"Speak through me, O Muse,
of that man of many devices
who wandered
much
once he'd sacked the sacred citadel of Troy.
He saw cities of
many men
and knew their minds,
suffering
many sorrows
in order to win back his life-soul
and the return of
his companions.
In the end he failed to save them,
in spite of his
longing to do so,
for through their own heedlessness they perished.
Fools
- who ate the cows of Helios-Hyperion,
and the day of their return was
taken from them.
Of these matters, goddess, daughter of Zeus, speak
through us
beginning wherever you will."
Homer - The Odyssey translated by Charles Stein
Texts
Recorded
December 11, 2022
Assembly Rechoired 31 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [July 30, 1987]
Karen does her impression of her brother, at five, reciting Yerdel The Turtle
I ring the big iron triangle
other childhood morality tales are
read
I play the thumb piano
greed and envy
bugle
Karen
receives a birthday call from someone
back to the stale egg on left
the worm's path of looking
is more circuitous than even straight
around the world
we must have acquired a bunch of Karen's childhood
books
so I read all the titles
hooting on an ocarina
getting
some echo somehow
hooting into a cowbell or other ringy metal device
I play the clavichord
Karen plays the fish whistle
I neglect
to stop before I start noodling aimlessly
I battle the windup plastic
bear
in a collaborative holding pattern
one of our cats asked
meow?
as though a wooden contraption were being cranked
bells are
clanged vigorously
Merry Go Round - Woody Guthrie and Family [from Woody's 20 Grow Big Songs]
a make believe game song
Little Wonder (video edit) - David Bowie [from Earthling]
a hook and fragments of narrative
coda
so far away
finds its
way back
so not a coda at all
Children of Siberia - Dubious Duo [from Children of Siberia]
playful discussion
back and forth
mock battle
Diapsalmata: 11 Preludes for Piano - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, March 17, 2007]
after all these years I still like these quite a lot
written in 1979
when I was at the UW
In the sense in which these are preludes
such as I understand preludes
to be
the key they each preface
is not even quasi-classically
tonal
except on occasion
it's the cadence that marks it
in
those cases
otherwise
minimally
they feature a pitch
the other notes
discuss that featured pitch
More Than Words - Prom Queen [from Covers]
somewhere between
the cleverness of the broadway folks
the breathy
intimacy of Janet Jackson
and the lift-your-wallet vocal line of Peggy
Lee
Jerseyville Illinois (demo 1 of 3) - Your Mother Should Know [June 15, 2017]
Jersey land of Bruce
Illinois land of birth
a ville of the Ill
a ville of Bruce
within the land of birth
Real and Imagined - Lori Goldston [from High and Low]
a string bowed in a hollow chamber
drone cavern
skry mouth
vibrating tongue
around which
assembles
speaking
Au travial suis - Johannes Ockeghem - Blue Heron, Scott Metcalfe
small scale direct imitation
measures both structural nodes
and a
span of comparison
among voices
and
a vector between
them as well
A Maske, Fvb 198 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
a creative agent
is one through whom their culture flows
the
further from our current culture that agent is
the more clear it is
that they inhabit(ed) a different planet
Sonata in A Major, Kk. 211 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
repetition as distraction
a tool
a part in a machine
to
manipulate attention and memory
this one makes hay out of single notes
repeated quickly
like a measured one-note trill
Impromptu in G-flat Major, Op. 90 #3 - Franz Schubert - Alfred Brendel
never far from song
flow of emotive expression
independent of the
ongoing pattern of the verses
a force incarnates itself
within the
body
of the one simple song
overcome
unbidden
Potato Head Blues - Louis Armstrong [from The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz]
a quick little number packed with precise breaths
Suite for Clarinet 1 - Johanna Beyer - Daniel Goode
1
rarely legato
short tones sparkle
2
careful breath lengths
in a dark house
night spirit
3
these sparks have an attitude
about the story they are
telling
4
snake in grass
moving fast
birds are watching
fangs
bared
Exactly Like You - Count Basie [from The First Records He Ever Made]
show tune favorites
first the snazzy arrangement
then sing the
song
The Man Looks Down and Laughs - Billie Holiday [from Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia]
the contour of the melody
word paints the looking down
and the
distance back up
part of the appeal
is the particular sense in
which
she plays the character whose words she is singing
How Deep Is The Ocean - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy and Dial Master Takes]
goes off to think it over
in his own space
From Folio: November 1952 - Earle Brown - Michael Daugherty
filtered solo piano
single line
a certain surface affinity
to some of the pieces in JK Randall's first batch of GAP pieces
New Rhumba - Miles Davis [from Miles Ahead]
in tight spaces
snaking through
Sheila - The Beatles [from First Live Recordings Volume 2]
vigorously drummed
Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk - Pink Floyd [from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn]
crank it up
take the tour
break free
hit the high ones
Summertime - Janis Joplin, Big Brother and The Holding Company [from In Concert]
Gershwin re-bluesified
ecstasy
closely held
Pretty Vacant -The Sex Pistols [from Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols]
at its best
punk has a distinct terroir
presumably even more
precise
than city
especially
a place like London
which
is so many things
flavor of a scene
Come Give Your Love To Me - Janet Jackson [from Janet Jackson]
the Jacksons came with their own terroir
and it's an expensive
neighborhood
so much repeating of hooks
Exercise for Hands Right, Left and Deserted Mouth: No. 4 Speaking Percussionist and Ditties- Richard Logan-Green - Bonnie Whiting [from Perishable Structures]
sounds accumulated
and passed
among stable events
and
relative locations
geographic places
have weather
and
inhabitants
resident weather
and migratory critters
scrounging out grubs
Vibes and Stuff - A Tribe Called Quest [from Low End Theory]
ringing pitch
after empty break
vibe as marker
start over
renew
dendritic
call outs
Banned Rehearsal 641 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 2, 2002]
my journal entry concerning Banned Rehearsal 641
Gumbo Staircase - Ghidra [from The Sound of Speed]
neck
and neck
from start
to finish
hard running
through the
deep mud
Banned Rehearsal 820 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [August 27, 2012]
I announce 819
but I'm incorrect
a room in which sounds are happening
I know where I am sitting within
this room
in which sounds are happening
the sounds take sides
eventually
the smaller sound prevails
we adjust to the level
of the prevailing intimacy
often a bumpy road
when we discover
where we stand
we can talk more freely
Cloud Man Calling - Tomten [from Cremation Songs]
greeting card song
a bit echoey for my taste
professional
competent
Banned Telepath 91 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály Meyer [August 1, 2022]
Roosevelt Station escalator comes by for a visit
jets pass over on their
landing patterns
elements of the whole enter gently
under cover of
pluck brush exhalations awakened
pick pock
click clock
high whines
from below
and
beside
sound transit does not tolerate harassment
pick puck
uke pluke
hoots and probes
seeking data
bearing no inquiries
within their remit
seeking input
only
as programmed
aberrant data
not collected
filter feeding only
A Maske, Fvb 199 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
for the most part
ornaments to below
if approached from below
and to above
if approached from above
my understanding is
that the notation makes no consistent distinction
Southern Shout - Dixieland Jug Blowers [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
intro to intro
the various sounds
then all together
then
subsets
weepy clarinets
brief airborne moments
the rhythm of
gravity
allowed
as in juggling
the high flung pins fall
Blues - Bugs Berigan, Fats Waller, Tommy Dorsey [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
trips into trumpet solo
controlled snare brush rolls
sheds
pretense
of a lack
of a continuum
between blues
and
stripper tempo
Monk's Mood - Thelonious Monk [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
times is other than what time is
some are slant to some
some sink
flow flows steady
Polka Dots and Moonbeams - Sarah Vaughan [from Swingin' Easy]
line ascends with a bump
excuse me
filled in ever after
Everybody Will Be Happy - The Staples Singers [from Hammer and Nails]
precision drill
straight through the needle
the long way
Group Variations - Benjamin Boretz - Group for Contemporary Music, Charles Wuorinen
moving across and into
parts of us caught up
release spring
forward antennae active
whisker twitch
tentacles
orchestra as a body
automata
score as program
and script
what part of the body is aware of self
Gotta Get Through Another Day - Carole King [from Rhymes & Reasons]
proto blogging
personal journal
What's Your Game - Ramones [from Leave Home]
keep conversation simple
loud music
enforces
displaces
unmoors
transports
Ellas - Moe Tucker [from I Feel So Far Away]
dark two-lane betweenlands
low angle shot
of needle in groove
of fly-over country
the time is big
and the road is long
it seems all right
but
it looks all wrong
inflect the silent [(sh)] <room>
lift chin sent teel
in the
silent room the word was felt
apologia to the auditor follows
questions are taken and addressed
time has no firm meaning
[clocks are industrialism machines]
the words spiral
arbitrary repression device
(preconceptions
are a delicate business:
self-fulfilling prophecies
or opened
paths)
A Minor Bird - Young Fresh Fellows [from It's Low Beat Time]
a kind of blues
but only in the sense of a conversation
with self
and an other
a trickster other
shape shifter
one's other
selves
Walk Away - Christina Aguilera [from Stripped]
within a blues possession
or inscription
negotiations
a
multiplicity of monologs
cuts off hard
presumably to segue to the next song
Fragments - Marcus Oldham - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church, March 17, 2007]
no performance will ever comply with a composer's vision
it can't
why insist
no audience can hear what a composer imagines
Something in My Blood - Lovesick Empire
fluid persona
Jerseyville Illinois (demo 2 of 3) - Your Mother Should Know [June 15, 2017]
see above
ville illi
One Way Or Another - Robin Holcomb [from One Way Or Another]
harmonic head rhyme
song extends to the end of the statement
statement hangs
song hangs
Pink Flag - Wire [from Pink Flag]
minimal harmonic articulation
internal patterning
next to buried
drum crescendi that start it
inflated
into the trajectory of
the main portion
then repeated
There's Something Wrong With You - Screamin' Jay Hawkins [from Frenzy]
free floating aspersions
against free floating object
cabaret
waltz
One (1987) - John Cage - Stephen Drury
the perception of an episode
is terminally inflected
by what we
think it is
going in
however
should I choose to do so
I could perceive this
for
example
as the residue of a highly determined serial work
in which
each note exists
within a taut web
of permutational and
transformational functions
and succeed
would that be wrong
or even perverse ?
if I choose to perceive it to be
what I presume it is
going in
is that proper
or less perverse
or simply more obsequious,
meekly compliant?
Waiting - Madonna [from Erotica]
the rhythm section she uses is true
for the chorus she adds horns and
strings
less believable
extended song form for dance club
Postscripts
Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery
some listening journal doodles from 1991
No comments:
Post a Comment