from The Comic Almanack an Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humorous Poetry, Quips and Oddities, First Series, 1835-1843
Texts
Recorded
September 20, 2025
Madrigals, Book VIII: Se vittorie sì belle - Claudio Monteverdi - Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini
free floating operatic set piece
operatic expression
is not to be rated
by its effects upon our
emotional bodies
but
by its plausible appropriateness
to the
dramatic image
Praeludium in A Major, BuxWV 151 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
The registers discuss the matter at hand
with vehementic emphasis
the authoritative voice
of a calm fugue
arranges our thoughts
neatly
the voice regal
authority pompously propounds
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| Kirkwood House, Walla Walla, WA |
luscious bass line
goes about its business
supporting everything
with elegant efficiency
tireless care
Sonata in E minor, Kk. 292 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
pulling surprise modulations
out of unexpected hats
commits to his bit
Novelleten: Markirt und kräftig, Op. 21 #1 - Robert Schumann - Éric Le Sage
such heroics and manly vigor
such a tender heart
such yearning
reveries
such firm resolve
so quickly distracted
or perhaps
it only needs
to put on the manly vigor mask
under certain
eyes
Consolation: Andante con moto, S.171(1) - Franz Liszt - Beatric Berrut
like a greeting card
fit for use amongst the best sort
Prelude in F-sharp Major, Op. 39 #1 - Alexander Scriabin - Dmitri Alexeev
in a wild storm at sea
keeping everyone tied down by main force
Present Joys - Alabama Sacred Heart Singers [from Goodbye, Babylon]
much anthologized
a distinctive example
the singing style
drums chorally
clever hockety part writing
Sonatas and Interludes: Sonata XIII - John Cage, Boris Berman
a cousin to Stockhausen's music box pieces
though this one has notes of
circus tents
and clever automatons
 |
| Adam West Exhibit - Kirkwood House, Walla Walla, WA |
Sonata for Solo Cello - György Ligeti - Matt Haimovitz
1
so what is Modern about this?
the glisses after the pizzes
but
they are largely cosmetic
decorating a pitch structure
that is rich in thought
but essentially rich in diatonic thought
affectually
it is a heart-felt soliloquy
a testament
but
such affects go way back
2
perhaps it's the particular flavor of his diatonic thinking
which
being the thought of a composer
active during the
Modernist time period
is
as it were
Modern by default
rather than
in and of itself
certainly not saying
there is nothing Modern about it
but
beyond it being not anything else
perhaps falling in a zone
between the Neo-Classical and Expressionist camps
All Around The World - Little Richard [from Little Richard]
...rock and roll is all they play
(unjustified assertion)
shim sham shimmy
On The Sunny Side of The Street - Stevie Wonder [from With a Song in My Heart]
has a big voice
but almost sounds like he's pushing it some
to
fill a large space
 |
| Kirkwood House, Walla Walla, WA |
the naming of things within the greater jazz culture
is a genre peculiar
with
one presumes
significance
within that
culture
one could think of this
as a neo-classical take
on the more
sophisticated dialect of impressionism
meta-depictic
Shake Appeal - The Stooges [from Raw Power]
in fact
I believe one could make a case
for the notion
that
the difference
between the cultures of jazz and rock
consists
as much
in the peculiarities of their respective naming
conventions
as anything to do with their sounds
this music
is a bit like eating competitively-hot peppers
a dare
and a challenge as much as anything else
Everybody's Got The Spirit - Carole King [from Welcome Home]
dialects of naming-convention
fashion statements
soundtrack to the
me decade
Intermezzo 5 - Keith Eisenbrey - Jill Borner
a lovely hum
has become a part of this sound
that I had
forgotten
a passing plane
Jill nailed it
Di-Li-Do - Bulgarian State Radio & TV Female Vocal Choir [from Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares, Volume 2]
verbal play game
like beat boxing
I Feel Free - David Bowie [from Black Tie White Noise]
near subliminal text transmission within the mix
wrote the song so he could dance to it
West Savannah - Outkast [from Aquamini]
anxiety entering a mellowed world
(dance to it)
 |
| Adam West Exhibit - Kirkwood House, Walla Walla, WA |
Gradus 49 - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 4, 2003]
to play a note
one points at it
indexes it
forms it
by
indicating it
locations in space:
a location on a keyboard
a location within the
harp
a location in heard space
a location within pitch space
a location within the record of the signal
a location within the
stereo pan
configurations
within a location matrix
variously metaphoric with
each other
September 23, 2025
Cello Concerto - Antonín Dvořák - Skagit Symphony, Amy Buckingham
subtitled
the egregiously symphonic
so the solo
can be the hero of their own symphony
dramatic situations illustrated
here's the arrival of trouble scene
happy ending time
Interview (continued) - Betty Eisenbrey, Carl R. (Dick) Eisenbrey, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [November 30, 2013]
Little Liza
voice happened
when I was a Senior at High School
no violin teacher in Vancouver
so took up voice
and put the
violin away for umpteen years
Columbia University
it occurs to me just now
that my two years in New York (state)
echoed my Mom's two years in New York (city)
Come and sit on my green!
fixated on a missing photo album
with echoed
"it'll turn up"s
All You Need - Kara Hesse [from Sojourner]
professionally produced product
benefits industry not song
Wells - Keith Eisebrey - Keith Eisenbrey [August 26, 2023]
sly open chord finish
 |
| Kirkwood House, Walla Walla, WA |
for singing
while swinging Biersteine
in good cheer
accompanied by harmonium
Peace Piece - Bill Evans [from Everybody Digs Bill Evans]
Satieesque vamp lighting
mood wallow
Love Me Do - The Beatles [from Please Please Me]
like you bump bump
People Get Ready - Aretha Franklin [from Lady Soul]
salvific celebration
The Dirty Jobs - The Who [from Quadrophenia]
track opera organized like a rock album
what a great idea eh?
indulgent song length
Promised Land - Bruce Springsteen [from Live at The Roxy July 7, 1978]
obedient working man blues
everybody gets their solo in the sun
Love at First Sight - T Bone Burnett [from Truth Decay]
story teller bard with mood band
every page the same format
Finnegans Wake, Chapter 1 (continued) - James Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 19, 1988]
safety first street
for whole the world to see
hollow wooden knock
frustrated in their consternation
Vidalla - Black Cat Orchestra [from Dante's Inferno Live Score]
theater cue
 |
| Kirkwood House, Walla Walla, WA |
we can be imitated
but our attention has not flagged
let's say
I'm the annoying one
it's been a hard day's help!
{journal entry of December 10, 2006:
simultaneity ensemble response
privileged score
proposed:
there is no time like the present
that is
the present "now"
is a fiction of memory/psychology
it is a tool of consciousness
for making sense
of the ongoing flow of experience
as it
enters memory space
in solo music
i.e. one performer
[: audience
the performer
hears the music
ahead of the sound
hears a privileged score
partly replaceable
from an audience point of view
by a score
to read along with
but
not the part of that privileged score
that consists
of what was added in
by rehearsal
then
hears the sound at the same time
give or take the speed of sound
as the audience
processed
by their various psychologies
at appx same rate
but
privileged score perspective
re-configures the input}
A Time For Us - Glenn Tate [from Days of Wine and Roses]
for those of a sentimental age
On Labor Day - Keith Eisenbrey [October 11, 2008]
fun with the effect
that mutes all portions of the sound file
that
don't rise to a certain level of amplitude
this time just the lecture
hype and hooplah
Dust in the Gold Sack - Swearin' [from Surfing Strange]
a band is a collision of needs for music
some of the incoming collidants
have loud guitars
Voice Mail - Keith Eisenbrey [June 30, 2018]
Cynthia called to ask
if I've thought about getting better results
Health Coach
I don't remember why I kept this
beyond its
humor value
 |
| Kirkwood House, Walla Walla, WA |
cyclic flange breeze
blows across
in regular waves
vegetable
and fungal
and bacterial and animal
cycle through each other
pull back
to reveal the robotic overlords
Lafayette - Joseph Falcom [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
rehashing historic feuds
in some French-inflected dialect
Bang Goes the Drum - Blossom Dearie [from Give Him the Ooh-La-La]
in a thrall
it's a whole show
that goes around and around
Hodie [from The Life Treasury of Christmas Music]
to show how sophisticated we wish to be seen to be
in our decorated
suburban living
Night in the City - Joni Mitchell [from Song to a Seagull]
duet with oneself
a clever trick
Only People - John Lennon [from Mind Games]
inscrutability of rhyming slogans
The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy, Episode 02 - BBC
resistance is futile
infinite improbability plot hole filler
 |
| Adam West Exhibit - Kirkwood House, Walla Walla, WA |
Labor Day - Jill Borner, Keith Eisenbrey, Bruce Huber, J. K. Randall, Dan Sedia [September 5, 1983 from Inter/Play]
I know I was playing piano
Jim had some corrections he would like to
read
I hear a bass guitar {?}
a regular guitar
and a
synthesizer
possibly a Crumar
possibly not
Hooks Wilsey
got to be off his bird
seven decimal places ain't hay
when they were throwin' the ball was a rock
correct these weird
impressions
nail 'em down once and for all
innings pitched
season by season
this'll interest your deep thinkers out there
this ain't quantum theory baby
this is stats
First Part: Acoustic Guitar - Cecil Taylor, Derek Bailey [from Pleistozaen mit Wasser]
strangle sound poem
we are witness to their encounter
this voice
and this guitar
are not on their culturally normative social behaviors
first they sort things out between them
approaches the piano from inside it
You Know/You Want This - Janet Jackson [from Janet]
dance number overrides songness
When It Hurts so Bad - Lauryn Hill [from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill]
society divided by gender cultures
and their specific expressions
Banned Rehearsal 654 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 11, 2003]
xylophone
guitar (electric)
and quiet piano
and a second
electric guitar
one rounded and mellow
the other sharp and sneery
one of them
may be the bass
inclusion of stray percussives
is not discouraged
charming
that it never goes to the trouble
of trying to make
anything great
though it happens here and there anyway
tam tam and all
when it's finished
move on
pedal effects on one of them
gets out there
into whither space
department of irretrievable sonorities
near to nothing
with full power focus
held steady
The Nurk Twins - Peter Fedofsky [from Situtations EP]
epistolary you
epistolary I
 |
| Kirkwood House, Walla Walla, WA |
the sound of water running in a sink
records strangely
vintage paisley guitar case from the 70s
is there a floor?
GTFO - Mariah Carey [from Caution]
gushy epistle
with scent
additive production
ultraprocessed music
Gradus 386 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 7, 2023]
Gradus Bingo!
fill your card with pitches
in any direction
88 bingo balls
choose the rung
all the orderings
of all the combinations
start anywhere
all the dynamic and rhythmic trajectories
encompassing all
possibilities
may as well jump in to the middle of it
center of mass
Exhilaration - J. T. Allison's Sacred Harp Singers [from Goodbye, Babylon]
singing
the sols
and fas
and dos
of it
Angel Voice - Ornette Coleman [from Something Else!!!]
lively tune
good time jam
Winter Wonderland - Darlene Love [from A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector]
unrelenting dynamic monotony
False Eyelashes - Dolly Parton [from Just Because I'm a Woman]
the eyes
that lash falsely
life possessions inventory
 |
| Adam West Exhibit - Kirkwood House, Walla Walla, WA |
Was a Sunny Day - Paul Simon [from There Goes Rhymin' Simon]
verse and chorus
in different tenses
and with different
applications to life
Ay te en San Antonio - Los Lobos [from And a Time to Dance]
I'm guessing a story is being old
why?
what cues am I picking
up?
because the shape of the stanzas
seem to have three complications
followed by a solution
the fourth line
answers the first
three
a differently balanced blues structure
I Want You Around (Ed Stasium version) - Ramones [from Road to Ruin]
guessing here
the version they used for Rock & Roll High School
(the flick)(?)
seems likely
that's nice
why not
Finnegans Wake, Chapter 1 (continued) - James Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 19, 1988]
outwashed engravure
a lecture
by the universal
dictionarionist
harp's discord
shall be theirs
four things
therefore
here now
they are
the fear of
them
to have at hand
the entire human vocabulary
the Inglish Lingo's
final solution
wrote a bloody farce
lift we our ears
town and twilights
have quadrilled across the centuries
pluck me
whilst I blush
well may they wilt
hop! (hippity)
Clan in de Front - Wu-Tang Clan [from Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)]
not the song battle
but the commentary
backed by the crowd noise
projecting heroism
upon one's own persona projection
hip hop as a rough neighborhood music
Banned Rehearsal 515 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [November 28, 1998]
UN
we subtend
changing
to claim that music is organized sound
is to assert without evidence
that it is our organization of it
that makes it
it
that
we
precede
it
this has NOT been determined
change
difference
distinction
organization
motion-more
premature faith
in our own super-precedence
omniprecedence
becomes quite a DIN
pressing concern
vacuum cleaner sound
brings all in
let's nothing out
(to drive up the
prices)
{journal entry of December 10, 2006:
||: unchanging (unchanging) (unchanging)) unchanging (unchanging) unchanging
:||
|accompanied drum & guitar & organ|
Neal speaks into
recording
and recording speaks back
depth of sound production
live vs. memorex
some really fabulous parallel play
guitar
with toys
small drum
low organ
can we produce a constant?
or
is the best we can do
an efferrenewing static dissonance?
a kind of orbit
an exploration
of a stuck system
does
the word unchanging
leak its meaning
to the experience
of
its sonic environment?
can it not?
"un"
changing into:
"UN"-changing
 |
| Kirkwood House, Walla Walla, WA |
someone steeldrums
an interesting mix
in which it is not determinable which is 'live' and
which is memorex
though it is clear
that some is one
and
some the other
they leak into each other bleedingly
something about the tuning of the piano
in conjointure with the mix of
roomsounds
makes pitch unstable
one cannot reliably
or
confidently
match a pitch
with itself}
In Session at The Tintinabulary
September 21, 2025
Warsaw - Keith Eisenbrey
September 22, 2025
Banned Rehearsal 1134 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer
we're back in the studio until next Spring when it is light at our time
September 24, 2025
A Jolly Jig for Mister Mark - Keith Eisenbrey
I've been working on a piece for solo guitar, and have reached the point at which I'm done for now with the clavichord workshop portion. Next task is to transform some of my keyboardisms into guitarisms.
Postscripts
Drops
Keith Eisenbrey 27: Figure Studies 2010 (part 2)
More from a series of solo piano improvisations
recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream
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