Preface
Texts
Recorded
March 29, 2026
Sonata in F-sharp Major, Kk. 391 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
the materials of music
are there for anyone to use
freely
music generates them
for any
gratis
La Muette de Portici, Act II - Daniel-François-Esprit Auber - Dessau Anhalt Theater Chorus, Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau, Antony Hermus, Diego Torre, Oscar De La Torre, Angelina Ruzzafante, Wiard Witholt
a romance acted out
upon an historical event
to tie the individual
to their social stage
these Neapolitans
plot rebellion
so quaintly
a chummy bro duet
heroic determination
is passed
from hero
to crowd
Novelletten; #2 in D Major, Op. 21 #2 - Robert Schumann - Florian Uhlig
fingertips quiver upon the keys
these notes fall
in graceful drapery
sheer and shimmery
Buch der Lieder für Piano allein: "Hohe", S531 #1 - Franz Liszt - Leslie Howard
this music
is a floating dancer
Balzacianly exquisite of form and
movement
enraptured jaws drop open
a gift of beauty
refined
 |
| Golden Gardens Park, City of Seattle |
Sonata in F (#9), Op. 68 - Alexander Scriabin - Vladimir Ashkenazy
sets itself apart
a sequestered bubble
allows reflection
deflects approach
I'm On My Journey Home - The Densen Quartet [from Really The Blues]
harmony tough as nails
shape note bones
Won'erful, Won'erful (Side uh-one) - Stan Freberg [from The Very Best of Stan Freberg]
Californiumumum
in the television lantum
and the misbehaving bubble machine
Stony Stonedwell
I Remember You - Ella Fitzgerald [from Love Songs: The Best of the Verve Song Book]
voice of soft leather
96 Tears - ? and The Mysterians [from The Best of ? and The Mysterians]
betrayal and retribution
in sobbing short lines
Sunflower Drag - Scott Joplin - E Power Biggs
arranged upon the stops
organist thinking
Interlude of Clapping - Bruce Springsteen [from Live at The Roxy]
all the production credits
and these words
from our sponsor
That Summer Feeling - Jonathan Richman [from Jonathan Sings!]
light touch on the end rhymes
Purple Heart - T Bone Burnett [from The Talking Animals]
not overly interested
in fancy guitar stylings
all about the mood
Cold Mountain Songs: Girls Playing - Robert Morris - Deborah Norin-Kuehn, Margaret Kampmeier [from Open Space 30]
the stones
are tossed
for
hopping
games
Aria - Tingstad & Rumbel [from American Acoustic]
an aria
is a moment
set apart
within a drama
for
losing myself in
Easter Rebellion - Scurvy Bastards [from Piranthology]
Golden Gardens Park, City of Seattle
piratical history lessons
kept in song form
(words suppressed)
Side Effects (feat. Young Jeezy) - Mariah Carey [from E=MC2]
title hook repetition segment
as structural marker
piles on
alternate readings
to inflect the main vocal thread
The Stars Are Out For You - Dawn Clement [from Tempest/Cobalt)
sung in a delicate script
worthy of the big screen
Cut The Roots, The Tree Withers - Steve Layton [from Próxima Estación]
the roots
are where the tree lives
and that
is where
we
now
explore
as on a drone
sailing smoothly
through the soil
Sinfonia 7 (clavichord) - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [November 7, 2023]
goes about its business
matter of factly
 |
| Golden Gardens Park, City of Seattle |
Hide Me In The Blood of Jesus - Blind Benny Paris and Wife [from Goodbye, Babylon]
subject of the song
is the title
couplets borrowed from other hymns
Blue Bayou - Roy Orbison [from For The Lonely]
dreams of permanent vacation
bo bo bo
jim bodiyay
What Does A Girl Do - The Shirelles [from The Shirelles Anthology]
neener neener brass lick
to open
social expectation dissonance
Don't Pass Me By - The Beatles [from The Beatles (The White Album)]
country western styling
complete with fiddle
and oompah bass
Polly On The Shore - Fairport Convention [from Meet On The Ledge]
pirate stories
heroic regret
as through a languid scrim
Radio Free Europe - REM [from Murmur]
opening sound bits
open up a space
for the song to appear
tack on opening
like
a tack on ending
more marker
than part of the flow
Dream of Life - Patti Smith [from Dream of Life]
also
helps to check the tuning on the guitar
and to warm up the
voice
rhyme
come alive
a song
is not just the words
nor just the music
nor just
their synthesis
but also
the creation
of a singing
persona
a possession
Saturday Night Waltz from Rodeo - The Empire Brass Quintet [from Class Brass On The Edge]
Petrushka
beneath
a western sky colored
back drop
Is This Desire? - PJ Harvey [from Is This Desire?]
Golden Gardens Park, City of Seattle
the lines press down
into
their each
final
foot
Nobody Knows Me - Madonna [from American Life]
leans back
into its first beats
all electric light sounds
Times In Between - Smokestack and The Foothill Fury [from A Live Wire]
a slow throbbing
or rocking chair
or cradle tempo
in twelve eight
Puget Sound - S. Eric Scribner [from Odds and Ends]
a gravelly sough
brushed by gentle surf
unstill waters
Pigs, Sheep and Wolves - Paul Simon [from In The Blue Light]
a bit of Shel Silverstein
in the first stanza rhyming
Mister Fix It - Eddie Floyd [from Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos]
his little shingle on the street front
Cemetery Sal - The Paradise Joy Boys [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
solemn pace
early Tennessee
rural gothic
gratuitous racial
epithet warning
cemetery
true
kinda lovin'
I Won't Say I Will - Sarah Vaughan [from Sarah Vaughan Sings George Gershwin]
dance
between the cleverness of the lyrics
and the cleverness of
the singer's characterization
Sarah was the master
Carol of the Bells - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, Joanne Deacon [1963]
ding dong ding dong
Moon Turn The Tides...gently, gently, away - The Jimi Hendrix Experience [from Electric Ladyland]
groove out time man
the rush of the cavalry charge
free form transformations
there goes the flying saucer
here it comes
there it went
or
no
back around
and off
Piano Man - Billy Joel [from The Essential Billy Joel]
piano bar of sad regrets
though he does put some self praise
in
the character of the crowd
entertaining all the sad old losers
anthemic drinking song
Heads Will Roll - Echo and The Bunnymen [from Porcupine]
a melody of short segments
limited in their pitch count
the words
occupy the notes
like preserves in jars
Terminator X to the Edge of Panic - Public Enemy [from It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back]
jockeys disks
drummer on the spins
Ma Bergère, ma lumière - The Baltimore Consort [from La Rocque'N'Roll]
done up all pretty
for presentation
to the musically
literate
museum exhibit
The Unwelcome Guest - Billy Bragg & Wilco [from
Mermaid Avenue]
Golden Gardens Park, City of Seattle
shiny black Bess
outlaw cowboy song
Be With You - Beyoncé [from Dangerously In Love]
whose fantasy
his or hers
or just anyones
in general?
Carver - Rachel Harrington [from City of Refuge]
a weary in the saddle tempo
Scheisse - Lady Gaga [from Born This Way]
dancing to the syllables
a condition of dancing
Planetarium - Slothrust [from The Pact]
the anti tour
of civic sights
including
the guitar shred
and the scat babbler
Sinfonia 7 (piano) - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded December 19, 2023]
a machine that dances jointedly
If The Light Has Gone Out of Your Soul- Ernest Phipps & His Congregation [from Goodbye, Babylon]
campfire social
clapping song
The Sun's Gonna Shine Again - Ray Charles [from Yes, Indeed!]
but
right at the moment
we have some cloudy gray
you've been
away
blues
 |
| Golden Gardens Park, City of Seattle |
Yazoo Street Scandal - The Band [form Music from Big Pink]
this rig
is held together
with baling wire
and hope
shakes something fierce on the rough stretches
Monolog for Bass Clarinet - Isang Yun - Alicia Lee
we demonstrate our up-to-datiness
by imitating
acoustically
articulations
that arose
electronically
mouth shape
flange
for instance
in imitation
of a modulator
or
filter
this piece
hangs in there
with its pitch work
Parental Discretion iz Advised - N.W.A. [from Straight Outta Compton]
words on a rigid scaffold
these gentlemen
are in favor
of parental discretion
Suite Italienne - Igor Stravinsky - Itzhak Perlman [from The Art of Itzhak Perlman]
putting on the ghostly graces
of a past age
dance macabre
wigs and powder
and fabric by the ton
staff crowd the corridors
Love Pang - Aretha Franklin [from A Rose Is Still A Rose]
the intimate
writ large
widely advertised
You Got Me Runnin' - Todd Houghton [from
Jack Straw Cultural Center Blind Youth Audio Project 2003]
Golden Gardens Park, City of Seattle
well done
quite pro
I Walk The Line - Vince Mira [from The Cash Cabin Sessions]
in Spanish
Vince has a marvelous bass voice
I Confess - Holly Palmer [from I Confess]
funky
sweet nothings in your ear
Grasshoppers Devouring a Corpse in the Tallgrass Prairie - Nat Evans [from Flyover Country]
the solemnity of an Ansel Adams landscape
an experience of stillness
That's How Strong My Love Is - Star Anna [streamed from Love Shades, February 14, 2023]
aw!
so there was my message
to my little cabbage
this intimate message
(the song)
is inflated out
to the size
of a blues singer
with an eloquent strum
Turkey Buzzard Blues - Peg Leg Howell and Eddie Anthony [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
a turkey in the straw
is a turkey in the straw
by any other
name
dungaree Paganini
No - Norman Monath [from Songs of the Pogo]
a speeding baby carriage
somebody
perhaps Walt Kelly himself?
is telling a story
though
with a theatrically practiced
voice
no
said the nearby hippopotamus
and then a pleasant
song
Lazy - Rusty Dedrick Orchestra [from Irving Berlin, All By Myself: Notable Compositions 1926-1933]
she wants to be a puppy
longs to be lazy
great big valise
full of books to read
where it's peaceful
Tetra - Xenakis - Jack Quartet
sounds exist in locations
hyperspecific
as to each sound's sense
of effort
these sounds
are work
this chamber music
is chamberless
or
creates its own
virtual
stringtone
chamber
within
the architectural chamber
nothing straight
that can't be smeared
strictly observed severity
we don't do pretty
we don't compromise
our artistic principals
Droppin' Science - Marley Marl [from In Control Voume 1]
Golden Gardens Park, City of Seattle
the subject matter of the text of this music
is its own competitive
dominance
Poor Mourner - Robert Shaw Festival Singers [from Amazing Grace]
it turns out
that Maestro Shaw
is a cousin of mine
(second,
once removed)
one set of his great grandparents
is one of my great greats
Until You Come Back - Whitney Houston [from My Love Is Your Love]
message to an absent lover
heavily decorated line ends
Three for (solo clarinet): Valve Cycle - Jesse Canterbury, Bradley Hawkins
so
are we in a pump of some ilk?
passing tones
from chamber
to chamber
O Species of Nosegay - Christian Asplund [from Viola]
and about that size
Corra Bátima - Camarones Orquestra Guitarrística [from O Curioso Caso da Música Invisível]
where the verse would go
is a choked garble
a song
with three gears for going
Spectroscopie - WRCMS 2018 Participants
for flute with strings and piano
just based on the rehearsal time
that would seem necessary
to work this up
if it were written
out first
I'm guessing
that it is at least partly improvised
but
I could easily be wrong
in whole or in part
musicianly players either way
Brentford - Keith Eisenbrey [November 5, 2023]
a shape note tune
has its own shapeliness
which sings within its
harsh diatonicism
 |
| Golden Gardens Park, City of Seattle |
There's a Light Lit Up In Galilee - Ernest V. Stoneman's Dixie Mountaineers [from Goodbye, Babylon]
plainly sung and plainly strummed to signify true words
La Bamba - Ritchie Valens [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
prominent castanets
enthusiastic
roughly sketched
Catch Me Daddy (Live at The Grande Ballroom) - Big Brother and The Holding Company [from Cheap Thrills]
she jumps right in
full tilt
fast car
low to the ground
Serenade 3 for Piano and Chamber Orchestra - George Perle - Boston Modern Orchestra Project
this music
is having a grand time
doing its musicy doings
it
slips
from one instrument to another
ultra smooth
like a
piano concerto
without the 19th Century heroism
certainly plays
with groups of instruments
as in a proper baroque concerto
667 - Soundgarden [from Ultramega OK]
we approach
we inspect
it holds
then vanishes
I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter - Nina Simone [from A Single Woman]
upbeat
light hearted
gives her guitar player
a moment
fake out
false ending
Swan Lake - Brave Combo [from Box of Ghosts]
half a nudge
from PDQ Bach
Anthem - Goodness [from Goodness 1995-1998]
describing ourselves
as yourselves
so
you are us
and
we
can cross-identify
Personal Hell - Courtney Marie Andrews - [from Urban Myths]
to some specific anyone
a caring message
Riot - Dawn Richard [from Goldenheart]
Golden Gardens Park, City of Seattle
half social dance song
half stage song
with dance
Improv in 3 Fails - Steve Kennedy [from Untitled Album]
riding the fails
across the nation
air horns
and crossing
bells
Chamber Music VI: Two Ways of Listening to Nothing - Steve Peters [from Chamber Music]
metallic and glass
cloistered deep
we descend
below our
world's sounds
below the seep of water
into
and beyond
the sometimes plastic regions
of rock
the nickel
iron
heart
of the cosmos
Old Shoes and Leggins - Uncle Eck Dunford [from Anthology of American Folk Music]
old timey music
tells of old times
a comic song
of old timey
courtship rituals
Rumble - Lin Wray and His Ray Men [collected for Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
riots and rumbles
are dance crazes
the sound
is raw
no
seclusion of tracks apparent
On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever) - Bill Evans [from Alone]
to hear past the original song's
pop presentation
to discover
the pitch shit
behind the sappy words
jazz as analytic tool
Rather Not Levitate Alone - Benjamin Boretz, J. K. Randall, Wally Shoup, Ladonna Smith, Davey Williams [from Inter/Play]
skritch skratch
in January of 1983
I was in Malabar Florida
just for the month
back to Bard in February
back into
exactly
this
culture
I suppose
(let me tell you about Ohio)
this tape represents
a clash (of sorts)
of cultures
the
Bard/Princeton
(Boretz/Randall)
clot
of thinking improvisors
and
the Alabama
clot
of improvising performers
quite an entertaining clash
as such things go
melt down
mention of Ohio
wakes the weird sounds
that must
be Wally doing that on the sax
what fun!
Ah! Ah! Ah!
Ohio and Alabama
have it out
in bird
reflecting the sound
of our lived experience
Silver and Gold - U2 [from Rattle and Hum]
admiration and resentment
Quand tu dors pres de moi (When You Sleep Next To Me) - King's Singers [from Chanson d'amour]
impeccable
floaty
hold the string firmly
or off it will go
at the wind's whimsy
The Lonely Years Belong to Me - James King [from Bed By The Window]
full stanza instrumental intro
gives us
the shape of the stanzas
to come
and their cyclic articulation points (gates)
Track 9 - Chamber Music Camp Participants 2003 [from Eisenbrey 2003]
cello and piano and flute
the periodicity
is problemetized
as we wander
from our tonal
home
we trust
they will find their way
back to stability
even if
compromised
Laws of Motion - The Tiptons Saxophone Quartet [from Laws of Motion]
lively dance
in a busy
but wide
meter
Polegnala e tudora - Hope Wechkin [from
Leaning Towards The Fiddler]
Golden Gardens Park, City of Seattle
yes
she can sing
while playing fiddle
I've seen her do it
Jerseyville, Illinois - Your Mother Should Know [recorded October 2, 2018]
honest sounding
not expensive
just right
April 3, 2026
Banned Rehearsal 1087 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [November 6, 2023]
the sounds
find ways
to interact
slow tones
command attention
prattling sounds
enrich the experience
fresh sounds
intrigue
old sounds
take us back
days of the bug guitar
piano and melodica keep watch
they have
gotten to work
making things
workshop sounds
celebrate with
hanging chimes
hammering elves
a hush
The Spanish Merchant's Daughter - The Stoneman Family [from Anthology of American Folk Music]
some specially juicy gossip
or a dialog skit
she's playing hard to
get
All About You - The Clovers [a Rescued Record]
dynamite nonsense syllable arrangement
for the back ups
bip bop a boo
Tom Thumb - Wayne Shorter [from The Classic Blue Note Recordings]
alternating chords
expand
within narrow confines
In Session at The Tintinabulary
March 29, 2926
Christmas - Keith Eisenbrey
March 30, 2026
Gradus 430 - Neal Kosály-Meyer
Golden Gardens Park, City of Seattle
harmony made plain
no euphemisms
nor normatives
tonality
can be a synthesis
of its diatonic syntax
and the
sensuality
of its sonority
as such
its mingling
partials
melody
is a path
through moments of harmony
and then
bright sounds
and stern
the many regions of a rung
one cannot
be
in a whole rung
at once
so
we move
from place to place
within it
trusting
that we touch
each
possible
note
Postscripts
Drops
Keith Eisenbrey 31: Sabbatical Improvisations (part 2) 2014
In 2013 I had reached an inflection point in my big project, Études d'exécution imminent, and took a sabbatical (indifferently observed) from composing written-down music. I filled the time with various forms of improvisation, both "in-the-moment" composing, and sometimes puttering about with multi-tracking and other digitally applied effects. Here is the second bunch of them.
recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream
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