Playlist

Preface

8 

Rose Thinking

If the world is round would a lion fall off.

Gertrude Stein, from The World is Round

Texts

Recorded

July 4, 2026

Ferris Wheel - Canals of Venice [recorded live at The Comet, Seattle, March 5, 2013]

we approach listening
with what we hope
are open ears
and good faith curiosity

Hard to Forgive - Brandi Carlile [from By The Way, I Forgive You]

one strategy
might be
to study the modes of expression
that persist
across musics of many times 

tropes atop tropes

Hot Shots - Steve Layton & Sound-In [from The Many Voices In Our Heads]

for example
music such as Ms. Carlile's
is couched in terms of personal feelings
writ large
with broad swaths
of bold colors
in order
to punch through
the wall of alienation
produced
by being in a crowd
while
this music
is an attentive chatter box conversation
requiring a more intimate ear 

it would be inaudible
to
a Ms. Carlile-expecting ear

Sonata in B-flat Major, Kk. 332 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

this Scarlatti doesn't express much
beyond amusement
at its own intricacies
its self-absorbed
mirroring world

Nocturne in C minor (#2) - John Field - Benjamin Frith

now this music
is doing expressing
and the mode it chooses
is to mimic a song being sung
by a singer
and to identify
with that singer
so mimicked
to imagine
what they must be expressing
in order to sing
so thusly mimicked

Ouverture des Francs-juges, S. 471 (After H. Berlioz) - Franz Liszt - Feng Bian

this music
is a stage being set
or rather
these musics
are stages being set
one after the other
all the activity
is fun to watch 

Albumblätter: Canon, Op. 124 #20 - Robert Schumann - Florian Uhlig

this music seeks peace with itself

6 Idylles: V. Alegretto Tranquil, Op. 24 #5 - Agathe Backer Grøndahl - Sara Aimée Smiseth

this music seeks a pleasure in dream
clever common tone tactic
at the key change
both unexpected and obvious at once

Lyric Pieces, Book VI, Op. 57 - Edvard Grieg - Håkon Austbø

this music seeks to impart a tale
so that
you care 

ballad-like
broad pantomime 

I was also thinking
that these pieces
are each
more or less
the length of a Scarlatti Sonata
but
that they are differently sized than Scarlatti Sonatas
because
they shape themselves differently
these seem larger

what stands like stone
what yields gently

2 Poémes: Fantasie, Op. 71 #1 - Alexander Scriabin Dmitri Alexeev

enchanted

July 5, 2026

Muggles - Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

an issue seems to raise itself
with some musics
such as Beethoven or Armstrong
or... (the list sails on)...
as to whether
or how
one might hear it
without the taint
of its imputed historical importance

I Won't Say I Will (Incomplete) - Sarah Vaughan [from Sarah Vaughan Sings George Gershwin]

after all
at any music's originary moment
history
as a concept
was absent
except
perhaps
as background noise
of less presence
than what was for breakfast

Twist and Shout - The Beatles [from The Beatles Anthology]

or of the latest sales figures 

were record sales
reported at the wholesale level
or at retail?
I find it difficult to imagine
a system in place
in the 50s or 60s
for reporting retail figures
on a weekly basis
from the many hundreds of points of sale

The Song Is Ended - Rusty Dedrick Orchestra [from Irving Berlin All By Myself: Notable Compositions 1926-1933]

but the melody lingers on

When The Night Falls - T. Bone Burnett [from Proof Through The Night]

Mr. Burnett has a way
that he sings everything

Beauty Is But a Painted Hell (Rubra) - King's Singers [from My Spirit Sang All Day]

a rather misanthropic wisdom word

New Weather IV: Hedgehog - Edward T. Cone - Mimmi Fulmer, Jeffrey Farrington

the piano part
is the stage
the voice stands upon

Singer Twin - Goodness [from Goodness 1995-1998]

aimed to be clear
under the guitar noise
but
not to carry
past your privy ears

X-Static Processes - Madonna [from American Life]

a prayer
a confession
a plea

Soundform II - S. Eric Scribner [from Soundforms/Multiples]

neither its waveform
nor its sonogram
nor its envelope 

the forms
that sound forms
are mental images
that arise
bodiless 
in the ear

July 6, 2026

Bundle of Joy - The Swearengens [from Waiting on the Sunrise]

mom will always love me
bad boy though I boast to be

Doctor Spock - Brenda Ray [from Original Songs/1950s Music]

blaming hippies' purported errors
on the author
but thanks for opposing the war

Apperception - Tom Baker Quartet [from Begin Again]

grounded in regularity of proceedings
though itself irregular

What Kind Of Fool Am I? - Bill Evans [from Some Other Time / The Lost Session from the Black Forest]

the trio circles around the new tempo
then jumps in 

Catapult - REM [from Murmur]

all statements descend in the end

Interview with Prove It All Night - Bruce Springsteen [from Neal Kosály-Meyer's A Springsteen Miscellany]

the band accumulates
name by name
then turns a song
into a stamina strut

When You're Smiling - [from New Orleans Traditional Jazz Legends 2]

doing Louis Armstrong vocal style
comfort music

Dangerously In Love 2 - Beyoncé [from Dangerously In Love]

a plastic multiplicity of avatars

July 7, 2026

Prelude - The True Bugs [from 25 Songs]

a song can be like a journal entry
and require neither greatness nor commercial utility
to be a valid song

This Is (How I Know) - The Hunting Club [from Holiday Beach]

signs of imminent happily ever after 

some songs
can be a completed statement
all parts fully formed

Presidio - Strung Out [from Black Out The Sky]

this song wants
to be sure
we know
how long
all the parts of it
will be
no surprises in store
discoveries unlikely

Shellshag - Jack Robinson [from Dirt Cult Records: You Don't Have To Be Cool]

filter on the voice
a dissociation
a personal space bubble

Contemplation - Wayne Shorter [from The Classic Blue Note Recordings]

what's template about contemplation? 

here
we seem to be contemplating
a form
or a space
an outside
or an inside
each contemplator
is provided
a supportive time
in which to respond

I Believe - The Buzzcocks [from Nancy's Mix]

basic rock and roll orchestration
no oddities
and they takes some pains
to speak clearly
which is helpful
since they are verbally clever

slides into the pun from an angle

Quiet On The Set - N.W.A. [from Straight Outta Compton]

hip hop orchestration
is more varied
in what it allows to be included
but
the underlying concept
of rock&roll orchestration
is in its blood

Canada - Rachel Warrington [from The World Sings Goodnight]

as though from the lonely past
with frog chorus

Try Some, Buy Some - David Bowie [from Reality]

which is why
even when it goes all symphonic
as it does here
the effect
is radically different
than either Baroque-derived
or Berlioz-derived
orchestration models
it isn't
just
the instruments used
it's
in how the sounds
are conceptualized 

Back (Interlude)/Curtains - Janet Jackson [from Discipline]

sci fi fantasy smooth
retreat
return refreshed

Answer Boldly - Lori Goldston [from Film Scores]

I wonder if these were used in films
or whether they are a more conceptual project
either or both is plausible

Blank Page - Christina Aguilera [from Lotus]

down in the lower range
her voice has a similar ping to Brandi Carlile's

Diabelli Recomposed (Variations 11-16) - Various [streamed on May 11, 2023]

11
we're waiting for it here
glimpses
until the abrupt end 

12
in a cramped tonality 

13
the house pests
plot 

14
an old and lovely song
lies unsung
amid the trunks
in the attic 

15
kittens play this one 

16
the room is still
predawn gray 

{NB no guarantee that I'm keeping proper track of the variations as they go by}

Try Being Lonely - Dolly Parton [from Just Because I'm a Woman]

embodiment of the state of bereavement
as a public service

June Sunday - Richard Cann, J. K. Randall, David Tenney, Matthew Young [from Inter/Play]

out of doors
with songbirds
and soft strings
and cardboard brass tube
labially generated vibration sounds
we sing back at the birds
communication by behavior
dance with the forest
not in it
nor on it 

we'll be the talk of squirrelkind for decades 

we have established camp
civilization 101 

sounds are shared
birdkind may go about birdkind's business unperturbed 

the camp settles for the night
the night watch stamps about in the cold
the birds review their scripts 

mutters on small speakers
in the out of doors 

these sounds are discretely located
no complications arise
from the reverberance of walls 

the purpose of this music
is to listen 

rude reeds splat from the skies 

each sound
has distance
and direction 

they elicit
a fully round space
though horizontally thin 

apples
on an apple tree
say apples apples apples apples 

do not be alarmed
should I stand in a field
and shout
hey!
it is only to hear
what it sounds like 

communication with the forest
by behavior
that feels foresty 

yea though we walk through the valley of the shadow of steady beats
we will fear no malign intent 

a relaxation into
quotidianhood
but briefly 

a mere intake of breath
beyond the gates
of the ritual proper
the last moments
of a cassette tape
before it runs out
to the leader
has a tell-tale
pulsed
thumping
that sneaks in
behind the sounds
that were recorded

Simon Says - Marley Marl [from In Control Vol. 1]

question
as to whether the use of another's recorded sound
as part of your sound
is fair:
does the broadcast of a sound
imply permission
to reuse at will
whether the broadcast
is by record sales or radio waves 

to whom
does it
anymore
belong?

Une jeune fillette (1616) - The Baltimore Consort [from La Rocque'n'Roll]

lute so gentle in the arts of elaboration

Falling Out of Love - Aretha Franklin [from So Damn Happy]

the sad montage of intimate collapse

CCJIK-Sean - Sacajawea Elementary Students [from Digital Dreams]

this would be quite the alarming sound
for an EV to make
all of a sudden
on the street

Time Waits for No Man - No Man's String Band [from Let The Truth Be Told]

fatalism
defiance
stubborn
independence

Guernica - Bret Hart [from Dubble Thud]

add this
to that
the march
adds grim joiners
continuous
a mass
and potential mob 

a mass of bodies
is an inherent threat
a mob
is an amoeboid army

Wordless Lullaby - Megan Ihnen [from Sleep Songs - Wordless Lullabies from The Sleepless, volume 2]

a descending line cycles
while a voice twines it round

July 8, 2026

Just Like a Rose - ? and The Mysterians [from ? and The Mysterians]

spacious home base establishment
each stanza
through a new window

The Star Spangled Banner - U2 [from Rattle and Hum]

so that
The Edge
can do
his Jimi

Vocalise, Op. 34 #14 - Serge Rachmaninov - Itzhak Perlman [from The Art of Itzhak Perlman]

imitating a singer of infinite lung
being very beautiful

Epona - Frieze of Life [from Nuclear Frog Pond]

a strand of modernism
pushes
at the broad acceptance
of what counts as music
for good or ill
it demands
first
that we accept it
as music
and
should we reject it
as such
we
would be shamed

For The Record - Mariah Carey [from E=MC2]

every aspect controlled from the booth

Roosevelt - Peterman [from Red Vinyl]

infra-generational life information transference

Milam Hospital - Choke The Pope [from Who Cares]

report from rehab
which is pretty much high school
per said report

The Ghetto - The Staples Singers [from Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos]

a sermon

Monk's Point (Take 1) - Thelonious Monk [from The Complete Columbia Studio Solo Recordings]

poking touch

Just a Closer Walk With Thee - The Canadian Brass [from More Greatest Hits]

done up in a New Orleans tuxedo 

Where Did You Sleep Last Night - Nirvana [from Unplugged in New York]

turning the kids on about Lead Belly

Track 18 - Eckstein Middle School Students [from Mach 6]

a beginning band doing pretty well

Money Honey - Lady Gaga [from The Fame]

love in the lingo of commerce

Track 6 - Pouch [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 6, 2013]

drum beat pushes the top of the guitar beat

Track 7 [from Unknown Christmas Album]

something about this album
a whiff of publishing industry advertising professionals
making professional industry standard music 

here we have
some pretty classy stuff
for your pretty classy choirs

Romulus Hunt (beginning) - Carly Simon - Nashville Opera, Dean Williamson

{the conductor Dean Williamson and I
met when we were in high school
we played piano duets together
and I played percussion
in the pit orchestra
of the first piece of musical theater
he ever conducted} 

apparently
there's an imaginary friend involved

due to the vagaries
of how music is heard around here
I've heard this opera
in bits and pieces
in disorder
absurding plot points 

conflict of parenting styles
in canon no less 

composed
as a sequence of operatic moments 

a love spell is cast
by the imaginary friend
and we are in a sultry cabaret
in somebody's head 

full voice
at all times
this is opera
after all

The Climb - The Kingsmen [from The Very Best of The Kingsmen]

dance craze classic
short listed
for the land of 1000 dances
up there
with the hokey pokey

White Lightning - Girl Trouble [from Hit It Or Quit It]

the social purpose
of dude-presenting dance music
is to convince dudes
to dance
so that
they attract
those
with whom
to propagate the species 

("play on!")

Desert March - Gyula Csapó - Gusztav Fenyö [from Open Space 7]

unadorned
flattened
across a plain
of few intervals
tightly wound registers
and sonority 

this march
is forced
and foreboding
the ground is hard
the whole way 

the image
of relentless forte

O Come, O Come, Emanuel - Whitney Houston [from One Wish: The Holiday Album]

steering just this side of salacious

Balladei - Christopher Bailey - Shiau-uen Ding 

it is important
that we be severe
for the world of electronica being entered
is harsh
and the light glares
no room in which to breathe 

funhouse jump scares 

the pace never slackens
a concerto in a cage

Track 5 - Old Man Williamson [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, July 6, 2013]

a cover
under cover
of a noisy bar

The Road I'm On - Lost In Space [from Live at The Player's Lounge]

another long road trip
along the empty interstate
destination hours off yet
keep awake by jamming

July 9, 2026

A Child's Question, July - PJ Harvey [from I Inside The Old Year Dying]

this track is danceable
but doesn't demand
that the body dance
is shaped in standard-enough stanzaic song form
but would sound odd
sung on a porch
with banjos

Stimmung (1968) (beginning) - Karlheinz Stockhausen

of interest
that I can clearly hear the correlation
of each sung vowel
to the set of partials blossoming above it (from it?)
and
can even
almost
convince myself
that the vowel
is
that set of partials
but
a nag remains
that the vowel
as a part of language
is a different
kind of thing
entire
phonemes
belong
to the world of words
their sounds
as music
are not phonemes
because
music
is the remainder of
song minus language 

this music
vibrates
between language-sound
and not-language-sound 

I never asked myself
what the central pitch of this is
{B-flat, I think,
thought it's been through some several mechanical devices}

Izpovod - Bulgarian State Radio & TV Female Vocal Choir [from Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares 2]

stately
in straight backed chairs

Gap 1st Batch - J. K. Randall - J. K. Randall [from Open Space 7]

how timely!
I have
in the last few weeks
started to learn to play these pieces

I remember the first time I heard this
it completely floored me
it occupies
an out there
that was so much further out there
than I had imagined
thentofore 

the pieces
that he marks
"play a bunch of times"
(there are two of them)
divide themselves
into two parts
the time intervals
between the two parts
as they repeat
are distinct
a functional articulation 

how to listen:
an alternate pedagogy

Don't Push Me (feat. Lloyd Banks) - 50 Cent [from Get Rich or Die Tryin']

to be in charge
by means of threat posture

Genius Loci - Frank Brickle - William Anderson, Oren Fader [streamed December 4, 2024]

applause
to acknowledge
and welcome
and to thank
and approve

This Is Me Now - Shelby Earl [from Swift Arrows]

folks change
so deal

Nothing - Whitney Ballen [from You're a Shooting Star - I'm a Sinking Ship]

this track kills 

Study in D (#5) - Jeremiah Lawson

an unerringly hymnodic sense of musical shaping

I Am Sitting In A Room - Alvin Lucier

so am I 

I am sitting
in a different room
listening to you
saying
you are sitting in a room
different from the room
I am in now 

the demonstration
conflates
room
with room
plus
the infidelity
of the recording process

the room
being articulated by speech 

it occurs to me
that the room
being articulated by speech
being played back
into this
my different room
is itself
articulating the room
I am sitting in now
different room
does not imply
separate room
his room
is
in
my room
and
inside
is not
separate
just
distinct  

the effect
on my image
of Mr. Lucier
is that
he is getting further and further away 

I wonder
if they had to adjust the gain
to keep it from feeding back? 

shrunked
beyond eyesight 

or
as it accumulates
we are hearing the room
articulated
by the room
being articulated
by the room
being articulated
by...
speech 

it's mostly the room
articulating itself by then

all that's left
of the sitter
is the chatter
of glasses
in a cupboard
in the next room
long since vanished
glasses
cupboards
kitchens
suburbs
and surburbs
one and all 

Brick Is Red - Pixies [from Surfer Rosa]

one for the guitar player

Sorrow Is Not Melancholy - Deborah Drattell - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz]

Fafner is depressed
head
turned
within
a lonely cave
in the subbasement
of a mid 20th Century
Russian
slow movement 
for strings
playing
king of the hill
with Barber's Adagio
or nearly
any interminable Gorecki
I've heard

My 1st Song - Jay-Z [from The Black Album]

rhymes
the ing
of thing
and sing
on a high
bell-like
TING! 

name check acknowledgments

Chapel Performance Space (February 29, 2008) - Seattle Phonographers Union [from Seattle Phonographers Union]

recorded with microphone in a room
or directly from the board? 

is this
what was played
or what was heard? 

that's a cat purring
over in that channel 

all the sounds
are in other rooms
we have searched them out for you

Ringing Vale - Princess [from Selling Sulphur]

legend
shout out
extended leitmotif

Alright - Red Ribbon [from Dark Party]

in a mood of alienation and oppression

In Session at The Tintinabulary

July 6, 2026

Lemnos - Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · 157 Lemnos 260705 [260706]

Banned Rehearsal 1154 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1154 260706

July 8-9, 2026

Variations - Aaron Keyt

Aaron composed this set of variations in 2013 and I have had it on my piano desk to learn several times since then, but it kept being back-burnered for other projects. I had finally had enough and worked at it until I could play it well enough to record I plan to include it on an upcoming album in the next month or so

Postscripts

Drops

Music of Aaron Keyt - Part 3

This third collection of the music of my long-time collaborator Aaron Keyt is composed of two sets of short pieces: Hedgehogs (2014) and Music for Wallace (2016). The recordings were made at my home in 2020/2021.

recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream