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| at Box Canyon, Mt. Rainier National Park |
"Turnus armed himself impatiently, raging
to fight. He put the bright
breastplate on,
bristling with bronze mail. His calves were cased in
gold,
his sword strapped to his side, his head still bare.
He
gleamed with metal as he swept down from the
heights, exultant. In his
mind, he'd already won"
Vergil - "The Aeneid" (translated by Shadi Bartsch)
Texts
Recorded
August 20, 2022
Praeludium, Fvb 151 - Traditional - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
even the utilitarian is ornate
the ornateness of this music
the industrial regularity of our music
hm
musics and the cultures of their manufacture
Sonata in F Major, Kk. 195 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
a figure fountain for cooling minds
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| at Box Canyon, Mt. Rainier National Park |
1
the opening is a conversation that dives deep quickly
then a
song
then a dance and social chat
repeat
the materials form
an environment to inhabit
sequence specious
not to be used for
plot purposes
but this conversation needs following up on
which
alters our perspective
on song dance and chatter
2
the answering phrases answer in several different directions
the
moving figures he adds the next time around
are similar in kind to the
filigree that the Fitzwilliam folks composed with
but different in
effect
on both the whole
and on the underlying foundation
3
the little comment voices have their own story to tell
a
carnival ride
we are on it
as long as the ride goes
but we
lose track
of how many times around we go
4
being a social music
it paints a picture of social interactions
and we track it as we might on a stage
Caprice in C major, Op. 9 - Ludwig Schuncke - Tatiana Larianova
shadows deep in the minor modes
but if I wave my magic wand
all is
happy and gay
just don't dance too close to the edge
now in the
dark
but still gay and lively
[NB - many thanks to Peter Nelson-King for advising me of Schuncke]
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| Box Canyon, Mt. Rainier National Park |
and rocketing down the road
at 8 miles per hour
whee
wind in
our hair
bugs in our teeth
wave to everybody
cruisin' low
and slow
Turkey in the Straw - Hobbs Brothers [from Evans 78s]
capturing a manner of speaking within a music
like amber with bugs in it
like rap
When You're Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You) - Billie Holiday [from Lady Day, the Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia]
muted trombone
sweet
a song becomes a society of verses
everybody has their own room
Bongo Bop - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy and Dial Master Takes]
as though a dancer had learned to do their stuff
on a surface of melody
so that
the melody and the dancer
dance each other
Comment Allez Vous - Blossom Dearie [from Blossom Dearie]
the backup singers sound like they are singing with pasted on smiles
ala
Lawrence Welk
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| at Box Canyon, Mt. Rainier National Park |
Hallelujah I Love Her So - Stevie Wonder [from Tribute to Ray]
boy wonder
paving the way for Michael Jackson
A Time for Love - Morgana King [from Gemini Changes]
the moments at the ends of her lines
the last sung tone before inhaling
has it's own particular ping
that is the strangest vowel on her last sung "love"
irreproducible
Wings of My Love - Michael Jackson [from Got To Be There]
and there he is
right on cue
he must have heard me writing about
him
Lust for Life - Iggy Pop [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo and the Beat]
guitar string solo
the way the recording picks up the amps
each
guitar chord comes from a different stereo spot
I Love Paris - Screamin' Jay Hawkins [from Frenzy]
this backup choir is charming
more of that
must be grinning
insipidly at every moment
to get that sound
that smiling sound
Assembly Rechoired 24 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Antonia W [May 9, 1987]
plucked string
probably on a ukulele
and small percussions
boxes cans and pots and potlids
a didgeridoo and a system hum
and an ocarina and another pipe
all the bells and whistles
we have wandered among the rattles and the jangles
these are the knights
who knock sticks
trying out vowels in a can
bone on rock
we
are certainly touring a bunch of sounds here
quite the bag of tricks
can't leave out the funmaker
nor the Aaronsbundler
we join
its beat
in a rather haphazard way
it means well
once again
the application of rosin is heard on tape
wind up toys
cymbal bear
up close music box
real slow
broadcast
land got in through a hole in the wall
have you anything to say to
me
excellent question
Antonia plays with understanding right away
plugged the leak for now
didgeridoo cleans up the mess
funmaker gently leads us out
playing harmonica
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| at Box Canyon, Mt. Rainier National Park |
Primitives - T Bone Burnett [from The Criminal Under My Own Hat]
relies on textual repetition
on top of the chord change cyclicity
Go Deep - Janet Jackson [from The Velvet Rope]
how much of the point of the song
is the display of the money spent to
produce it
pop becomes an inexpensive luxury item
and to improve
the décor of any club or party
in which it might be spun for dancing
Canoe Arrival Song - Johnny Moses [from When The Humans Thought They Were People]
frame drum slow pulse
and pentatonicish sung melody
composed from
the inside of the singer's breaths
Sputnik Love 05 Mixdown 01 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 20, 2007]
rushing through a densely folded source
skidding on its surface
a
nervous steady state
rolling barrel internal experience
Sound Check - Red Ribbon [recorded live at the Blue Moon, Seattle, October 4, 2012]
this was
as best I know
their first show
Rocks and Glass - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, April 27, 2017]
what one pictures oneself as being
is a barrier
a dangerous
fiction
or a strong current into perilous seas
beware the mermaids
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| Box Canyon, Mt. Rainier National Park |
mouth percussion
climbing a ladder on loop rungs
to where the
birds fly
start again
and we find strange critters
start
again
lift off
aloft
Alman, Fvb. 152 - Thomas Morley - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
gambits
compose out from a given line
compose a line within a
frame
mix to taste
Down Home Special - Henry Johnson and His Boys [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
viscous
molassical
heavy humidity
day move slidily
as
able
Love in Vain Blues (DAL 402-1) - Robert Johnson [from The Complete Recordings]
his tessitura and the sound of his voice both seem a little lower in this one
and his voice sounds more like a natural voice
than in some of his
recordings
evidence of RPM adjustments on other recordings?
in G I
think
L'Ana - Chubby Jackson [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
conversational scat
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| Box Canyon, Mt. Rainier National Park |
a tune and its chord changes
the ghost of the tune remains
within
the experience of the chord changes
as they continue
whether the
tune
or any part of it
is explicitly present
Pretty Peggy-O - Bob Dylan [from Bob Dylan]
seems like a put on accent
too good to be true
The Great Learning Paragraph 1 - Cornelius Cardew - The Montréal Scratch Orchestra, Dean Rosenthal
the tone is impervious to fire
stops are added
and pitches
intonation robust
and specific
considerations
of how
sustained tones hang in space
a rhetoric
of tones hanging in space
grates upon
the received notions
of musicality
sans
passing glances
a corporate announcement is made
and humans make
whistle stops
for the tones to hang in space with
those tones have
formed a matrix
wherewithin
the slide whistles and fipple flutes
flit and glide
the remnants
float to ground
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| at Box Canyon, Mt. Rainier National Park |
She Shook Me Cold - David Bowie [from The Man Who Sold The World]
the story of a personally legendary encounter music is jammed with sound leaving little air among the shredding
I'm So Glad - The Rumour [from Max]
anthemic but insipid generic arrangement
Way of the World - Flipper [from Generic]
filling a noisy establishment with sound
so that it must be heard
whether
listened to or not
providing an experience for the bar dwellers
so that
one
will remember having been there
attitude signaling
Silver Bells - London Symphony Orchestra [from Songs for the Holidays]
arranged and recorded
with the presumed presumption
that nobody will ever
really listen to it
put it on the stereo and turn it down low
to complete
one's decorating
Cross-Eyed Gopher - Mike, Peggy, and Penny Seeger [from Animal Folk Songs for Children]
vocal part of the song is a single line finger picked banjo part is much fancier
Keep on Rockin' - Shonen Knife [from Brand New Knife]
this song has an unfanciness to it that endears like an eternally friendly Ramones
Gradus 14 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 13, 2002]
in what sense might it be reasonable to assert
that
two tones are listening to
each other?
a tone made by someone listening
is heard by that someone
another
tone made by someone listening
is heard by that someone
the tones are heard
by
listening someones
or by a listening someone
and they are listening to each other
by means of
those someones
if those someones are one someone
then the means is
possible
simpler
or at least contained
within some one someone
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| at Box Canyon, Mt. Rainier National Park |
Through a Glass Abstractly - Tom Baker Quarter [from Look What I Found]
behaves like a self correcting system fluctuating within limits centered
Sound Check - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at the Comet Tavern, Seattle, July 29, 2012]
recorded with a digital video recorder so the sound is pretty horrid
James - Shelby Earl [from The Man Who Made Himself A Name]
the poetic address is to us mostly
but also to be overheard by the eponym
and
ultimately
by the singer
adventure pop sound
Banned Telepath 87 Breakfast with Chickens - Jennifer Chung, Aaron Keyt [June 5, 2022]
an avian soundscape
mostly twitters
but there may be a creek also
and some
incidental percussion
but the chickens are more quiet than those to which I am
accustomed
unless they are the percussion
honk honk
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| at Box Canyon, Mt. Rainier National Park |
the matter:
graceful motion from place to place
the grace imparts itself to
each place concretely
a study in
here
and
between here and here
how here
is
between
and between
is here in transit
or
emptiness of moment between
as a
mode of grace
betweens that mark
betweens that move
some betweens simply stop
still
East Virginia - Buell Kazee [from Anthology of American Folk Music]
journey in constant motions
mythic stasis
Uncle Josh and the Honey Bees - Cal Stewart [from Evans 78s]
unmistakable rhythm of telling a joke
without discernable lexical content
beyond an occasional word or two
early comedy record
punctuated by the
teller's laughing at his own telling
Just One of Those Things - Django Rheinhardt [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
songs so familiar one does not need words
light on his fingers' feet
the clarinetist is no slouch either
Sinner's Prayer - Ray Charles [from Ray Charles]
the piano figure that opens
establishes an accent
on the front of the second
beat
that skews any ordinary sense
of how time proceeds
or could
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| at Box Canyon, Mt. Rainier National Park |
Roll Over Beethoven - The Beatles [from First Live Recordings Volume 2]
faster than the original
hard to tell from the recording
but the words are
slurred too
energetic but sloppy
the lead guitar is all over it though definitely worth the price of admission
George?
whomever, nice job
Quintet 3 - George Perle - Dorian Wind Quintet
wants to be understood as music is proposed to be understood
in terms of its
rhetoric of pitch and sequence
|| chicken pecks and donkey brays
farm chatter
|
| nocturnal tour
still camera shots
not without worrying suspense
|| getting
the morning moving along
for another weary day of doing
John Sinclair - John Lennon and Yoko Ono [from Some Time in New York City]
this one at least has an interesting sound
and an unusual little repetition
bit on "got to got to . . ."
15 times each time around
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| at Box Canyon, Mt. Rainier National Park |
the personal political
has more bite
than the topical political
Deep River - Christopher Parkening [from Simple Gifts]
certainly played with respect and sympathy
and skill
too pretty?
possibly.
Sonatina - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded at the Tintinabulary, Seattle, May 15, 1987]
on clavichord
the original intent
to take advantage of the intimacy and the
precision of its notes
the out of tune high notes don't bother me much
and the
sound of the recording is pretty good
considering what I was working with
for
me
this piece keeps me on the edge of my seat
though I remember it pretty well
I don't remember every detail
and even when I do anticipate
I still follow
eagerly
also
includes one of the few times I used an extended technique
on
a low D
hold the key down with one finger
and then strike it firmly and
sharply with another
a satisfying pitched thump
Capriol Suite (Piens-en-l'air) - Peter Warlock - English String Orchestra, William Boughton [from Meditations for a Quiet Night]
English counterpart of the American Romantic West:
the peaceful country life
at the center of a brutal empire
our just reward for stewarding the colonies
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| at Box Canyon, Mt. Rainier National Park |
vital rhythm of competitive talk
edge of song
the rhyme is only the half of it
Flick Fleck - Dubious Duo [from Children of Siberia]
tribute to Thelonious Monk
clear in the head
now there are two of each of them
this is much smarter than it sounds
hiding its brilliance behind DIY cheap
tricks
if it is clear what you are playing
not all of it need be played
quite
Sputnik Love 03 Mixdown 01 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 20, 2007]
for this instance of the project (Music as a Film)
I didn't keep each strand
but left cryptic notes for myself
the meaning of which is long forgotten and
obscure
even to me
"also part of Folds 1-4, as Sputnik Love is created out of
Banned Rehearsal 714"
the original sound was a portion of Banned Rehearsal 714
that much is clear
the name of this segment of the project
came at the end
textures like a rolling barrel
brute force granular synthesis
film and the
persistence of vision
creating the illusion of motion
music as film
the
complexity
or better
the density of impulses
overwhelming the illusion of
orderly sequence
sphering time
and then some
Journey in Satchidananda - Ask The Ages [from Ask The Ages]
this is a place
we have landed
it has a flavor
the place is dense with itself
the fruits are strange
their textures unexpected
it can't be brought back
on
one's feet all day is tiring
but we'll only be here the once
Focus - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, April 27, 2017]
a St. Rage song
the fictional band we love to cover
this one actually has an
oddly Nicoish vibe to it
Untitled - Daniel Husser [from 1 Month Challenge]
a sequence of four repeated several times
then a variation on a sequence of
four repeated several times
an articulation segment
and back to the original
sequence of four repeated several times
stop
In Session at The Tintinabulary
August 23, 2022
Prelude in F minor - Keith Eisenbrey
August 26, 2022
Prelude in F Major - Lockrem Johnson
I finally got this one at a likely tempo and weight so that it dances along
Postscripts
Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery
some listening journal doodles from 1990
