"The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted."
Charles Dickens - "The Posthumous Papers of The Pickwick Club"
Texts
Live
May 24, 2022
Modern Music Ensemble with UW Composition Students- Cristina Valdés, Director
Studio Theater - Meany Hall
stepS - Maxwell Williams - Kaelyn Barnes, Karen Dunstan, Aaron Butler, Megan Hutchison, Mia HeyYeon Kim
gamer thinking music
shades of Jay Hamilton
4 vocalists and a
pianist
game squares
moves
speeches
love the tape
removal sound
rare footage
of undersea volcanic eruptions
taken by drone cameras
riding the magma up into lava
Mal de Coucou - Ryan Carraher - Selina Siow, Savannah Helming, Mia HeyYeon Kim, Sophie Chin
tasks in orders
the result on this end is lovely
but it minds a
problematic
automatons and production roles
composer on one side
performers doing as instructed
Degenerate - Sandosh Nagaraj - Daren Weissfisch, Brian Schappals, Savannah Helming, Sandesh Nagaraj, Aaron Butler, Megan Hutchison, Mia HeyYeon Kim, Sophie Chin, Jonathan Rodriguez
big and brash
{NB: I had not been to the Studio Theater in decades. Way back in the way back when I might have been on one of these student composers concerts it was hands down my favorite venue at the UW. It was grand to hear music there again. I kept wondering how some of the pieces I presented in this space then would fly in this present company, and, with some amusement, wondering what some of the more stolid members of the composition faculty at that time long past would have made of these. All in all a truly enjoyable concert. Thank you!}
May 22, 2022
Praeludium, Fvb 120 - Traditional - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
traditional
not druid traditional
perhaps
traditional among
this bunch of virginalists
perhaps
simply unattributed
Mulieres Sedentes - Peter Philips - The Tudor Consort, Peter Walls [from Cantiones Sacrae Quinis Vocubus]
the opening harmony glows into pulsing being
in subsequent episodes
the changes pulse through the cathedral
the architecture and
composition conspiring
to place the music in the air
above the
congregation's heads
doesn't address them directly
Sonata in A Major, Kk. 182 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
a game is proposed
the registers throw it around amongst themselves
if something interesting comes up
they stop and consider it again
the figures are like game moves
played by the key regions
as
they take their turns
Waltz in F minor, Op. 70 #2 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot (1943)
Chopin's waltzes are a form of program music
they depict
the dance
as it dances itself
from the dancers' perspectives
memories of an
evening
the woodcutters start backstage
come out of the woodwork
as it
were
wonderful flow among the different types of music
recitative
patterned melodic composition
malleable to the needs of the drama
artificial
yes
but done so splendidly
the cannons of peace
then things go wrong
it's hard to join in the
general celebration
when you have
those
my lady love just
agreed to marry my dad blues
Billy Goat Stomp (take 3) - Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers [from Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers, Chicago Days]
that stomp rhythm gets a workout
variations of it
reimaginings of
it
allusions to it
one might say
that the piece is about it
but about
is the wrong word
it can be thought of
as a
plane of focus
Poor Tramp Has to Live - Jim Seaney [from Evans 78s]
in Woody Guthrie's neighborhood
Relaxin' At Camarillo - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy and Dial Master Takes]
flawless baton passing
nice distinctive piano figure to open and close
like the covers of a book
as a composing singer
she approaches the singing of this
how
exactly?
a way of saying the words
with a most particular reading
so that
they say what she's trying to
say without saying
composed inflection
May 23, 2022
James Alley Blues - Robert Zimmerman [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
my blues
is more blues
than yours
and wouldn't have it any
other way
Femme Fatale - Velvet Underground [from The Velvet Underground and Nico]
Nico does strange things with her diphthongs
almost eliding them
a
lisp of vowels
After All - David Bowie [from The Man Who Sold The World]
aestheticizing a mood
that is
making it as particular as it can be
built on the dynamics
between the lazy warm fuzzy band sound
and a vocal focused on intimacy
Oh Oh I Love Her So - The Ramones [from Leave Home]
the accented syllables have O in them
pattern OOIO
but pronounced
with an articulated two note figure on So
that is
O(h) O(h) I
(love her) (S)o-o
held within the measure
by rests on the beginning and ending eighths
creating a song as an object constructed of parts
packed in a box
sold
as art
arch art
Also sprach Zarathustra (excerpt) - Richard Strauss [from 100 Greatest Classics, Volume 6]
just the part we all know from the movies
Snow White - The Young Fresh Fellows [from It's Low Beat Time]
a song
followed by a second song
no attempt made to make them fit
into a single thing
or
a song in two movements
Miss You (Amended) - The Notorious B.I.G. [from Live After Death]
warm loops of female vocals form a subsong
that emerges as something
akin to a chorus
between the verses the gentleman is saying
would
the care with which syllables are accented and rhythmed
pull the music
apart
if not held so tightly to the metronomic
Into the Fire - Bruce Springsteen [from The Rising]
every damn song has got to be a pious anthem
must be exhausting
Consider the Birds 38 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]
here is the process
a segment of a then recent Banned Rehearsal
or
perhaps just one that happened to be on the hard drive
was subjected to
the following punishment
it was repeatedly diced into fragments
using an effect in Sound Forge
that would otherwise be useful for
imitating a helicopter
the parameters of the effect
were adjusted
with each iteration
so that
when layered on top of each other
they would produce
a texture of snippets
pulses
a new
texture constructed out of the old
For a Moment I Flashed on Summer - Steve Layton, Glenn Smith, Paul Mimlitch, Roger Sundström - [from Summer Mirages]
liquid languidity goes down easy
Jerseyville Illinois - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, March 27, 2017]
invented memory
for the rock and roll dreamers among us
happy town
back then
out there
anywhere
Roots - Jostaberry [from Roots]
conversational saying
sitting down at a table
dinner business
more here than 3 chords and the truth
especially in the chord
department
Pavana Lachrymae, Galiarda, Fvb 121 and 122 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
no roughness to disturb
no mosquito to annoy
all is soft and
pleasant
we can examine our spirits
Sugar Baby - Dock Boggs [from Anthology of American Folk Music]
the banjo answers itself
when the vocal isn't complaining to it
quick strum hand on strings
to end
no fuss just done
Drunken Hearted Man (DAL 379-1) - Robert Johnson [from The Complete Recordings]
plain spoken guitar playing
quite careful and clear for RJ
Astair
and Rogers dancing
Blind Lemon - Lead Belly [from Where Did You Sleep Last Night, Lead Belly Legacy, Volume 1]
he's an AmeriCAN
the words don't say as much about Mr. Lemon as the
guitar does
Iowa Stubborn - Meredith Wilson [from The Music Man, Original Cast Recording]
community pride in irascibility
as American as corn fritters
turn it up
aloft on the spring of every measured moment
In the Dark - Nina Simone [from Sings The Blues]
a dense weave of answering phrases
Pastures of Plenty - Odetta [from The Greatest Songs of Woody Guthrie]
in the first century that it became possible to wander the whole of the lower
48
workers did so
following the work
for good or ill
these were Woody's musefolk
Happy Day - Talking Heads [from Talking Heads: 1977]
a challenge to sing along with
the tracks are studio isolated
yielding control of the sound to engineer
overwhelms the song
Silver Wings - The Knitters [from Poor Little Critter on the Road]
driving a phrase into the sentimental clouds
Poetry - Boogie Down Productions [from Criminal Minded]
eight time slots for patterning
at one level
that can be plenty
Ghettos of the Mind - Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth [from Mecca and the Soul Brother]
rhythmicized feet in lines that aim long statements toward the title
which ends each successive long statement
Officium: Alleluia - Chant Mazzarabe - Ensemble Organum [from Portrait]
one purpose of chant was to depersonalize saying
Fantasy Pieces - Robert Schumann - Paul Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live in Sedro Wooley, April 14, 2002]
one of the last times I perpetrated repertoire in public
creditable job
for a couple of amateurs
in beautiful Sedro Wooley
at a chamber
concert produced by the orchestra my Mom was in at the time
hinter - An Auf [from An Auf]
steadily vibrating at a quiver
from below two pitches emerge
from
a slower throb
there are bees or neurons
or internal pressure is
released through various filters
that quiver or throb
doesn't move
itself
or us
from here to here
stays in in its own where
Banned Rehearsal 815 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [June 4, 2012]
Joyce mutters in a corner
rattles and scrapes and a gentle bell
piano tones
drum and a brass of some ilk
all muttering in
corners
percussion and brass bring in some energy
somebody is
digging around in the bucket of ping pong balls
Joyce
indeterminate
casts his pall
over all
extreme personification of sound
a rattle and its person are distinct entities
in earmind
verbal utterance overwhelms the distinction
between sound and person
a rattle can be anybody's sound
a voice cannot
voiceperson stands in front of voicesound
declamation is a surefire way to take center stage
End of the World - Prom Queen [from Doom Wop]
sockhoptorchsong
reducing global disaster to a vibe
or inflating a
teen disaster to cosmic scale
works quite well either way
Banned Rehearsal 1048 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt [assembled from Telepaths 84 on April 1, 2022]
a bird in the out of doors
is regularly tweeting an occasional tweet
into the mix
a proper part of the session
as experienced
since
what we are doing doesn't exclude it rhetorically
but organically
the tracks are isolated for pandemical reasons
nevertheless
we sound like an ensemble
because
no part of what we do relies on temporal coordination
only temporal transparence
we excel at transparence of the gooiest sort
for maximal transformational potency
transcendental coincidence
need not coincide
in fact
it can't
a chair
a window
and three red rooms
|| a word on how I go about mixing these together ::: balance: so that I hope no session overpowers the others done by spot checking; timing: looping as necessary or as seems convenient and/or fun; that's pretty much it I don't really hear the whole until later life is what it is ||| none of us at the hour of doing have heard what the others do or did or will do
In Session at the Tintinabulary
May 23, 2022
Banned Rehearsal 1051 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer
May 26, 2022
Joshua Tree Prelude 16 - Aaron Keyt
Prelude in B-flat Major - Ken Benshoof
May 27, 2022
Anybody's Fingerbook 5x5 (augmentational) B C D - Keith Eisenbrey
Joshua Tree Prelude 17 - Aaron Keyt
Sonata in C Major, Wq. 62/7 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
I've been working on this for some time. I'll probably give it another try soon, but this is not a horrible reading. I hold the tempo pretty well but as usual I could take my time more.
Postscripts
Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery
some listening journal doodles from 1989
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