Preface
'D'ye see him?' cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight.
'In his infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that's all. Helm there; steady, as thou goest, and hast been going. What a lovely day again! were it a new-made world, and made for a summer-house to the angels, and this morning the first of its throwing open to them, a fairer day could not dawn upon that world.'"
Herman Melville, from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale.
Texts
Recorded
April 18, 2026
String Quartet Movement - Chamber Music Summer Camp Participants [from Eisenbrey 2003]
a theme and variations
Haydn or Beethoven
possibly Schubert?
I'm That Chick - Mariah Carey [from E=MC2]
tricked out like a sweet ride
self advertising product
Ghost of the Woman You Killed - Canals of Venice [recorded live at The Comet, Seattle, March 5, 2013]
a song about forgiveness
with an inscrutable back story
Whatever You Do - Brandi Carlyle [from By The Way, I Forgive You]
message
as though
to a specific person
one could identify
with either person
specified
or
specifier
goes all stadium on itself
Shoel - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [November 26, 2023]
not quite moving in traditonal manners
just off a smidge
to liven
the experience
of the given melody
Sonata in A Major, Kk. 322 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
he plays most of these on harpsichord
but this one is on a fortepiano
allowing a touch subtlety to imitate singing accents
La Muette de Portici, Act V - Daniel-François-Esprit Auber - Dessau Anhalt Theater Chorus, Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau, Antony Hermus, Diego Torre, Oscar De La Torre, Angelina Ruzzafante, Wiard Witholt
situation perfectly normal
daily life among the fisherfolk
here comes trouble
in baritone
plot is happening
excited shouting
alarmed chorus
battle
joined
volcano erupts
principals perish
enemy takes the
stage
no sequel
tam tam hollows out the ending
Novelleten, op. 21: #5 in D Major - Robert Schumann - Florian Uhlig
the flittering attention of the suddenly enamored
their dreamy
abstraction and immediate moods
Buch der Lieder I, S. 531: IV. Der König von Thule - Franz Liszt - Leslie Howard
depicting a singer and their pianist
and inventing a poem they are doing
for solo piano
Sonata in A, Op. 66 (#8) - Alexander Scriabin - John Ogdon
floating motes of note strings
bathed in light
we enter their
voluptuous world
A Little Talk With Jesus - Ernest Phipps and His Holiness Quartet [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
tent meeting singers
singing a tent meeting song
easy to find a place within it
allows sociability on the meeting ground
Overture - Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald [from Porgy and Bess]
in American musical theater
an overture trotted out the tunes you were
about to hear
so that they exist in your ear
prior to their
appearance on stage
it acts as an advertisement
the musical
marquee
letters to be switched out
when the run ends
not
otherwise intended to be anything
as a thing in itself
in a recorded album
it becomes an album in itself
a medley
I Saw Her Standing There - The Beatles [from The Beatles Anthology]
dive bar rock hasn't changed much since 63
You Left The Water Running - Maurice and Mac [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
a complaint set to a clever wording
transforming pain into a pattern
Bishop Danced - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]
this is a strong song
to my ear he overdoes things a bit
or he
sings as though there was a crowd to hear him
as though into an
imaginary present
was this actually live
or did they add the
polite applause as a placeholder for the screaming fans?
small actual
audience I believe
The Sixties - T Bone Burnett [from Proof Through The Night]
something misanthropic in the scent of this
The Wrong Child - REM [from Green]
cue and response
echo
inexact echo
a recurrence
but
not a repetition
Love's Philosophy - King's Singers [from Chansons d'amour]
the choral speaker
addresses themself
to an absent subject
Appalachia Calling - Tingstad & Rumbel [from American Acoustic]
finger picking patterns
decorated baskets
a hand craft
Down - Christian Asplund [from Brainstun]
the inflections of jazz adjacent performance practice
speak in a pitch
space
more plainly
than the recent academically aligned extended
technique music does
pitch populates its segmented larger time
structures
(verses, et cetera)
Miles Away - Madonna [from Hard Candy]
words spoken onto a circular pattern
Garuda - Steve Layton [from The Composer Plays Revisited]
fog and twisty and knobbled branches
predawn morning
these naiads
may not be entirely benign
To Wait -Taylor Ho Bynum and Mark Dresser [from THB Bootlegs Volume 4]
the beast slumbers
slow snore and twitchy joints
Deep The Forest Sleeps (Soundscroll XI) - S. Eric Scribner [from Soundscrolls: Lost Landscapes]
a poem announces the argument
chapter headings or epigrams
finds
itself here and there
in the body of the scroll
Lover of The Lord - Huggins & Phipps Sacred Harp Singers [from Goodbye, Babylon]
salvation by threat
post mortem
No (Rehearsal) - Norman Monath [from Songs of The Pogo]
it's the Banned Rehearsal theme song!
Relata II - Milton Babbitt [from Erik Carlson's Ever Expanding Milton Babbitt Album]
a soundworld densely configured
pulls at ones parts
pokes and
prods
turns it over in configured hands
instruments ferociously
imitating abstraction
Master Race Rock - The Dictators [from Nancy's Mix]
punk clowns
Where Duty Calls - Patti Smith [from Dream of Life]
think of the music
as the audible poem's decor
Bourbon Street Parade [from New Orleans Traditional Jazz Legends Vol. 3]
lines start simple
spill into ornateness
Gaza - Karin Blaine [from Dirty Money]
empathetic identification
agitprop
These Days - Goodness [from Goodness 1995-1998]
self boostering
Ave Maria - Beyoncé [from I Am...Sasha Fierce]
technical showcase
If You Come Around Here - The Swearengens [from Waiting On The Sunrise]
ostracism and fear
Pretty Flamingo - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The Skylark, Seattle, March 1, 2018]
and thusly guys tell gals how to be
O Love, How Cheering Is Thy Ray! - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [from Keith Eisenbrey #7: 1995-2001]
poem speaking through a collaboration of elements
How Much Can I Stand? - Gladys Bentley [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
voices internal to the guitar strums
pass from string to string
or
not
the difference can be heard
Oh, Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison [from For The Lonely]
see above
standing on one leg
The Sick Rose (Blake) - Allen Ginsberg [from Holy Soul, Jelly Roll]
tightly made
tightly sung
Fleetwoods harmony singing
8 Ball - N.W.A. [from Straight Outta Compton]
streets of pool balls
Tom and Susan Wasinger, U.S.A. [from The World Sings Goodnight]
the reverb sets this in a creepy light
I Was Made to Love Him - Whitney Houston [from My Love Is Your Love]
for those singing along
this is indoctrination
Hey, Hey Baby (Betty's Blues) - Bettye LaVette [from A Woman Like Me]
there's the come on
sultry blues
Ring of Fire (Spanish) - Vince Mira [from The Cash Cabin Sessions]
the difference between a diphthong and a polysyllable
is a matter of
articulatory discernment
Wolf Pack - The Hunting Club [from Holiday Beach]
play tough with friends
ramp up the prance
everybody's chance
to wail and whoop
Pop Song 4Ever - Pity Party [from Are We Happy Yet?]
English lives in its diphthongs
slides off all that is pure
a
language born in sneers
I'll Always Have Faith In You - Eddie Floyd [from Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos]
a hymn
a hummable hymn
a humble hymn
hymn humble and
hummable
I Remember Calvary - Ernest V. Stoneman's Dixie Mountaineers [from Goodbye, Babylon]
pure nasal vowels
brings the R sound forward
to resonate in the
skull
Love Walked In - Sarah Vaughan [from Sarah Vaughan Sings George Gershwin]
introduction designed for the technicolor widescreen Sarah
obligatory
harp sweep to fade
Ballerina - Van Morrison [from Astral Weeks]
a picture becomes a story
becomes a confession
his four syllable
ballerina
has more syllable to it
than any other
smiling equates with happy
but miles apart
dividing a threatening speech
into like-syllabled segments
overwhelm and fade
We Write The Songs - Marley Marl [from In Control Volume 1]
neighborhood hero
champion and familiars
Please Read Me - Fastbacks [from Zucker]
the space has been energized
the pitch contour of the melody
occupies a similar relation to the verticals of chordal identity
to that
of the reference
to the words
Quality - Paul Simon [from The Essential Paul Simon]
conversation on soundstage
with backing vocals for each side
Track 11 - Eckstine Middle School Students [from Mach 6]
the percussion showcase
woodblocks and whistles
these notes
are notes
their relations to each other
become
what the notes are made from
they are immediate notes
becoming what their relations make them
without loss of plain
noteness
they are notes
prior to their timbral identity
a
note
is a note
prior
to being grouped
Was There a Light - Lori Goldston [from Film Scores]
a musical statement is a partitioning of musical experience
that
completes itself at some level
they can imitate aspects of other modes
of statement
such as syllabic count patterning
I Call Bullshit - The Bombpops [from Dear Beer]
life as a card game
wisdom of the world
Here I Raise Mine Ebenezer - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [from Keith Eisenbrey #7: 1995-2001]
our tune is plunked out in dream land
rushes ahead
drifts back
tilts over the edge
runs headlong
falls into reverie
dream land takes back its own
I Remember Calvary - Ernest V. Stoneman's Dixie Mountaineers [from Goodbye, Babylon]
{oops! forgot to check this off the last go-round}
log cabin fiddle
and harmony
and melody
and intonation
and
nasal vowels
Heartbreaker - Ray Charles [from Yes Indeed!]
the nefarious wiles of schoolgirls
yep there's the death threat
Girl (You Captivate Me) - ? and The Mysterians [from The Best of ? and The Mysterians]
early near-pornographic humping sounds
Wolfyodel - Keith Johnston, J. K. Randall, Daniel Warner [from Inter/Play]
rattle scrape waggle
sounds stick out
it's what they're for
items in a field
pitch bend to scribble notes over with
or buzz
like doppler flies
the puppies practice yowling
scraping air past a reed
Pride (In The Name of Love) - U2 [from Rattle and Hum]
too many people in one place
for my comfort level
I Know It's Gonna Happen - David Bowie [from Black Tie White Noise]
hortatory
for at the brink
of the plunge
Tete-a-Tete - Robert Morris [from Open Space 14]
two sets of six strings
fret hands and strum hands
array wranglers
whoop-di-yi-ay
orderly arrays
If I Can't - 50 Cent [from Get Rich or Die Tryin']
toughest of all y'all
True Beauty - Courtney Marie Andrews [from Urban Myths]
the counterpoint of guitar figuration
is affected by the fret board's
interval structure
//sweet song
dissertating doctorally
in guitar picking
and ukulele strumming
Gerascophobia - Arbor Towers [from Old]
a generous meter
in fours of three
room to breathe
sold soul
to city
suit job
shredding life
A Teenage Love Song If I Ever Heard One - Star Anna [from Love Shades, streamed February 14, 2023]
we switch out listening filters effortlessly
My Blackbirds are Bluebirds Now - McKinney's Cotton Pickers [from That Devilin' Tune]
the music tells us what to expect of it
and we get a cheerful song
too
tenorly crooned
fingers just want to dance
Carol - Chuck Berry [from The Best of Chuck Berry]
doesn't spend much time floorbound
Tears of Rage - The Band [from Music from Big Pink]
our filters limit the range of what we expect
sets
of what is
part
of each part
of the meter
All Out of Focus - Dan Sedia - Dan Sedia [recorded live at Bard College, March 18, 1983]
solo electric guitar
D.J. K La Boss - EPMD [from Strictly Business]
musique concrète
if sounds are concrete
precision machinery
Dry - PJ Harvey [from Rid of Me]
we brace ourselves for each music differently
Black Mot - Scurvy Bastards [from Piranthology]
Orphic legend
witchcraft
Marjan - The Tiptons Saxophone Quartet [from Laws of Motion]
on a march from here to there
For The Sake of Sound Mind - The Botherations [from The Botherations]
prep for another day
of important guy
work
Making Love - Brenda Ray [from Original Songs/1950s Music]
our filters are a form of empathy
we adjust our mode of reception
to whom we are hearing
Slow Blues - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [from Keith Eisenbrey #7: 1995-2001]
for a few moments
it passes through sounds
that might be mistaken
for typical
a music about relations within measured time spans
Primrose Hill - Daniels-Deason Sacred Harp Singers [from Goodbye, Babylon]
sol do mi fa
excellent metrical modulations
Autumn Leaves - Little Willie John
the vocal tells us what to imagine
while we dance together
Still Raining, Still Dreaming - The Jimi Hendrix Experience [from Electric Ladyland]
whatever it is we say
in language
about music
is
at
best
about a verbal formulation
of what music is
to talk
about
a theory
or model for instance
if these
were not a music
but
a silent film of something
we could talk about the something
that the silent film is of
but the film on the screen
is still just light and shadow
likewise
music
just
a show of sound
The Bare and Peeling - Jill Borner - Jill Borner, Keith Eisenbrey, Dan Sedia [recorded live at Bard College, March 18, 1983]
at the time it just seemed to be
what we were up to
but it has
aged well
the affect of a music
is our gut feel
concerning the actions
of an avatar
arising in our experience
of sound going by
La Belle Argentina II - Black Cat Orchestra [from Dante's Inferno Live Score]
dancers might be stand-ins
for such avatars
Given To Fly - Pearl Jam [from Rearview Mirror]
the purpose of the notes
is to clarify the meter
where the pitches
are in the meter
is the matter of it
that stuff
of which
the meter is made
Threats - Jay-Z [from The Black Album]
stage speech taunt
at Shakespearean length
interesting vowels in the front of his mouth
Desert Music: Pillar - Paul Des Marais - Paul Des Marais [from Open Space 28]
how the light plays upon it
//fine piano playing!
Track 4 - Pouch [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 6, 2013]
the vocal amplification
was not quite able to compete with the amp
the flavor of the voice is clear though
loud but fun
goes on to a new thing
machine throb
allows the guitar to sing a
tune
Unkoil - Strung Out [from Black Out The Sky]
the sorts of words
that one probably could make out
if one paid
attention to them
but aren't likely to be worth the effort
Chamber Music VII Solar Ring - Steve Peters [from Chamber Music]
momentarily stable gravitational resonance
Diga Diga Do - The Sizzlers [from That Devilin' Tune]
one might imagine a dancer and a musician
outdoing each other at
cross-imitation of each other
this dance has elbows
the sound of a wheezebox
following the tenor
line
Guess Things Happen That Way - Johnny Cash [from Sun Records Definitive Hits]
ba doo ba doo
shorter than two minutes
wouldn't want to crowd out
the sponsor's important message
Always - Rusty Dedrick Orchestra [from Irving Berlin; All By Myself: Notable Compositions 1926-1933]
a melody
is how one says
if
one says
what is said
as the words do
Wonderland - XTC [from Fossilfuel]
happy little animated animal chatter
a poem addressed to a you
flatters the reader
into empathizing
with the poem's you
on the legendary lam of legend
the legend of being Bonnie and Friend
cross border jurisdiction battle
Racism/New Agenda - Janet Jackson [from Janet]
every cranny points at the voice
commercial brand promotion
Soundscape-Caleb - [from Jack Straw Cultural Center, Blind Youth Audio Project 2003]
growldog attacks woodblocks
Strange Flowers, Occasional Storms - Robert Morris - Zuzanna Szewczyk Kwan [from Robert Morris at 70]
music for several avatars
in dramatic encounter
Ikea Nesting Syndrome - Jaguar Shark [from Red Vinyl]
interval
between the mundanity of what I can catch of the situation
being sung about
and the vehement delivery
response at a single level
Cease Fire - Christina Aguilera [from Lotus]
the noise of opening
calling truce as a dance
Depth of Mercy - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [from Keith Eisenbrey #7: 1995-2001]
to harmonize a melody
by placing chords beneath it
is to partition
it
by its relations
to its vertical environments
You're Going To Leave the Old Home, Jim - Eva Parker [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
rural sentimental southern pastoral nostalgia
2 Musics for Lukas Foss (midi) - Benjamin Boretz
very busily bustles its business
and tells us
now I'm done
Magic of Love - Big Brother and the Holding Company [from Cheap Thrills]
send 'em out singing
go home time
Beauty and The Beast - Stevie Nicks [from Timespace]
so romantic
to so thusly suffer
the woman who suffers more romantically than you do
Girl With the Flaxen Hair - The Canadian Brass [from More Greatest Hits]
the melody betrays an acquaintance with Mussorgsky?
Method Man - Wu-Tang Clan [from Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)]
competitive torture devices
worthy of the Roman Empire
guys
dancing with their guyness hanging out
Colors: Orange - Jesse Canterbury and Bradley Hawkins [from Bradley Hawkins, Jesse Canterbury]
a particularly spiky hue
In Session at The Tintinabulary
April 19, 2026
Miles' Lane - Keith Eisenbrey
April 20, 2026
Banned Rehearsal 1149 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer
Postscripts
Drops
Music of Gavin Borchert (part 2)
This volume collects 30 additional two-part inventions by Seattle composer Gavin Borchert, performed on clavichord. The recordings were made at my home in 2023.
recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream
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