|
| are we being goosed or mooned here? |
"The virtues of avoiding thinking straight are underplayed.
Things issue
their hidden beauty in raw relations beyond comparison.
And now for the
questions that befuddle and do not need to be asked."
George Quasha - from "Not Even Rabbits Go Down This Hole"
Texts
Live
October 28, 2023
Cove - Kin of the Moon with Shadow Girls Cult
Heather Bentley, Kaley
Lane Eaton, Leanna Keith, Cassie Bray, Zane Exactly
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Rewilding - Heather Bentley
honed
it glows from inside its glow
slices wrapped
stowed
stands firm
adze words float free
purchase gained on grain
mineral geomancy
balance sempiternal
I Remember - Kaley Lane Eaton
Tokitae
Penn Cove
The Cosmic Sermon - Dominic Matthews
they sneak in while it's dark
mischief's ground laid
the Chapel
ghost may have joined the party
the whole wandering band has arrived to
stay
at last
repose
regions of doing
Cove - Heather Bentley (feat: Shadow Girls Cult, puppetry)
travel by foot
arrival
two paneled door
into the eye egg
October 28, 2023
Six Intermezzi, Op. 4 - Robert Schumann - Eric Le Sage
shape shifter
uncanny returns
motion
from moment to moment
of same or greater import
as motion
from movement to
movement
from between to between
counting betweens is a fool's
game
sequences of sequences
deceptive all
Impromptu in A-flat Major, Op. 29 - Frédéric Chopin - Garrick Ohlsson
so rational and clear compared to RS
though not lacking in fancy
or dreaminess
what balances stays balanced
disjunctures
allowed their space to process
all the ducklings accounted for
Sometimes I Sit Beneath The Tree - Charles Ives - Kia Sams, Russ Warner
stanzas begin in singsong
end in dreamy
Thelonious - Thelonious Monk [form The Complete Blue Note Recordings]
this melody plays true
straight to its mark
even while dancing on
wings unwavered
Miss Ann (Demo) - Little Richard [from Here's Little Richard]
I value these "deluxe" editions that include various versions of songs that
have become familiar in their finished releases
this is the song he sold
to the song producer
so money could be spent
to dress it up
The Part Where I Cry - Willie Nelson [from ...And Then I Wrote]
we know exactly what each word is doing
and why each note is what it is
Come Ye - Nina Simone [from High Priestess of Soul]
conduit for musics unforgotten and unforeseen
breaking free of the
backbeat hegemony
the virtual physical space the first instruments inhabit
is not that of
the vocal
Sarah
however
has got this song delivered intact
if not vastly improved
Overture-Cotton Avenue - Joni Mitchell [from Don Juan's Reckless Daughter]
avoids firm resolution into grooves
passes through them
comes in
back doors
may as well be this song as another
spit shine on its
dancin' shoes
Two Faces - Bruce Springsteen [from Tunnel of Love]
the Springsteenian "mister"
the fellow on the next bar stool
a
useful fiction
Old Bell'd Yoe - Mike, Peggy, and Penny Seeger [from Animal Folk Songs for Children]
fiddled into being
Sunday Afternoon - Paul Simon, Ednita Nazario [from Songs from The Capeman]
a people's experience and wisdom
A Better Future - David Bowie [from Heathen]
a musical stage show
song embedded in it
or
the stage show
is draped around song
transformation of words by melody
and of
melody by words
the act of singing
a crucible
Said George W. to The N.S.A. - Capitol Steps [from O Christmas Bush]
do you fear what I fear
Make The World Move - Christina Aguilera [from Lotus]
pop music (industrial)
distinguished by its elaborate packaging
product designed
to enhance the elaborate packaging
Four Winds - Steve Layton [from No Answer]
animated sparkle dust of prior power
it is amazing what a little thought
and imagination can accomplish
with little more than cheesy sci-fi
sounds
raises a question about music
whose instruments can't be
picked up and carried about
picking up their entire support structure
doesn't count
Totem 44 - Sascia Pellegrini [from Totem IV]
virtual environment
something big is crashing down
they are
knocking
so the drear vault is opened
they're leaving
up
they go
the spirit of this song has been lifted
Away In A Manger - The Philadelphia Brass Ensemble [from Festival of Carols in Brass]
presume
the soundtrack of Christendom
sentimentalizing itself out
of countenance
completes your decoration
Ages of You - REM [from Dead Letter Office]
are they almost pretending to be British
accent of the decade
guitar between lines :: carriage return
ding!
Town Called Malice - The Jam [from The Sound of The Jam]
doing David Bowie
or his kid brother
partying on down to social
commentary
Saturday Morning - Tyrannosaurus Grace [recorded live at The Rat and Raven, Seattle, August 9, 2012]
he's blaming somebody for something
Black Sweet Blood Mouthfuls - Greg Sinibaldi [from Ariel]
music can be a depiction of our inner state
an expression of that state
filtered through music's transformative thresholds
but
it is
still not that state
without pretending to be
or to express that
state
but it also
immediately
creates that state
Let's Not Kid Ourselves - Star Anna [streamed from Fiddler's Inn, Seattle, March 7, 2022]
when did things get so hard?
Nine Hundred Miles - Bob Dylan [from A Tree With Roots]
but we won't ride the whole way
dancing with the commentators
I Will Wait For You - Glenn Tate [from Some of My Favorite Love Songs]
a music can be a depiction
of a song
depicting a mood
ragtime harmonies
in Weimar cabaret act
Pie in the Sky - Ian Bell, John Teske [from Embers of Discontent]
come out every night
a pestilence
a curse
Track 6 - Arbor Towers [recorded live at The Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 15, 2017]
oh to be dark
and mysterious
moody
misunderstood
Midnight Rain - Taylor Swift [from Midnights]
weirdish filter
on the vocal occasionally
like a forced
sub-fundamental
Only A Northern Song - The Beatles [from Anthology]
anti-advertising
opposite mode to Roll Over Beethoven
Just Good Friends - Michael Jackson [from Bad]
blowing up a dance floor drama
life as performance fodder
City of the Dead - Pete Comley [from Lost City Music, Volume 2]
we are such a social animal
we postulate societies post-mortem
what else would we do?
Track 4 - Peterman [recorded live at The Blue Moon, Seattle, October 4, 2012]
a second-order meter
joining poetic meter
to dance meter
Be Good - Waxahatchee [from American Weekend]
the endless boredom of young adulthood
pushing strums into a jelly mass
to quiver it
response evident on
surface
reverts
postulating its internal vibration
volume
echo's manners of behaviors
drumbody
Surprise Surprise - X [from See How We Are]
word play
songwriting slam
Splashing 2 - Greg Sinibaldi [from Frieze of Life]
one steps
two steps
three steps
start over
start over
start over
slower
That's All Right Mama - Red Ribbon [recorded live at The Blue Moon, Seattle, October 4, 2012]
a cover remade from its own image
quite brilliant
Hey Myla (M.O.M.B.) - Mud on My Bra [from Demo #2 (Manger Studio Mixes)]
I wanna good mic stand
let's go!
freak flag flying
Mund-Phantom (Mouth-Phantom) - Eric Nathan [from Missing Words]
it rises before us
we stay put
these notes are exhibited thusly
which is how we hear them
As The Rhyme goes On (Radio Mix) - Eric B. & Rakim [from Paid in Full]
the little snippets
and the little bits
competitive verbality
Mother Don't Cry For Me - Andrew James Robison [recorded live at The Blue Moon, Seattle, October 4, 2012]
just write about what's goin' on
No Tattoos - Alone in Dead Bars [recorded live at The Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 15, 2017]
drums supplied by you
the listener
the guy up front can only imply
not supply
Dido on Fire - Kaley Lane Eaton [from Cedar]
head on
what song does
October 31, 2023
Hot Thing - Prince [from Sign O' The Times]
do the results justify the means of production
(manufactured rather than
played)
Track 5 - Beast of the Sky [recorded live at The Sound Effects Café, Seattle, October 26, 2012]
play-act tough guy
in tough guy dive bar
the pit plays their part
Hey - Alvvays [from Antisocialites]
how does a band like this get put together?
it desires to be a product
to be consumed
Planet - Jostaberry [from Hello Turbine]
as the means of manufacture become widely available
those means become
the only acceptable means
where are the people?
I'm Not Jesus - Ramones [from Halfway to Sanity]
the frowny face Ramones
trying to be shocking
Track 5 - Black Plastic Clouds [recorded live at The Sound Effects Café, Seattle, October 26, 2012]
this band could only have put themselves together
the sax
blissfully playing in its own damned key
however this group got together
they're all actually singing those
harmonies
(I've heard them do it live)
much to their credit
Dreams of The Butterfly - Denise Glover [from Dreams of The Butterfly]
what is a viola called
when played as a fiddle is played?
don't
get sucked into the vortex
good advice
Barcarolle - Jacques Offenbach [from 100 Greatest Classics]
nursery songs
to treat the tots
come back
to the mother lode
of Empire's embrace
Track 5 - The Hunting Club [recorded live at The Sound Effects Café, Seattle, October 26, 2012]
almost any band that collects itself
creates a unique music
from
how they all got there
Chapter 6 - Nancy Cole Silverman - Adam Verner [from A Much Married Woman]
swept her off the piano bench
onto the stage
uh oh
don't
fall for the piano pounder
dashing off the stage
and disappeared
into the night
Gargling - Amy Denio [from Chapel Sessions]
the house that Jack built
without textual clues
who let the cat
in?
"Alla Hornpipe" from Water Music - George Frideric Handel [from 100 Greatest Classics]
even a king can understand trumpets
how well can a band on a barge be
heard?
Loose Ends - Bruce Hamilton & Friends [from Mash Hits Volume 1]
playing with weirdness
in its own little theater
Call It A Day - Merchant Mariner [from Merchant Mariner]
oar pulling tempo
galley raillery
all hands heard
Part VIII - Alex Anthony Faide [from Particles of The Infinite]
small to big in one swoop
the addition of another big
to already
big
is small potatoes
enter with overwhelming force
resistance is useless
exhausting
big after big
after
big after big
The Lord's Prayer - Albert Hay Malotte [from 100 Greatest Classics]
let's sing this as slowly as possible
to extend the suffering
Silhouette in a Suitcase - Tea Cozies [from Bang Up]
interesting pitch work
quite a fine cut
Swimming, Tuesday - Chris Brokaw
a guitar solo
as though a song might have been sung to it
Alright On My Own - Emily Stranger [from Labor of Love]
being a perfect teen in an imperfect life
Minute Waltz - Frédéric Chopin [from 100 Greatest Classics]
but has a complete little romance in it
Love on Mars? - O-Face [from Shrug Life]
more cousin music!
Hard Travelin' - Ben Hunter, Joe Seamons [from Roll Columbia]
job of work
way down
Strengur Fragments - Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir - Davíð Brynjar Franzson [from Strengur]
urban environment with interference from the cyberwaves
passes with the
traffic
this is indoors
Adagio from Spartacus and Phrygia - Aram Khachaturian [from 100 Greatest Classics]
music is cinema
it fills your screen
Rain Tractor - Triptet [from Figure in the Carpet]
rhythm of broken tire chains
lively
irregular regularity
A Música Invisível Continua - Camarones Orquestra Guitarrística [from Feeexta]
parties at a single pitch
so
to be the vibe
that the club is
being
conjured celebration
Thunderstoner - Benton Roark - Re:Naissance Opera [from Music from The Apocrypha Chronicles]
environments inhabiting a sound world in a bubble
Madrigali, "Six Fire Songs On Italian Renaissance Poems": IV. Io piango - Morton Luaridsen - Polyphony, Stephen Layton
conjectural proposal:
there is a bubble around a sound world
in it
is the sound world
outside
is not the sound world
though
it might be another
we distinguish immediately
as we hear it
to distinguish that bubble
might be called
hearing that bubble
or
that sound world
or
that
other sound world
or
that music
Mustache Song - Swingset Showdown [from Short Bus Ruckus]
but reporting
"I heard that"
is to collapse the bubble
and
present it whole
but
"hearing" it
is both immediate
and continual
the past tense is an abstraction
Amputations - Bad Cop/Bad Cop [from Warriors]
let's be movie villains
chewing our way through time's scenery
Greg's Magic, Haley's Lament - Tom Varner [from Sound Vespers]
inclusion in one bubble or another
can be unstable
the bubble we
make
to keep bubbles grouped
is a near-conscious artifact
a
hunch
an input of intention
winds sing like birds
but:
within a sound world
there are sounds also
each heard
distinguished
in their own bubbles
it's bubbles all the way
down
we wander among them
as we do
one bubble just wrote something
on that other bubble
with chalk
while its back was turned
in teaching to sing this music
the text
is learned also
message delivered
Improvisation > Drums - Ask The Ages [from Ask The Ages Live at the Chapel]
cyclicity segregates time
and counts it
also
cyclicity
establishes an index
for size and shape
against which
all
else is measured
one bubble supplanting another
by determined co-existence
it gets
very quiet
and resists increase
this bubble has a stage in it
with spotlights
open mic night
at Open Mike's Guitar & Lounge
sequence defies sequence
it confounds it
confound it!
attention drifts away
The Boat That Never Touches Water - The Maldives [from Mad Lives]
daydreamy
deep roots
in a bed of firmly packed krummhorns
there's something almost propagandish about this
the hidden altar
call
So Far Still - James Falzone [from So Far Still]
what's inside a shruti box?
krummhorns
that's what
Two Brothers - The Young Fresh Fellows [from The Men Who Loved Music]
an old west sage
with moral
No Angel - Beyoncé [from Beyoncé]
voice
as compositional element
in a being a bad girl fantasy
melodramatic
stagy
skit of anybody's vengeance dreams
Songs of Sleep and Dreams: Dorme enquantoen velo - Tom Baker [from Deeply Lodged]
it came through
carried in a stream of bubbles
Criminal Minded - Boogie Down Productions [from Criminal Minded]
a whole resumé
brag
Dark Night's New Moon - Smokestack and The Foothill Fury [from River Rats and Pipelines]
speaking for a multitude of souls
It's That Time of Night - Robin Jackson and The Caravan [from Dust Diaries]
the only way to get away with verses like that
is to bury them in a song
Limberjack's Jig - Tom Swafford [from Rough Spaces]
narrative trajectory
linked episodes
sequence matters
dramatically
leaning back against the divan
eyes to the flies
back of hand to
forehead
illustratorly lines
Ach Elslein, liebes Elselein - Ludwig Senfl - Tielman Susato Krummhorn Gesellschaft [from The Glory of The Krummhorn]
poem
has X-quantity syllables
tune
has X-quantity notes
(almost)
presented without embellishment
Don't Mess with Me Baby - Freddie & The Screamers [from I Ain't Crazy]
I'll bet he doesn't use this line to their face
bar stool posturing
Track 7 - Marjorie Palmer [from Make a Joyful Noise]
70s
general purpose
pop-sacred
Moving Soil - Lori Goldston [from High and Low]
displacing the stuff of an economy
In Session at The Tintinabulary
October 29, 2023
Ashfield - Keith Eisenbrey
this week's quickly composed arrangement of a melody found in an 1846 shape-note song book
October 30, 2023
Gradus 389 - Neal Kosály-Meyer
both F-sharps so far
at the middle
if one were to configure
experience
in multiple simultaneous interlocking arithmetics
just
to see what would happen
leading paths
discovering trails
by
going
a trail is the terrain we stand on
the land is its support
the formula
is the message
in the message of the media
I stood up and waggled my arms
in lieu of a telephone
number doesn't mind
what it is
nor does it mind
an infinite
company
nor a null
not number's problem
finding the floor
to stand firm on it
parallel bunches
Postscripts
Drops
Keith Eisenbrey 6: 1988-1994
In this volume I'm working with narrative forms, both explicit and implicit, playing games with memory, and finding ways to set texts. An added bonus is the first piece I composed using mod-17 arithmetic to design pitch structures. I honestly had no idea how far it would take me.
Keith Eisenbrey 5: 1984-1988
This volume covers my first years back in the Puget Sound area, working with the experience of repetition and with relationships between the vertical and horizontal pitch realms.
Keith Eisenbrey 4: 1983-1984
This volume finishes up the music I wrote while I was in New York (state) under the ostensible supervision of the academic world.
Keith Eisenbrey 3: 1982-1983
This set of pieces was written in Red Hook, NY, and Malabar, FL, as I was beginning to think about thinking about music.
Keith Eisenbrey 2: 1981-1982
These are what occupied my time toward at the end of my undergrad days and in the year before I went east for a while.
Keith Eisenbrey 1: 1979-1981
These are the keyboard works I composed while an undergrad at the UW.
All are free for download.
Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery
listening journal doodles from 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment