Banned Telepath 80 Tintinabulary - C, D, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosàly-Meyer [January 17, 2022 - for Banned Rehearsal 1043]

the next train came
and there was nobody to speak of
we are not the sounds we make
we have lost Lake City
we have found Lake City once again
this potato needs your love
drums bells xylophone cymbals

Bon jour mon coeur, Fvb. 79 - Peter Philips - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

the voices take turns to pirouette
subdivisional metrics
all clearly in some exquisite taste not our own

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1, Prelude and Fugue in E Major - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet

love the non show-off tempo of the Prelude
the Fugue has a false double answer
as though anticipating a stretto that never spins out

Sonata in E Major, Kk. 163 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

playing the topsy turvy game
with certain figures tightly joined

Fantasia in F-sharp minor, Wq. 67 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi

fortepiano
clearly we're in the middle of some personal drama
the voices may keep themselves straight
or they may be stirred beyond sorting
a far cry indeed from the architectural grandiosities of Papa Bach
never stable
ever troubled

Symphony in F Major, Op. 93 (#8) - NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini

figures are persons
engaged in an endeavor
we identify with them
shoulders to the wheel
brick by brick
step back
see what we build
back at it
later at the Bierhall
our grand burgher life
built with our own hands
seize it
speak of it only to friends of the cause

Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53 - Frédéric Chopin - Peter Katin

a very polite heroic fellow this one
dots his is

[from my journal entry of May 7, 1996

dry clear hard very nice}

Finnegans Wake, Chapter 6 (continued) - James Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer [from his live stream on October 17, 2021]

likeliest villain of the place
destroyed the church's lands
the whole township can see his hairy legs
a pair of pectorals
breaks barons boils
a white robe lifting the host
answer Finn MacCool
2 3 4 5
Poor Old Joe
6 7
rude roped drooped and driven
ornamanual recreation
8
they hate thinking they wait taking
9
hapless behind the dreams of accuracy
the eye of a needle
10
what are you nudging for
my diaper has more life in it
yes my buttercups told me
an ejaculation form the garden of the soul
it is Dracula's night out
for there no men clatter

Home on the Range - Buddy Spencer Trio - [from Evans 78s]

with marimba solo!!
who carts a marimba out on the range?
this is a winner
[Buddy Spencer, aka Frank Luther]

Somebody Loves Me - Bud Powell Trio [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

even when they're playing the tune straight it's crooked
intimated as much as plunked
sneaking around inside the chords

Maggie Campbell - Robert Nightingale [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

fabulous light-sticked drummer!
train rhythm
a light chug chug
a train that dances light on its feet

Come On Little Mama - Ray Harris [from Sun Records The Definitive Hits]

more of that lit up train
this one's on bennies
(bump)

You're No Good - Bob Dylan [from Bob Dylan]

he doesn't sound comfortable

Day and Night - Nina Simone [from Sings the Blues]

jaw harp!

January 27, 2022

Trouble, Heartaches & Sadness - Anne Peebles [from Original Funk Soul Sister The Best of Ann Peebles]

words music body(voice)
joined here
at an incandescence more private than many

Field Day for the Sundays - Wire [from Pink Flag]

taking rock and roll apart

--------- - Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [from A Cassette Player]

on and in
somebody playing the opening of my chart
somebody plucking something else
inside another
that's silly
out

In Session at the Tintinabulary

January 28, 2022

Two-Part Inventions in G Major, G Major, and G Major - Gavin Borchert [from 19 Two-Part Inventions]

These are the last three of the set of 19 Two-Part Inventions. I think I will be giving some of these 19 another try before I put them all out there.

Anybody's Fingerbook 3x3 C D A - Keith Eisenbrey

My 2020 composition project - a set of finger exercises

Joshua Tree Prelude 1 - Aaron Keyt

I think I got it this time. The tech problem has been solved.

Postscripts

Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery 

doodles from my journal in 1987:






Saturday, January 22, 2022

Playlist

Preface

"So what happens when the music's story is about its reflection of some other music? On purpose or not, as commentary or resemblance? Music qualities identified genetically, nominally, authorially, mimetically, ideologically, culturally, socially, ethnically, historically - how does any of that go into what is heard? Hearing something in something else, hearing something as something else, hearing something as it manifests being in some other universe, sustaining the doubleness or n-multiplicitiness as a simultaneity of reception. But also entails the simultaneity of consciousness, simultaneously holding within consciousness, all the defining referential metatexts - so there are at least two metatexts, in at least two distinct metalangauges, running in the listening psyche simultaneous with the supposed music-being-listened-to text. Sounds absurd, but I (we?) do it all the time. Knowing 'what' I am listening to seems indispensable to having a psychic node through which it can enter and put itself together as a specific-experienced-music phenomenon."

- Benjamin Boretz - "inside in, outside out"  

from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020

Texts

From Recent Arrivals

January 21, 2022

No Easy Way Down - Carole King [from Writer]

a song can be considered a synthesis
from a certain (analytical) standpoint 

words / music / person(s) of the singer(s) / person(s) of the instrumentalist(s)
in any number of weights and balances 

style and genre are just attitudes about the mix

Sleeping Fish - CEP (Caroline Polachek) [from Drawing the Target Around the Arrow]

circling bubble tones

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Christina Aguilera [from My Kind of Christmas]

I'm sure glad that first (way up there!) note she hit
wasn't the start of the songbook tune!
Whew! it wasn't. 

Add to the list of synthesis ingredients:
all the other ways it has been sung
(a song includes its history.) 

Ms Aguilera takes over the top over the top.

Recorded

January 15, 2022

Sidewalk Blues (take 2) - Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers [from Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers - Chicago Days]

the big holes are filled
(or not)
(often not)
calculated play
(they're calculating, so you folks can enjoy yourselves)

They're Red Hot - Robert Johnson [from The Complete Recordings]

for all intents and purposes, a rock and roll song

I Be Bound to Write To You - Muddy Waters [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

a complete absence of any pretended stage
he's in the room he's in
(if it's a room)
and nowhere else
singing for himself
and whoever else is there
and none else

Thrivin' from a Riff - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy and Dial Master Takes]

quick internal bounces
ricochet

Crying - Blue Smitty and his String Men [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

his guitar talks faster than the rest of the band put together
thin line between blues weariness and sultry

Mona - Bo Diddley [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo's Milieu]

huge sound for just a voice a guitar and a shaker

Village of Love - Nathaniel Mayer and the Fabulous Twilights [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

old school engineering
everybody is playing together
no overdubs
no separation of tracks

Lucifer Sam - Pink Floyd [from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn]

a very large cat howling in the keys
it aims at
what would function as the hook at the end of the chorus
"that cat's something I can't explain"
but here it's only its function within the song
not a device to sell records
by being certain
everybody knows the title of the song
when they go to the store

Song Seller - Paul Revere and the Raiders [from The Legend of Paul Revere]

now with a synthesizer
but it so could have been kazoos

Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me - The Rumour [from Max]

epistolary
or straight up personal plea
the brass are in the next studio over

(movements in 3) - Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [from A Cassette Player]

inside one piano
outside the other
now outside both
back
when minimalism and its repetitions
were being ruthlessly parodied
in practice rooms across the land

Young Fresh Fellows Theme - The Young Fresh Fellows [from Refreshments]

a turntable belt must have been loose
but only for a short time

January 16, 2022

Banned Rehearsal 306 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [September 25, 1992]

at the Tintinabulary pre-garage
alarms and fences
doings that do the doings of their doings
no entry bidden
denizens on edge
strings help
something to pluck and strum
flutes and ocarinas vie
"I think of gangrene"
anti-pro-life spots
perhaps they arrived in the mail
ACLU Radio Network
A Chorale is played
upon the Wurlitzer Funmaker Sprite
upon the death of Socrates
after the lecture some activity is called forth
where music rubs its face in life as lived 

Instruc

Ional

Words

InRegard

ToTruth

table of unique letters in the foregoing: C L W EG H

ORT

HUTT

Socrates is dead. Where is he dead? 

Ashes! Ashes!

it must not be permitted
that every statement
that wants to be true
become true 

is
to have become true
false?

a tattoo upon the snare drum is tapped

{from my journal entry of April 17, 1995:

sounds like the warmup to a noisy session
LOGIC LESSON
- a near truth is not a kind of truth, but rather a kind of falsehood
pushing the envelope toward abusive noise
simplistic
rather violent explosive space
shoving
in what shapes do these sounds expand
there's that drumming}

Honey - Mariah Carey [from Butterfly]

built to sound like all of these vocals
are whispering their sweet nothings
in yours
a bit suffocating though
like heavy perfume

Untitled (Slow Waltz) - Gavin Borchert - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church, on February 23, 2002]

melody slips easily off its Gymnopodie-metrical pedestal
then dances around it sadly

(this piece holds up real well.
It lives where pitchwork meets touchwork
deeply pianistic)

We Take Care of Our Own - Bruce Springsteen [from Wrecking Ball]

the orchestra is everpresent
everhuge
and has a great deal of detailed sound in it
all of it
insistingly
the same as every other sound in it 

stadiums have got to be filled
you've got to fill stadiums

Chaotic Heart / Forest of Thorns - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at the High Dive, Seattle, on April 6, 2012]

bass drum throbs its beat
in Chaotic Heart 

deliciously cruddy sound throughout
altar call songs
are all too long
they presume
a long line
or indecision of the called

Song 1 - Sun Dummy [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, on April 27, 2017]

confessional
in a thoughtroom with Waxahatchie or Courtney Marie Andrews

January 17, 2022

Galiarda, Fvb 75 - Peter Philips - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

motion holding still
overlay of now
on a briefly memorized frame of timespans
in pitch
gentility

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Prelude and Fugue in G-sharp minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet

overlay upon overlay
sudden offsets direct the flow of attention
shingles and rain 

we are being led away
without our seeing it

Sonata in D Major, Kk. 160 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

two big pauses in part one
harmonically chromatic articulation points
setting off the area of minor-mode inflection
which is picked up at the start of part two

Keyboard Fantasia in E-flat Major, H. 348 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi

fortepiano
fun with the damper pedal
music on a stage
declaiming
an extended introduction to a cadence

Symphony in A Major, Op. 92 (#7) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood

tiny internal details develop into the next new thing
the 4th beat is crucial
mind how it grows
great timpani part throughout
quick tempo for 3 does some strangeness to the meter in the trio
pumping up the bellows
attention perpetually drawn forward
pulled like a river current

January 18, 2022

Ballade in F minor, Op. 52 - Frédéric Chopin - Vladimir Ashkenazy

floats in
almost floats off
accumulates presence in its re-telling
lost in thought
it recalls retelling
fragile remnants of retelling
trapped in amber
dissolving
a decision is made about it
the bureaucracy is abuzz
till safely hid

{from my journal entry of March 20, 1995:

Mozartean simplicity
restraint?
passion
complex relations of contrasting texture
contrasting gesture complexes}

Stackalee - Frank Hutchison [from The Anthology of American Folk Music]

rubber tired hack
more than that
and murder
in common with Frankie and Johnnie
also
an irregular pattern of verse size to chorus size

Hobo's Last Ride - Buell Kazee [from Evans 78s]

not much left to hear but the strum
somebody's singing back there
but the sound can't get over the guitar (and banjo?)
there may even be another singer
who knows!

Heavenly Vision - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers [from Goodbye, Babylon]

more story telling
strophes organize the story
into relatable chunks

Bring a Little Water Sylvie - Lead Belly [from Where Did You Sleep Last Night - Lead Belly Legacy Volume 1

work song? instructions? plea?
a fragment

Body and Soul - Eddie Jefferson [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

comes on like a supersophisticated jazz number
but he crams more words in than he possibly ought to have tried
a regular litany of ways to say I love you
just goes on and on
then goes on and on
somewhere
some more

By Myself - Judy Garland [from Alone]

talking oneself into courage
ends with a showbiz kickerhit
!chunk!

Alleluia - Emma Lou Diemer - University of Puget Sound Women's Chorus

is the composition of music for various ensembles
such as brass ensembles,
various vocal groups etc.
a kind of an equivalent
to genre writing in fiction? 

the practice
certainly attracts
certain composers
and has its own stylistic trajectories
often disregarding
on the surface
what's going on in more self-consciously rarified realms

(You're Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher - Jackie Wilson [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

words voice music
which is vehicle for which

Cut One - Anthony Braxton - Anthony Braxton [from Saxophone Improvisations/Series F]

a difficult land to traverse
each step is an obstacle
valiantly
an effort is made

Something Better Change - The Stranglers [collected from Nancy's Mix]

for a guy telling me that something better change
this stays utterly the same
start to finish 

music words attitude

Mile High Club - Bow Wow Wow 

no surprises none

Assembly Rechoired 16 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Paul Eisenbrey [February 21, 1987]

I think we were trying to do some sort of tape loop?
[NB: nope]
used to have Air Supply on it
we were actually
I think
trying to get it to play our greetings back at another speed
we were fiddling
somebody has a kazoo
big and slow happy birthday
playing with tape speeds
Karen is amused
as are we all
especially by our laughs
we discover some new ways to put more signal on magnetic tape
than it was designed to hold 

realtime demonstration of our low fidelity means
in the end stymied by a mechanical device
alas
we were having fun
then we broke it

January 19, 2022

Chorus of the Cigarette Girls - Georges Bizet [from The World's Greatest Choruses]

where greatest stands for most popular
among a certain segment of the music purchasing public
this probably works better in the show

Banned Rehearsal 462 (analog) - Pete C, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

pin those VU needles!

That's what they're for. 

In your face.
limited space 

definitely a synth involved
or a more adept guitar player than I
perhaps Pete 

we were digitally subdued
but are analogically pretty darned noisy

{from my journal entry of April 10, 2005:

immediate response is that I like the sound of this one better
as harsh and distorted as it is it fills the space
might be partly microphone placement and/or levels
perhaps the digital version could be squished somehow
so as to bring up the generality of it
a strong sense that we are participating in the same sound
even the boneblatt
even what is marred by the mindless drumming
is saved by some stunning roars
from some unknown instrument
the synthesizer perhaps
and the generally high level of playing
keyed into sonority
constructing rhythm from sonority
rather than structure from rhythm
which may be a way
one of many
to distinguish between the kinds of musical activities
best
most efficiently
produced by improv
as opposed to composition
improv can work really well
if the activity is the end product
rhythm produced by the careful intermanipulation of sonorities
could be broken up here where things get tiny
1/2 way in
if it is efficient so to do
a coda
Western movie guitar with rattlesnakes}

Guitar Concerto - Michael Nicolella - Northwest Symphony Orchestra, Anthony Spain, Michael Nicolella

an aspect of impressionism as it manifests in music:
melody pitchwork harmony figuration
all become means of texture formation
big tunes harmonic drama eschewed
in favor of a present sense
a sound that may have been made up of all those things
but of which those things aren't what's happening

Consider the Birds 43 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]

as these occasional episodes of quiet sound bursts pass by
it is clear from the flavor of their rhythmic presentation
that they belong with each other
they don't surprise
are of a piece with each other
they speak the same rhythmic profile

Creeping Starfish - Chris Brokaw [from Tidal Mud]

garage prog?
easy ID with track title
one imagines a documentary
long lovely shots
of our undersea polyarmic neighbors
slowly hunting their armored prey
seems to be recorded with a microphone rather than line-in
we hear presumed sounds of the room
crumar-era string synth?
could also imagine an old electric organ
I keep hearing what might be evidence of dual manuals and mechanical vibrato

Sixty Eight Chevelle - Your Mother Should Know [from demos recorded on February 23, 2017]

an ad
hope to keep in the family
song:
words / music / performer's-bodies(presence)

January 20, 2022

Passamezzo Pavan and Galiarda Passamezzo, Fvb. 76 and Fvb. 77 - Peter Philips - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

homogeneity is a tool to focus the ear 

hypothesis:
it needn't be an obvious or even derivable homogeneity
any set of rules will do the same thing

each species of homogeneity
allows a focus on a new universe

a homogeneous surface disappears
that's its purposes 

when we listen to any rules-based (homogeneous) surface
the point is NOT to determine the ways in which it is homogeneous
to discover its rules
but
to discover what is revealed by its particular transparency

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Prelude and Fugue in E minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet

LH doesn't care
what travails RH bewails
they merge in horror

Sonata in D Major, Kk. 161 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

gives himself writer's prompts
an avid user of empty time
space for all of us to wonder
where it might land
a structure of places it did land

Fantasy in A Major, Wq. 58.7 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi

a solid base and the space it opens within its confines
(more fortepiano)
(as opposed to clavichord)
(if you open this door the basis of geometry shifts)
una corda?
or some other mechanical device
these Fantasias are much stranger
far less dramatic/architectural than Mozart's or Beethoven's keyboard Fantasias
far more willing to wander off for days at a time
may not return as such

Symphony in F Major, Op. 93 (#8) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood

several symphonies attempting to occupy the same timespace
shouldering each other aside
laying snares 

tells us all about it too
like a clown in opera buffa

metrical modulation from one sense of a larger downbeat to another 

stretti on the loose!
run for cover! 

endings have got to be snuck up upon

Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53 - Frédéric Chopin - Arthur Rubinstein

Forward!
Ever Forward!
Every Soldier a Hero!
Remember Your Mother and Sisters Back Home!
Valiant Be!
Acclamations!
Applause!

In Session at the Tintinabulary

January 16, 2022

Magnuson Park 220116 - Keith Eisenbrey

As Karen and I were walking in Magnuson Park last Sunday afternoon we were regaled by a frog pond. I recorded a minute of it.

January 17, 2022

Banned Telepath 80 Tintinabury - C, D, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Karen and me at the Tintinabulary, with C, D, Anna, and Neal narrowcasting from Outpost Lake City

Banned Telepath 80 Theremud - Steve Kennedy

Steve was at Outpost Theremud

Banned Rehearsal 1043 - C, D, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer

And here we are all together

January 19, 2022

Anybody's Fingerbook 3x3 (transpositional) A B C - Keith Eisenbrey

January 21, 2022

3 Two-Part Inventions in G major - Gavin Borchert

I played these well but there was a technical issue so I'll redo them.

Anybody's Fingerbook 3x3 (transpositional) B C D - Keith Eisenbrey

Joshua Tree Prelude 1 - Aaron Keyt

also a technical issue with this one, so re-do

Prelude in C Major (shiny) - Keith Eisenbrey

this one came out pretty well

Ibb 2004 - 2022

Postscripts

Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery 

These are all from my journal entries in 1987:






Saturday, January 15, 2022

Playlist

Preface

"So how does storyfree attitude or affect transfer (metaphorically or affectively) onto a particular music? Just by conditioning the attitude and affect of the reader within the psychic atmosphere of listening - implanting the image of the attitude and affect of the commentator as an incorrigible authority, an unimpeded transference from one psyche to another with a music-text juxtaposition as its symbolic vehicle? Even where there's real, even deep, musical thinking underneath, it remains exclusively in the possession and to the benefit of the perpetrator. Something you  might call 'political' ahead of calling it 'musical'? Isn't the presence or at least the implication of 'we', the authoritative universalizing 'we' (even when it's inscribed as 'I') rather than the confessional self-circumscribing literal 'I' an infallible symptom of the political - lurking somewhere in the mix at least?"

- Benjamin Boretz - "inside in, outside out"  

from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020

Texts

From Recent Arrivals

January 8, 2022

Ansâri "Tu es tout et c'est tout" - Giles Tremblay - Aventa Ensemble [from Chants Convergents]

soprano vocal
set among atolls of percussion sounds
including piano
as one among them

suddenly
a clarinet steps
from out of nowhere
outcome uncertain

Shiroi Ishi - Ken Ueno - the Hilliard Ensemble

why is it
that choral music
in particular
conjures
for me
architectural spaces?
::
out in the wild
when we went out in the wild
such music is most commonly heard
in large cathedral-like spaces
and is often composed with such a venue in mind
and
it would seem
here
to be recorded in such a space 

but these are facts
not to be trusted
in aesthetic matters 

individual voices
conjoined in a sonorous whole
we want
and construct
a room to hold them 

that's part of it 

when the song is ended
the space it created lingers on

January 10, 2022

Great Northern, 34428 - Olivia Block [from Innocent Passage in the Territorial Sea]

steamtrain chugchug rhythm
as the hills
and trees
and houses
and fences
and lakes
and clouds
shift
in silken parallax
their relative sizes
doppler
as they pass
from
in front
to
in back 

the steel shines

Swell - Steve Layton [from Liminal (Pandemic 7)]

successive impacts excite an undulatory medium
absorbing all
at near critical mass
it nearly stabilizes
into self-perpetuating undules 

happy sparks glimmer within it
releasing energy
it fades

January 14, 2022

Sweet Dreams - Beyoncé [from I Am . . . Sasha Fierce]

all hooks
all the way down

Witchcraft - Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro, Paul Motian [from Portrait in Jazz]

he floats
a deft touch
they float together

Teach Me Tonight - Blossom Dearie [from Once Upon a Summertime]

right down to the X Y Z of it
the bass player has a lagging swing in this solo

Closer To You - Brandi Carlile [from Brandi Carlile]

epistolary song
verses aim at the title hook
a commercial maneuver 

interesting take on the diphthong of "ground" at the ends of the choruses.

Recorded

January 8, 2022

Banned Rehearsal 461 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 9, 1997]

if this music evokes an architectural interior space
it isn't that of a cathedral
imposing and suppressive
but perhaps a grown-up version of a preschool classroom
certainly
the social  interactions
among the voices and individual
are not overtly cooperative
but more cooperational
(distinction? hm)

we are allowing each other space
not striving together toward a common known goal
yet it does build up slowly
brakes on
unsure of hazardous corners ahead 

this music
also
is not on a stage
directed at us
the audience
it may not even be directed at its coparticipants
its sounds are directed at its sounds
themselves
for the passing earbrains
to consider 

Isaac fusses
the heat has been lessened
might be nap time

its interior
is that
of a collective
or assembled earbrain set
it invents its experience
thus inventing itself
or
it is an experience
inventing itself
with itself 

nap time done
bang bang bang bang bang bang bang
very like a small child 

the mighty W has been awakened
back in the box
guitar has been put away
piano works things out in the corner

{from my journal entry of March 30, 2005:

gently gathering. focused non-alienating thick with sound but quite transparent lovely lovely moments long and spacious Isaac has lots to say.}

Don't Cry Tweedle - Anorak [a Rescued Record]

distortion free synthetic comfort sounds
pretty
like harp sounds
or classical guitar sounds
are

January 9, 2022

Consider the Birds Mix 5 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]

one takes on faith
that a determinable sequence exists
one event following another
allowing for the possibility of simultaneous events
to within agreeable tolerances
but that isn't how we experience it 

on one level
it proceeds as one might imagine
the fluttering of leaves
or the twinkling of stars
or another
as a sequence of
or flow of
immediately near groups of sound bursts 

of particular interest
is that we can process 'simultaneous' unfoldings
of discrete timbre sets
i.e. a sequence of bursts of one timbre
going on in proximity
to sequences of bursts of other timbres 

[NB: when I first finished it Karen thought it sounded like birds hence the title "Consider The Birds" (How They Bicker)

that the sequences
of bursts
of various timbres
overlap
is clear
but how they interlock
within their overlapping
is neither clear
nor
apparently
a crucial part of our perception of them

October Celebration Songs - Low Hums [from Low Hums LP]

sequence
events are aligned and crossed
and it would be a fairly simple matter
to accurately transcribe that sequence of the whole
but that isn't how we experience what's happening
the timbres each have their own sequence of events first
before they fit themselves into the more global sequence of events

Fish Distributor - Your Mother Should Know [from demos recorded on February 23, 2017]

the demo format allows the song to shine
without obscuring it with showboating

Tirsi. di Luca Marenziosa, Freno, Così morirò, Fvb 70-72 - Peter Philips - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

here
all sequence is made crystal clear
each successive subdivision in its place
there is no confusion
all is right with the world
so as
to provide a polished surface
for intricate and subtle pitch play

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1, Prelude and Fugue in A minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet

phrases answer each other
(balance)
phrases echo down the halls
('sequences' as a technical term)
as subjects chase each other
in the fugue
the same time
goes by
several times
from other points of view
sequences (the term) can clear the air
to start over in a new place
sequences built from fragments of the subject
somehow
do both at once

Sonata in C Major, Kk. 157 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

balance and sequences
(the term, as above)
and disbalance
or
balance and sequences
play within each other's spheres

Concerto in C Major, Wq. 43.2 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Melante Amsterdam, Bob Van Asperen

a quasi-chamber concerto
in that the instruments are playing against each other's sound
as much for their amusement
as for ours 

orchestration:
OK, Berlioz revolutionized how orchestration is considered
by systematically ignoring how the orchestra came to be
(which is:
a body of strings
to which additional instruments are added
as budget allows)
and working only
with how the instruments sound 

but the old way had its masters too

Symphony in F Major, Op. 93 (#8) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, William Furtwängler

insurgent figures push things around
explosive energy
and the proper time for their accomplishments 

tick tick tick tick
note how the metrical insistence of the melodic parts
order
the tick tick tick tick
variously 

in the 2nd movement
group one plays even quarters on 2 and 1
then rests
for the next 2 and 1
another group alternates
each's quarter note 1 is a 2 
and each quarter note 2 is a 1
so where are we anyway?

disrupting balance is the game
the means:
starting over on top of what was going on
using 2 as 1
contradicting the balance of one strand with an alternative balance on another strand
which is why
the over-the-top-goes-on-too-long ending cadence
works for me
it is a summation of all the games

January 10, 2022

Mazurka in G Major, Op. 50 #1 - Frédéric Chopin - Vladimir Ashkenazy

close in spirit
compositionally
to Scarlatti

The Chant (Take 3) - Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers [from Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers Volume 1 - Chicago Days]

establishes home base
steps out
checks back
now and then
but mostly
stepped out
brings the party home

Hallelujah, I'm A Bum - Frank Wallace [from Evans 78s]

this song is entirely focused on telling us about the singer persona
the guitar accompaniment is as plain as it could be
and the tune matches 

the music portion is entirely subservient
to the display of the words

Joe Turner Blues - Son Simms 4 (Muddy Water) [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

one could almost say the same about this
except that the vocal delivery is showy
but the band essentially keeps time
until they get to do a chorus alone
which breaks the rhythm
and sets up the last verse
as being the end

Now's The Time - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy and Dial Master Takes]

dance derived
the framework keeps your steps straight
call
response
intro
blues changes
the solos persist into the next verse
the next soloist picks it up
near
but not at
the beginning

Catfish Blues - Bobo Thomas, Sunny Boy Williamson [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

call and response
a concretion of the necessity for another voice
in any conversation
it is
the us
in what he says
to us 

language as a social interaction
the surface of response

Hey Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo's Milieu]

train chug chug rhythm

Undated Selections - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon

from among my Mom's tapes
some tracks were not labeled
this is a group of them
starts with a rather solemn Hallelujah
Baroqueish
with answering choirs
2 what wondrous love is this
3 is a homophonic part song
harmony points to late 19th Century or later
4 has impressionistic leanings as does
5 Holst or that era?
6 is a setting of a folkish tune
British Isles or environs
as is
7 and

I don't know
but I suspect
these were copied from the original reel to reel tapes
by playing them into a space
and recording with a microphone
the sound quality is phenomenally bad

Cold Sweat (Parts I and II) - James Brown [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

the band is a bass and a guitar
the details are just additional color and accentuation
thou shalt not play any note longer than James sings his longest note
and if you get close you
should clear it first

Rock & Roll Lullaby - B. J. Thomas [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

a country song if ever there was one
nice backup singers!

Breaking Glass - David Bowie [from Low]

fades out before it becomes a song
proto-80s sound

Room in a Music - Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [from A Cassette Player]

words listed aloud
and piano sounds

Finest Worksong - REM [from Document]

words and pitches chosen to
pop!
within the 80s engineered sound
what the drill bit hears

Banned Rehearsal 305 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [September 18, 1992]

blatantly discrete sounds
drum rattle harmonica flute
harmonica exteriorizes the diaphragm rhythm
long pressurization
sounds change
but the blatant discretion remains
John says Mama
Mommy's sleepy
how many vacuum cleaners
and how many don't?
there is no dirt
in a vacuum
toe knee Bennett!
knee toe keen
we are without a phone bone
oh dear
sleepy boy fuss
Yuppies raise brie
underarm cheese genetics
some big yawns
a kind of a knotty room
Toad Hall perhaps?
knotty tuba room
we poke at Stimming
||:Huey Dewey Louie:|| DONALD DUCK!
Micky Mouse Mackey Messer
Mickey Mouser
Ronald Reagan Donald Duck
Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee
who was Michael Dukakis's running mate anyway?
catch the running toilet
wake up foot!
no more night night

{from my journal entry of April 13, 1995:

in Aaron's Woodchamber. How many vacuum cleaners? How many don't? naughty room nightly Knot}

January 11, 2022

Letters to the Lord Himself - Bombdrop [from The Carlos Compilation (a Rescued Record)]

I suppose this is punk
or at least the opening is
followed by a quieter stretch
then another
I have no idea what the vocalist is shouting
but it doesn't sound nice
stripped down arrangement
capable of being played while impaired
nothing fancy that would be likely to fall apart

Preludes 1 through 8 - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, on February 23, 2002]

from my recital Continuity in Small Things
20 years ago
golly 

it has often recurred
in my career as a pianist
that I will struggle with a piece
uncertain how to play it
so that it 'makes sense'
the A minor Prelude of this set is an example
usually upon listening back
I find that I did just fine 

lovely clear little compositions

waiting room - Tom Baker Quartet [from look what I found]

poking and prodding
an inert substance

Always Be You - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The High Dive, Seattle, on April 6, 2012]

verses move to the chorus
and choruses move to the hook

Track 1 - Mud on My Bra [recorded live at The Sunset Tavern on April 18, 2017]

power through two quick songs
why waste time
a feel-good punk band
such fun
such care!

Pressure - Leanna Keith - Keith Eisenbrey


I wanted, as I worked on it, to interpret Leanna's graphic score minutely, line by line, mark by mark. Clavichord (her highest written note is the highest note on the instrument) and the dynamics in the first line include a PPPP (very clavichordian). The video developed because I can't get good sound (on video) of the clavichord, or haven't yet, but I wanted something. I like that it turned into what appears to be a badly run, stuttering, slide show that, ne'ertheless, interprets the score as well, but from within its own time world.

Fece de voi à 6, Fvb 73 - Peter Philips - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

trying on different sets of jewels
alternate costumery

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1, Prelude and Fugue in A Major - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet

1
counterpointed activity streams cooperate
holding each other by the hand 

2
the fugue defies meter at any larger grain
than 2 successive eighth notes

Sonata in C minor, Kk. 158 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

secret:
it's all development section 

but development is not the right word
extrapolation section
figuring out section
riffing section
try something similar section

Keyboard Fantasia in E-flat Major, Wq. Deest. H. 348 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi

on fortepiano
pedal to the floor
in the guise of a dramatic declamation
with ornate continuo support

Symphony in A Major, Op. 92 (#7) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer

if a tonal space is filled up
a leak will eventually develop
flutes and oboes found it
on the high dominant
second movement begins on the low strings of the low strings
as higher frequencies are added
the nearness of the ensemble is made apparent
it passes by
for its second appearance
it approaches by gathering around us
arising then at full power
leaving us with our thoughts
and broadsides scattering in the wind

Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot [1933]

recklessly propelled
energy in abundance
but smarter than it sounds

January 12, 2022

I'm Proud of a Baby Like You - Jean Goldkette [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

a professional orchestra for dance clubs
complete with a single verse for vocal ensemble
was it a legal requirement
or a social expectation
that there be vocalists
or that an orchestra must include a group that sings and/or dances?

I Would Do Anything for You - Art Tatum [from Classic Early Solos]

opens with a group of figures
the first of which returns
just before he takes off
lickety split

Mean Old World - T. Bone Walker [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

blues with a piano,
drummer (brushes),
and bass
as well as guitar and vocal 

some blues songs go for specificity of lyrics
this one tries for a more generic, universal, statement
a resigned weary method of getting by
the specificity is in the relations among the instruments
and their commentary upon the vocal

Cotton Fields - Lead Belly [from Where Did You Sleep Last Night, The Lead Belly Legacy Volume 1]

the tempo responds to his urgency
softpedal on the downbeat when he wants to push forward

It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels - Rosalie Allen [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

instrumental verse
to allow some respite from a strong vocal
allows her two entrances

Gruppen - Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester, Karlheinz Stockhausen

for four orchestras if I remember correctly
L F R B
reduced to two channels
the effect on this end
is not of multiple orchestras
so much as of a single widely spread-out orchestra
with pointed intent as to where each instrument is placed
there is no countable number of directions from which sound emanates
but perhaps as many as there are
instrumentsXnotes
interestingly
Up and Down
(U D)
weren't exploited as far as I know
the horizontal plane remains inviolate 

in contradistinction to the orchestra used later in Donnerstag and Sirius era Stockhausen
these folks are playing with each other not in spite of each other 

because they play in groups?
is this a "12-tone" composition (control?) of social intercourse?

Having A Party - Sam Cooke [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

I don't know if this is really possible so much anymore
DJs and radio not being what they were
the ubiquitous mashed potato

Don't Blame Me - Thelonious Monk [from Standards]

time waits for him
as it waits
for none else

This Land Is Your Land - Woody Guthrie [from The Greatest Songs of Woody Guthrie]

manifest destiny accomplished

New Feeling - Talking Heads [from Talking Heads: 77]

cleanliness lessons
from James Brown
industrialized music

Someone Like You - The Knitters [from Poor Little Critter on the Road]

epistolary song

Retrato de Euchababilla - Keith Eisenbrey - Paul Eisenbrey [recorded February 21, 1987]

I wrote this piece in April of 1986, in Port Macquarie, New South Wales, of all places. The score calls for oboe but my brother Paul plays clarinet so he kindly recorded it for me. We may have had the piano pedal down. My recollection is that it is 12-tone, after a fashion, one of my few. I was treating the row as an ordered list of tones to be explored slowly, with plenty of lingering and repetitions. I was not concerned with aggregate completion on any but the largest scale. Some years later I used this piece as a strand in my Toccata for solo piano, commenting upon the tone as it goes by with mod-17 counterpoints. The cassette tape ghost sounds occupy a similar dynamic area to the piano harp's reverb.

Erotica - Madonna [from Erotica]

coyly just evading the F bomb
an old old trick
but instead of filling it in with a non-rhyming replacement word
filling it in with some moaning 

eroticizing the word erotica
or working at it

I think Blossom Dearie actually taught it more erotically, even though from metaphorical distance
Madonna attempts to tempt
Blossom Dearie seduces

Banned Rehearsal 462 (digital) - Pete Comley, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

in a dark wood
a beast roars out
grumbles
smaller critters scatter
Pete may have brought his Theremin over
most everything is low in the mix
especially in comparison
to how I was setting the tape recorder levels back then
putting as much signal on the tape as I could get away with
often more
Neal I think is tuning up the Silvertone guitar
from way down low
Pete may have brought his guitar over as well
clearly a synthesizer is involved
several amplifiers
which might explain the low recording levels
sounds have a difficult time rising out of the equidistant murk
of course it may simply have been a weary session
lots of scribbling at a distance
that is the mighty Wurlitzer
which may have been the synthy sounds and Theremin sounds
or some of them

January 13, 2022

The First Day of School (intro) - Ice Cube [from The Predator]

institutional orderings about

Consider the Birds 11 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]

a series of sounds
not trying to be a piece of music per se 

rhetoric of course can't be avoided
but pretense can be 

isolating sounds to a certain extent
the mechanism of chopping
leaves aspects of the original continuity intact
so that the sounds we hear
group themselves timbrally
and also in a non-metrical*
but completely rhythmic way
*nonmetrical in the sense that
though there are repeating patterns of short and long time spans
they don't obviously sort themselves out along a steady pulse

Merce and Baby - George Lewis - Ensemble Dal Niente

birds are singing with the wind and hail
pitch fields relax downward
violin plays a song here
a party is starting
but not here
where songs and pitch fields weave
but here
the party beat reappears
insisting
but not on partying
march of sorts
before temple doings
exit stage out

Jerseyville, Illinois - Your Mother Should Know [from demos recorded February 23, 2017]

quite nice in spite of the odd balance and some minor textual fumbles

Pavana Pagget, Fvb 74 - Peter Philips - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

so patient
so that there is time within the meter
to go all Art Tatum every now and then 

first figures repeat beneath
as though always present

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1, Prelude and Fugue in E-flat Major - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet

the prelude
is a mini prelude and fugue
(in affect if not in fact)
archaic
with elaborations very like those of the 16th Century virginalists
updated into tonality
the fugue subject's rhythmic profile gets into everything 

Sonata in C Major, Kk. 159 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

crazy-ass trumpet fanfare
here come clowns!

Fantasia in F Major, Wq. 59.5 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi

I suppose F major is in there somewhere
eventually
Let's have a fantasy about it

fortepiano
nice sounding one too! 

I was thinking about F Major the whole time, I swear!
Found it at last!

Symphony in F Major, Op. 93 (#8) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan

1
more F Major
he always starts there
but goes off the rails
as he does with the meter

2
the smaller meter is always clear
Maelzel and all
but where the phrase might land
is up for grabs

3
let's play the same game
but now in three
the music offsets
repeats itself
in the background
as it moves along 

in the trio
the horns answer themselves
beneath the clarinets

4
bits of what comes later are heard in fragments
the whole Symphony and certainly this movement of it
is about how phrases coalesce into a cadence
which is why the ending is just right
it takes exactly that many iterations
of a big F major triad
in exactly those voicings
to get to
exactly
the end

Ballade in F minor, Op. 52 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot (1933)

something like what might be a key falls from the heights 

Cortot plays as though every note was the notion of beat reinvented
other tonalities lurk beneath this one
keep afloat if you can
they're hungry down there 

blizzards of tonal implication

In Session at the Tintinabulary

January 12, 2022

Anybody's Fingerbook 2x2 (augmentational) B A - Keith Eisenbrey

This has become, for me, an exercise in both reading and keeping things steady without rushing
success on occasion

January 14, 2022

2-Part Invention in G minor - Gavin Borchert

These pieces are dynamite clavichord etudes
they live in their exact touch

Anybody's Fingerbook 2x2 (augmentational) A (A) B - Keith Eisenbrey

that takes care of the 2x2s
onward to the ten 3x3s

Prelude in C Major - Keith Eisenbrey

I recently revised my 2011 set of 24 Preludes. In most cases the revisions consisted of removing the metronome marking and pedaling, which are aspects of playing piano that I prefer to work out separately each time. I may give this one another go.

Joshua Tree Prelude 1 - Aaron Keyt

A couple of weeks ago Aaron sent me a set of Preludes. I may give this one another go as well, but it's close.

Postscripts

Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery 

From my journal of 1987: