Playlist

Preface

"Everyone really knows that objectivity in the descriptive criticism of musical experience isn't even really a coherent idea, let alone a real possibility. So it's too bad that so much writing lusts strenuously to assert that kind of authority, so that it misses the real, available, and far superior opportunity to share creative images of those unique (and literally, but not metaphorically, unsharable) episodes of "secondary consciousness" (as Elliot Handleman calls it) we encounter in any immersed listening."

- Benjamin Boretz - "The Universe of One, And the Music of the Other"  

from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020

Texts

Live

December 18, 2021

Neal Kosály-Meyer

Finnegans Wake, Chapter 8 - James Joyce

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

This was the first live public event I have attended since February of 2020, and it looks like it may be the last for some time to come yet. 

I'm glad we went and I got a good recording, but I didn't take try to take notes in the dark. 

The river chapter.

From Recent Arrivals

December 24, 2021

Sans Souci - Peggy Lee [from Lover]

travelogue fantasy song with good enough Latinish feel
would work well in a Bond film cabaret scene

Am I Blue - Ray Charles [from The Genius of Ray Charles]

with studio big band strings and Hollywood style backup singers
going full crooner

Discipline - Sun Ra [from Space is the Place]

it moves as though there were chord changes underneath
but I suspect some larger scale ingredients are thrown in the pot as it simmers

Recorded

December 19, 2021

String Quartet #3, Op. 30 - Arnold Schoenberg - LaSalle Quartet

1
the slower moving lines try to edge into the crowd in the street
we're all waiting now
the light has changed
we move with the crowd
as like a crowd we move
with our crowd
in our bones

2
in our homes
a quiet scene
so as not to be overheard
the crowd is all around

3
gossip spreads into the chattering crowd
the machines have driven us indoors
a city music
a city of small rooms

4
a danse macabre
crowd of bones
nobody can be comfortable

Liza (Take A) - Art Tatum [from Classic Early Solos]

the tune
under stress
has been taken apart and reassembled
slashed with notes
plastered with other tunes' bits
cranked really fast
16 fps at 24 fps

I'm a Soldier in the Army of the Lord - Rev. McGhee [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

the question arises
how is a white boy to understand this?

Warmin' Up a Riff - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes]

this is understood as straight-up intellectual
the parts that songs were made of
atomized further

Take a Little Walk With Me - Boyd Gilmore [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

no blues is or can be self-contained
they are social to their own kind

Mona - Bo Diddley [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo and the Beat]

he sounds so young!

Spudnik (Surf Rider) - The Ventures [from Walk Don't Run]

cool spy rhythm
dresses well

Soul Man - Sam and Dave [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

great attention is paid to outward appearance
armor

Rock and Roll - Led Zeppelin [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

is he gonna get to the mashed potato
the 70s hearkening back to the 50s
Happy Days Crocodile Rock and all that
I was in middle and high school in the 70s
and suffered through several 50s Days
we were encouraged to dress up in 50s costume
thereby encouraging fashion sense
I resisted

December 20, 2021

Symphony #7 "A Sea Symphony" - Howard Hanson - Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz

snide preamble: he missed an opportunity to call it "A Symphony at Sea" 

La Mer it ain't
from a spot firmly on shore
a dreary affair
obligatory storm scene in the 3rd act
Symphony at Sea
Snore on Shore

Ever - Flipper [from Generic]

laid out like an ad for a patent medicine
existential self-disgust played for a lark

December 21, 2021

Assembly Rechoired 14 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [January 31, 1987]

Keith Eisenbrey · Assembly Rechoired 14 870131

I read from Kierkegaard
Karen plucks a kalimba
and discusses descants in the United Methodist Hymnal
it might be me plucking the kalimba 

the self is a relation which relates itself to it's own self
Karen sings some hymns
a derived constituted relation
if the human self had constituted itself
a question could have arisen
nervous self-deception laboring into a deeper despair

Low Beat Jingle - The Young Fresh Fellows [from It's Low Beat Time]

a trumpet plays a few notes
after a shaker and a bell then a trombone
lasts all of a few seconds
never the same twice

Banned Rehearsal 460 "Analog" - Pete Comley, Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 2, 1997]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 460 970802

Pete was recording us on DAT (digital audio tape)
but this is my version
analog signal direct to magnetic tape cassette
we'll catch Pete's version soon 

Isaac fusses
almost a year old
we provide a constant low-level micro din
a guitar sneaks in under a softly blubbering brass
probably trombone
also sax 

to some extent we're on our best behavior
being digitally captured and all
on edge
held back
making sound
for the purpose of having that sound recorded
starts to get somewhere in the last 10 minutes or so
as we diminish into somnolential putters
finally able to focus
we scratch

{from my journal entry of March 28, 2005:

attempts made to emerge from a trombone
the audio equivalent
to the visuals
of the play
in which all are verbally polite
but expressive of the unbounded hostility
on a visual cue level
a gentle fast funmaker rhythm
quiets things down
trombone
low ominous
of what grew before
yet again
contextually now 

squalls explode
sharp attack entrances
quick to take offence
a recurring thematic low drone
from which emerges}

One Beat - Sleater-Kinney [from One Beat]

having fun
with the ah-ee
diphthong
and
the oh-öö töö 

not sure what the words are
the diphthong rhythm drowns them out

Consider the Birds 36 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]

this one is shy
its regularity is difficult to grasp

Tune for Bobbie - Elaine Barkin [from Open Space 46]

a tune of violin sounds
descends into our room of drums
achingly brief

I'll Shed A Tear Every Day - Your Mother Should Know [from Demos February 23, 2017]

I love the misbalance 

too much snare
not enough back up vocal
every part of the drums
is on a different plane
the guitar is tiny

December 22, 2021

O Mistris Myne, Fvb. 66 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

the sense of what counts as metrical balance
is significantly other
than in the 18th Century practice
our ears have become so accustomed to
and certainly
different than modern industrial practice
the whole phrase is full of significance
its parts are proportioned
rather than balanced as such

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band I, Prelude and Fugue in G minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Sviatoslav Richter

it floats
it is rooted

Sonata in G Major, Kk. 153 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

open ended balancing act
as soon as phrase balance was invented
it was subverted
it may have been devised as a tool for subversion

Concerto in D Major, Wq. 43/5 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi

hot take
the orchestra intro and the first solo
do not need to be in the same affect 

here the orchestra begins with a slow movement from deep inside
the solo is having none of it
2 opens
the solo both shares and redirects the orchestra's trajectory
they turn each other
the movement's flow
a single tonal whole
it ends without a flashing applause sign

Mass in C Major, Op. 86 - Ludwig van Beethoven - London Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Chorus, Colin Davis, Christiane Eda-Pierre, Patricia Payne, Robert Tear, Kurt Moll

Kyrie on a lifting scale
or within a lifting world
pressure is applied from below
a new plane
no matter the struggle 

I'm not overly enamored of the sound on this recording
the orchestra has little definition within its sound
and there is a certain sameness about the choral sounds
it's like the sound of the recording is acting out the Mass in C
it may be partly that the chorus and orchestra and space are too large for the piece
there is a lot of articulative detail that gets lost in there
a shame since this is really an interesting piece
if you could hear it

December 23, 2021

Mazurka in B minor, Op. 30 #2 - Frédéric Chopin - Vladimir Ashkenazy

a key expands its breadth without budging

Finnegans Wake Chapter 1 (start) - James Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer [recorded live at Gallery 1412, Seattle, on November 19, 2016]

this year (2016) he did 1 and 2 on the same evening
sir Tristram must be in the piano
the battle chapter
hurtle turtle
plethora of ululation
the corpse is outlaid
only a fadograph of a yestern sea
good rid hearing
mistletropes
a pretty nice kettle of fruit
make straight for Minos
really royally regally
Dooblong
Echoland
here now they are the fear of them annals of themselves
bloody wares
bloody wars
two sons at an hour were born to a goodman and his hag
blotty words
for Dublin
the copyist must have fled with his scroll
our ears
eyes of the darkness
euphonio saxo
a wrong story shortener
flick as flow flakes
stoop

Boll Weevil - Rabbit's Foot Williams [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

a song for addressing a force of nature
i.e. the Blues as a mode of prayer
this is really intense
as Otto the Repo Man says

Phonograph Blues - Robert Johnson [from The Complete Recordings]

repeatability
what evil have I done
a talk back 

"Beatrice, she got a phonograph / And it won't say a lonesome word"

You Got To Roll - David Honeyboy Edwards

just like a wagon wheel
articulation for us is not crucial
the greater power knows exactly what was said
you've got to get up Baby
by the light of the moon

Take This Hammer - Lead Belly [from Where Did You Sleep Last Night? - Lead Belly Legacy Volume 1]

carry't to the Captain
if he as's you
I'm gone
(cut off)

Begin The Beguine - Charlie Parker [from The Cole Porter Song Book]

improvise upon or around /
re-compose

what's Cole Porter still about it
are the particulars of certain sequences of melodic segments and chord changes

Reet Petite - Jackie Wilson [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

curious
was there a sudden change in the affordability of recording equipment
and of quality
after WWII
corresponding with an increased market
that is
was there an increase in the profitability of recorded songs
corresponding with the economic boom of the 50s
?

Blind Plowman - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [April 12, 1962]

secular (?) anthem
in the vein of mid-century triumphalist church music?
such a strange thing
grim comfort for the cold warriors?

Soul Kitchen - The Doors [from The Doors]

rock organ like
? and his Mysterians
still one place to go
secret alphabet
learn to forget what is said outright
what is sung above the organ's held tone
guitar brings it back down
to what is said
the clock says

Mother and Child Reunion - Paul Simon [from Paul Simon]

I remember early reviews of this
in which was bemoaned the loss of the high voice of Art
replaced by backup singers
But I think he was feeling hampered
by the lack of range afforded by the duet format

Jitterbug Waltz - Woody Shaw, Anthony Braxton, Muhan Richard Abrams, Cecil McBee, Victor Lewis [from The Iron Men]

DIY standard bearer
compose a recompose-able head

Sing Along! - Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [from A Cassette Player]

a short figure
repeated with some percussion
and an occasional low tone
toward the end the figure drops
and elides
successive notes
jingle bells desultory

In Session at the Tintinabulary

December 20, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 1041 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Ahava K, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1041 211220

the last noise session of 2021

December 24, 2021

Two-Part Invention in F minor - Gavin Borchert

This one features a repeated note figure
that wanders around the pitch field
and a slowly orbiting, more melodic line

Intermezzo in E-flat Major, Op. 116 #6 - Johannes Brahms

I could play it better I suppose,
but I think I'm done,
having other fish to fry

Anybody's Fingerbook, 2x2 (transpositional) B A - Keith Eisenbrey

the 3rd of many 

Keith Eisenbrey · 03 Anybody's Fingerbook 2x2 (transpositional) B A

2x2
refers to the size of the seed rotational array
(transpositional)
refers to the type of rotational array,
as opposed to (augmentational),
i.e. using addition as opposed to multiplication
B A
refers to unique paths through the array

Special Mention

My Dinner with Wallace

Much of my musical energy during the first year of the Pandemic went into producing this virtual recital of recent solo piano music by my long-time collaborator, Aaron Keyt, and by me. There are 9 reels total in the playlist, ranging from 10 to 20 minutes or so each, the whole stretching for just under 2 hours. I am quite pleased with the results, especially with how well I manage to illuminate the extraordinary "in-your-presence-alone" intimacy of Aaron's compositional voice.

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

time one has a spoilt I can't understand

it usual breakfast do you think it is

because I had perhaps that is how I

Reality Check::

more than one

monologue in the world

the ground wind sees

Playlist

Preface

"My revelation was: there are things you want to say, anxieties you want to engage, arising from anything in your life, arising in your perception from your perspective as a composer, that are not music itself (because they're explicitly about something(s)) or poetry either (because that's a different perspective of saying),and cannot be discourse (because that's a closed world in which some things are unsayable, or even indiscernible except as composite masks) - but such things may, still, be composable as something - not as music, but as music is composed, as something being what it is about: as languagemusic, composed out of the specific sensibilities which belong to you as composer, listener, reader, writer, player, speaker. "

- Benjamin Boretz - "(Liner notes for) / Language  ,as a music / six marginal pretexts for composition" 
from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020

Texts

From Recent Arrivals

November 5, 2021

October, 1984 - Olivia Block

we are far inside
a place
air is moving somewhere
not near us
then it is
we are near
moving
flowing
substance moves
to inundate
swamp
and scramble
signals arrive
blow past
ashore
we are in a space
emptied
then filled
slow long surf

we have been where before

Ginseng - Laurel Evers - Jim Knodle, Scott Brown, Jack Endino, Matt Cameron, Laurel Evers [from Standing Joys]

syncopatic-metric combo
hectical push groove
raunchuendos
with it pops

It Isn't a Dream - Melissa Dunphy - Cornell University Chorus, Robert Isaacs

SSAA
a story being told
in a space
that echoes certain phrases
back
and back 
flinging the tale
into poemmusicland

Bottomless Hole (Handsome Family) - Star Anna [from Songs to Keep You Up at Night]

a first person folk tale Poe-ism in a way (Karen says like the Boss in Nebraska - sure)

Recorded

October 30, 2021

Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Fvb 51 - John Bull - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

technically brilliant
a master class in composition
is it expressive
yes clearly
though the emotions one might name
are a mix
of calm peace,
placid like a quiet pond at sunrise,
and a frictionless warm glow
each smallest ripple
an elegy
phlegmatic confidence
the daily island life

Symphoniae Sacrae II, Op. 10 #27 "Freuet euch des Herren, ihr Gerechten" - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

metrical design
another master class for composers
but corporately expressive
each musician contributes
to the emotional burden of the whole
from the inside out
the whole
is expressive
because
each individual is
communally
but
so that
the composition
of the whole
bends
the individual expression
into a harmoniousness

social coercion

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1, Prelude and Fugue in G minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jacottet

precise finish to each trill
this expression is made of bricks

Sonata in C minor, Kk. 139 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

the initial figure is lopsided
supple sinews
glistening hide
animal grace

Sonata in C Major, Wq. 63/35 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

domestic life dispensed by paternal beneficence
each petition considered
then decided
a character study
aspirational and instructional
an ordered existence 

oops!
where did that come from
nothing a pleasant game of cards won't cure
private social graces

October 31, 2021

Don Giovanni, Act 2 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, Nicolai Ghiarov, Franz Crass, Claire Watson, Nicolai Gedda, Christa Ludwig, Walter Berry, Mirella Freni, Paolo Montarsolo, New Philharmonia Chorus, Henry Smith

Giovanni and Leporello argue,
then trade places
they conspire
almost literally
in duping Elvira 

G's lutish serenade is truly beguiling
seducing the audience
(Mozart tips his hand and winks)

G scatters the forces arrayed against him
his single successful ploy in the entire story
violence 

Zerlina's song of comfort
matches G's lute tune
in beguilishness
a wonderfully humane moment 

the scattered forces regroup
come to a more resolute agreement
back each other up
realize whom they are dealing with
a darn seriously amazing ensemble piece 

sociopolitically
Leporello
is in a real pickle
perfidy of the servant economy 

Mozartean recitatival nonsequiturs abound

everybody stop now
the MAN is going to speak
Ottavio
the mic is yours 

interesting that he finally comes around
after hearing testimony from the peasant 

Elvira thinks there may be something salvageable out of the Don
even after all that
(must have been quite a night!) 

the switcherudes
meet again
in the graveyard
where all
are equally low 

|||
In some productions Massetto and the Commendatore are played by the same voice.
It could be staged
such that
the Statua Gentilissima
is Massetto
in disguise
he comes to supper
and Don Giovanni
is undone
by his own (unselfacknowledged) terror
and credulity
the most coldest hand 

the demons coming out of the pit
are Ottavio
Anna
and Zerlina
in disguise
they drag him
into the cellar and kill him
emerging then
knives in hands
in bloody costume
for
the bad dude's get what they deserve chorus
at the end
||| 

Anna dispenses high notes with liberality
noblesse oblige
Mozart and duplicity
how about that party scene
not just an orchestral stage multiplicity
but also
a conversation
between Giovanni and Leporello
thick as thieves

Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 7 - Ludwig van Beethoven - HJ Lim

do a thing
vary that thing
but interrupt
halfway through
the varied
thing
with
some other
thing
embed freely

Lim reads this
as music made of figurations
the figures
make the key
the key
is not
something
the figures
are in 

interesting

November 2, 2021

Etude in F minor, Op. 10 #9 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot [1933]

the melody is in no meter known to mankind
the grumbling in the bass
gets angry
when it pulls too hard on its leash

The Christian Warfare -The Original Sacred Harp Choir [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

it's in the book
first
with solfeggio
then
with the verses
just as they sing it
singing is a ritual
and a catechism
teaching the singers
to be cogs
in a machine
an analytic
with a social similarity to bell choir performance
each player gets a selection of notes to play
important to understand
that this is not a music for public performance
it is for participants alone

String Quartet No. 3 - Béla Bartók - Juilliard String Quartet

lab coats
bubbling retorts
plasmodic discharges
angry nationalism
contention and strife
little canons
drift by
out the window
in the storm 

queasy moments

Don't Forget Me, Little Darling - Parker and Dodd [from Evans 78s]

guitar and banjo
two voices
tenor on the tune
female voice (I think)
as an upper harmony
though I would completely believe
a falsetto sort of voice
more likely
the more I hear

If You Build a Better Mousetrap - Peggy Lee [from The Complete Recordings 1941- 1947]

mix a better toddy
sweep a better floor
lying bigger lies
a dilemma
for discussion
amidst the entertainees
at the nightclub tables

Organum - Carl Ruggles - Buffalo Philharmonic, Michael Tilson Thomas

we don't talk about it
we buried it

Walkin' the Boogie (single version) - John Lee Hooker [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo's Milieu]

a story teller
telling stories
on top of a rhythm game

Sweet and Easy to Love - Roy Orbison - [from Sun Records Definitive Hits]

bump de wadda wadda waaaa
I think the backup guys
are saying
"sweeter than easy"

Alive - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, Joanne Deacon [April 10, 1962]

a rather severe study in large intervals
in canon
like an ostentatiously chromatic fughetta

Do I Move You - Nina Simone - [from Sings the Blues]

move groove soothe move
an inquisition
quiver liver

Era of Peace - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [from Betty's Picks]

a plea for such
with uncomposed accompaniment
staccato block chords
precursor to #meaningful #sungword #music

Beauty and the Beast - David Bowie [from Heroes]

engineered artificiality
masked multiples
half a song at best

Intermezzo 2 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded February 23, 2010]

Keith Eisenbrey · Intermezzo 2 (100223) 821217

begins with permutations
and a summary
an extrapolation
re-summarize
leap logic
resummarize
repeat 

a tonality that emerges from a seed
(which is a pretty good synopsis of the Intermezzo project as a whole) 

next task
was to dig into what seeds
consist of 

here 3 notes make groups
sometimes 4
there are overlaps of gestures
clearly I was somewhat obsessed
with the Chopin section of
("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...")
still am
to the point of trying to regenerate it
from homegrown principles
didn't manage that of course
but something else for sure

Let Him Go - Bonnie Guitar [from Dark Moon and other Country Favorites]

a letter to the other woman
you won't miss him
hm
you wouldn't even know he's gone 

I hope he didn't read the letter

Banned Rehearsal 299 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [July 31, 1992]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 299 920731

messages
are you there
and you are here
happy birthday
is sung by Aaron
to Karen
Aaron is Sam
He am Sam
reads the tale
house mouse
quiver liver
cumulative verse
words on words
with dulcimer and kalimba
a train a train a train a train
very clever

my journal entry of February 10 1995

train tree car
box fox
mouse house
here there
anywhere
would you oh
could you oh
in an administration
by Ross Perot
goat boat
boat goat
complete with summaries
say yea though I travel
wherever I go
I still shan't eat them
in an administration by Ross Perot 

the whites are not green
eggs don't got hocks
ham hawks
drumming
can you hear the constituent elephants
of the balances of your body

November 3, 2021

Eusebio Consumed - Mary Lee Roberts [from Open Space 9]

inside a metallic tube
it bends around us
semiarticulating chambers
we pass through
de-organizing

{my journal entry of January 4, 2004:

concerned with elemental forces and speaking
- in the time of syllables and seaswells

Banned Rehearsal 629 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 18, 2002]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 629 020118

let us make pretty sounds
at the time
I was not happy
with how the room was miked
I believe
we had a single stereo mic
in the middle
lots of transparence
but not much presence
golly almost 20 years ago
oversells the proximity effect

the little bells sound good
it misrepresents the size of the space
the space is livened
with some partial amplification
and loudspeaker noise
radio static
bird tweet
and rattle
to tambourine
we work the setup
tok!
disintegrated residue
the tide waxes inward
there are strange stations
out there in radioland
a wind that comes and goes
for striving after
the whole becomes dire
and prophetical
portentiosity unleashed
alarum sounds
and crashing waves of tam tam
magnificently weird

November 4, 2021

Hoosier Daddy - Antique Scream [from Sink the Sun]

I barely had time to sit down
a quick come-on
spoken
and some guitar stuff

Banned Rehearsal 810 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [March 26, 2012]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 810 120326

we poke at it
to discover what it might be
a bass guitar is practiced
like an annoying gnat
passive aggressive poison
when it goes away
the sound becomes a sound
an explorable territory
full of unknowns
the bass wanders around
unable to recall its past
we assist in its losing that
the mimicry of walking
is unfortunate
but fairly innocuous 

we don't jam 

stuck again
sort of comes and goes

Choppy - Sky Mackley - Splinter Reeds [from Hypothetical Islands]

works pretty well
with the tall trees
across the street
getting blown around
a steadyish force
some hyper birds
screeching at each other
some wiggly lines
descending
repeatedly
it's a living
a bit of an assault

Fantasia, Fvb. 52 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

voices in imitation
piled on top of each other
pitches
notes
have multiple cross-indexed contextualities
when the meter shifts
follow the footwork
light as a butterfly
fancy dance

Die Sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz, SWV 478 - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

query
was this a Lutheran thing
to make a setting of these particular texts
{answer:
no there is a Latin setting from ca. 1500, but this is a pretty early one}
or did it predate that schism
birth of the sacred oratorio
a sung passion play

the picardian nature of the cadences
is a punctuation
a marker

surely
as effectively transformative
as Wagner ever dared hope to be

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1, Prelude and Fugue in F minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jacottet

his hand is everywhere
his face nowhere
these thoughts are complete
they don't turn themselves
in on themselves

Sonata in D Major, Kk. 140 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

we'll have some fanfares and flourishes
the clowns will jape into their beards
no stick up this dude's keester
playing for delight
not instruction

Kurze und Leichten Klavierstücke, Allegro di molto in D minor, Wq. 114/1 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

not even a minute long
it sounds like one of his dad's inventions
turned inside out

Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Capella Istropolitana, Wolfgang Sobotka

a sunny bright night
it was a lovely day
today
was it not

gracious lovely duds
enforce slow movements

November 5, 2021

Sonata in C minor, Op. 5 #1 - Ludwig van Beethoven - HJ Lim

ends for good
right in the middle
then picks up elsewhere
entirely outside the same times
his voice leading
holds characters
much as Mozart's characters do
in his operatic ensembles
everything going on around the melody
is a dialog
third movement:
the figures scurry
to escape the downbeat
which chases them
to pounce
it's an awesome scrap
victory unassured
peace has been restored
or so we say
tee hee

Sonata in F minor, Op. 1 #1 - Friedrich Wilhelm Kalkbrenner - Luigi Gerosa

enters like a barker showman
spins his magic
one-dimensional
but magic
anyway 

strictly melodic 

this music is looking itself
in the mirror

those double trills are a bear
pretty great tunesmith though
a clever padder
a jolly fellow

Etude in F Major, Op. 10 #8 - Frédéric Chopin - Cecile Licad

just strolling down the walkway
in the early AMs
swinging a cane
in playful twirls 

circus peril

In Session at the Tintinabulary

November 1, 2021

Gradus 374 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

a tone alone
makes its own
fellows
from its innards
the place
upon which they expand
is neither vertical
nor horizontal
but internal
and curved
possibly polyplex

the second rung
is the 6th D Down
pretty low
and the 2nd E down
pretty high
the high E and its fellows
have a palpable acoustic effect
on 
the low D and its fellows
oddly
less so
the other way around
fewer audible partials to affect?

Special Mention

My Dinner with Wallace

Much of my musical energy during the first year of the Pandemic went into producing this virtual recital of recent solo piano music by my long-time collaborator, Aaron Keyt, and by me. There are 9 reels total in the playlist, ranging from 10 to 20 minutes or so each, the whole stretching for just under 2 hours. I am quite pleased with the results, especially with how well I manage to illuminate the extraordinary "in-your-presence-alone" intimacy of Aaron's compositional voice.

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

this to thank me for I had to such skill

was no disturbance in her play had that

happened her entire honored so would

Reality Check::

soon

the stone

would draw thunder

Playlist

 Preface

"For this contrivance to be the pillar, the very foundation, of my aesthetics, I have to enter a very strange platonistic world, a world of reified properties. Within such an aesthetic, crucially, metaphors are entirely absent; they are, indeed, categorically nonexistent; their places are occupied by haecceities which do inhabit this world, though in an oddly relativistic way: as abstract entities in one-time-only manifestations: one world-moment, one music-moment, one reception-moment, the entire contents of a momentarily materializing universe instantaneously dissolving into retrievable memory, into past-time, leaving nonetheless a transformative trace on the whole of consciousness: a state of being whose own haecceity is the identity of the conscious whole."

- Benjamin Boretz - "Fourth and long in Baltimore"  from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020

Texts

From Recent Arrivals

October 3, 2021

À quelle heure commence le temps - Gilles Tremblay - Aventa Ensemble, Bill Linwood, Vincent Ranallo [from Wanmanshu]

a door opens to a large room
delicately furnished
fully prepared for us
we are greeted formally
with sung text stuttering into chromatic leaps
fading into the door hinge
be wary
we will be shown 

de rigeur modernist gestures
aims for Erwartung
from a position to the side of late 50s Stockhausen
with a pinch or two of Berio's Visage

Composition No. 12 - Guillaume Gargaud [from 17 Compositions]

solo guitar
lyric
dense

Death (XIII) - Julia Shapiro [from Zorked (pre-order)

heavy drama
beast voice
buried in the folds

A Photograph of You - Laurel Evers [from Music from the Left Hand]

early evening with wine
bass
guitar
clarinet
comfortably social
a right pleasant hang

Full Shadow - Neil Welch [from Sonic Tide]

baritone sax
(with electronics?)
((reverb for sure))
mountain grotto

Pushing Back - Steve Layton & Improv Friday [from From the Vault 2011]

a slow parade
with floats and puppets
solemn

If You Wake in the Morning - The Foghorns [from Turn to the Moon]

small town social pressure
conform to an unspecified doom
country feel
with fiddle and acoustic guitar

October 8, 2021

If I Should Lose You - Aretha Franklin [from Unforgettable: a Tribute to Dinah Washington]

an alarming entrance
(for the ages!)
after a gentle piano riff
and a soft as satin string cadence
full out voice
up high in her ping
it transforms the entire rest of the song
walloped with an invisible club

Encore for the Fans "Listen" - Beyoncé [from B'Day]

the role of female hero
for fellow women
I will be
what we can be
you can be
after all
here I am

also demands that old Aretha
R word 

though not in so many words

Recorded

October 3, 2021

Raar - Bruce Hamilton & Friends [from Mash Hits Volume 1]

the barrel
in this gravity
rolls slowly
through a viscous medium
it eases to rest

Ghosting Doubles (Second Sighting) XY - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded with the stage directed microphones at Seattle Composers' Salon on July 7, 2017]

chapel chat before I play
when thoughts collide
they fuse 

it occurs to me
that one could treat any of the three lines
as the primary line
and move through them
with a similar pattern of sharing
(here: 

Middle, 

Middle/Bottom, 

Middle/Top, 

Top/Bottom, 

Top/Middle/Bottom)

October 4, 2021

Salvator Mundi, Fvb 45 - John Bull - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

the undisturbable cantus
wherever it flows
it remains
steadfast
earth is solid
and does not move

Symphoniae Sacrae II, Op. 10 #23 "Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden" - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

3 voices
if I count correctly
TBB
though perhaps ATBB?
voices cycle
and build density
step by step
the reading has lines
and the setting sets those lines
in distinct manners
less about the meaning of the statement
than its structure

focus on the external
structural
aspect
can free the aspect that conveys referential meaning

Prelude and Fugue in B-flat minor (Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1) - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet

separate chapels 

in the same building

Sonata in E Major, Kk. 135 - Domenico Scarlatti [Pieter-Jan Belder]

big sound
full chords
slide down the hill
slog back up
twice

Sonata in C Major, Wq. 53.5 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

transparent
all is laid out in plain sight
nothing is lost

5 Variations in D Major, Hob. XVII:7 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

themes for variation
are valued for their directness
and for a clear establishment of key
best if they don't stray far internally
so that its contours can be recognized
in the variations that follow

October 5, 2021

Don Giovanni, Act I - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, Sherrill Milnes, Walter Berry, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Peter Schreier, Teresa Żylis-Gara, Edith Mathis, Dale Duesing, John Macurdy

the underworld
of the afterworld
sees all
rumors fly
good clean fun
(rape and murder)
(the habitual crime
and the one he gets taken down for)
pacing
(he also stiffs his servant) 

does the music ever settle
or is it always moving forward
in and out of recitative
and full on singing 

Ottavio does try to pull it together
calm things down
just like a man
husband and father in one
creepy as that is now
was
as I understand it
the ethical understanding of the times 

his attempt is only partially successful

two fiancees
hm
the only married man
is murdered in the first scene 

Ottavio
the voice of righteous machismo
his music is utterly static
calm paternalism

the noble dude
comforts the
noble woman
the peasant woman
comforts
the peasant dude
matched moments of musical stillness

Sonata in D Major, Op. 28 "Pastorale" - Ludwig van Beethoven - Claudio Arrau

tune voice
bass voice
but the one in the middle
when it appears
devious
playful 

but there's something sinister about this reading
lurking
dangerous
not so much for the last two movements
nothing to see here
just happy country folk

Etude in C Major, Op. 10 #7 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot [1933]

the voices vie for attention
as they arise from the figures

Selection 15 from Selections from The Nutcracker - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy

and it ends with the sumptuous imperial ball
all sensuality
all the time
nothing to fear here
everybody's rich
and beautiful
complacent triumph

October 6, 2021

Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 - Arnold Schoenberg - Twentieth Century Classics Ensemble, Robert Craft, Anja Silja

does
not begin
does
has begun
the singer
has
a chamber orchestra
of agile hands
to make their meaning clear
gestural participation
they
the chamber orchestra
are also
their
(Pierrot's)
face 

stagy?
hell yes!
you can smell the greasepaint and sweat
small dingy stage required
the setting doesn't paint the text with madrigalisms
it is the embodied character that sings
as in Debussy
and the incarnation of the stage from which they sing
parts flit from instrument to instrument

Ross' Juba - Black Face Eddie Ross [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

see above
music becomes the body

Symphony #1 - Roger Sessions - Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Akeo Watanabe

1
motorized
urban
not deviously friendly
jumpcut
a lonely café
in the wee smalls
fierce

2
American Sehnsucht
gets all twisted
as it festers
remembrance
of those back home

3
new job
fresh resolve
fresh face
go get 'em

Contented - Ponce Sisters [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

so easy and relaxed
open and clear
room to be fancy
without hurry

Ramblin' On My Mind - Robert Johnson [from The Complete Recordings]

this is the second version of the song on the album
seeming easy passage
between the guitar's registers:
bass chunkahunka
treble whine

October 7, 2021

Winter Weather - Peggy Lee [from The Complete Recordings 1941-1947]

case study in
how to underline the structural rhymes
the songwriter wrote
with rhythm and timbre
and Benny's band doesn't have a slouch in it

It's Only a Paper Moon - Ethel Waters [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

a fancy enough tune
on its own
Ethel takes it through several other worlds of levels 

yeah!

Walked All Night - Charlie Booker [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

an urgency to the tempo
as if it is trying to get ahead of itself
solid blues
as fine a record as is

From the Ballet - Berthold Goldschmidt - Kolja Lessing

a 1950s revision of a 1930s piece
and old fashioned at that
nice clean harmonies though
played with sensitivity and clarity
chromatics descending through a key feel

Down in the Forest - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [April 10, 1962]

Hollywood tone-picture
all sheen and costume
from the first phrase
nostalgic
for the prewar paradise
pretend high class

Symphony #6 - Howard Hanson - Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz

opens with a cinematic scene
atmosphere
wherein a drama might be progressing
dire and solemn 

you too can count
how many times
the opening motif is repeated
verbatim 
2nd movement picks it right up
same motif
in new tempo
the journalists
will be amazed
if the program notes writer
writes about it 

one damned thing after another
no fraternization among the parts now
everybody in line

Dance With Me - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [December 1972]

for a small vocal ensemble
I may be mistaken but I believe this was part of an attempt to be inclusive of Hanukah on a winter holiday concert.

October 8, 2021

Missa Hilarious - P.D.Q. Bach - Peter Schickele

the choral clock in the K-k-k-kyrie is pretty nice
truth be told

Intermezzo 1 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [from Songs Concert, University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, November 6, 2004]

Keith Eisenbrey · Intermezzo 1 (041106) 821001

I like this tempo
slow but not protracted
I also like how lyrically I discover each register
I was treating the quarter notes
as just long enough
and the whole notes
longer enough than that
so that
they would clearly
be longer
than the quarter's
just long enough

I Wanna Live - Ramones [from Halfway to Sanity]

rather a sordid tale back there behind the hook

In Session at the Tintinabulary

October 4, 2021

Gradus 372 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

does there come a threshold
in pitch accumulation
at which we seize upon the possibility
of a familiar musical rhetoric
and cling to it?
can we narrow our focus sufficiently
to avoid hearing familiar sonorities
as dredging up their familiar contexts?

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

and loving language God speaks within them

must think account his we life and the

Samaritan the and the water pot

Reality Check::

too) I'm going to eat you

the sound

stopped

Playlist

Preface

"And soon the world rattled by its modern catastrophes and complexities was grasping at the imagery of scientific thought, the sensibility of transcendently counterintuitive phenomena and concepts, of reality cognizable only by way of mathematical modeling, of scientific and transcendental and psychologistic philosophy infiltrating into the mainstream culture; and was disgorging an array of expressive reactions to all of this in aggressive forms of overt detachment: the detachment of absolute control by maximal rational regimentation of every aspect of composed text, or complementary detachment of control maximally relinquished by a discipline of submission to an arbitrary externality or the determination of structure by a process of random correlation. And it was significant that these were not only the methods of composition, but its sensibility as well. 

 . . .

The aesthetic was authenticated by its totalism, its obliviousness to the need to yield at any point to a listener's need for access, for a point of contact with common experience or concept. The terms of the discourse were reinvented, cognative with discursive territories previously remote from music, from 'art'-talk. The hardass languages of physics, logical philosophy, I Ching, Zen. . . made the vocabularies of Futurism, Busoni, Scriabin, even Schoenberg and Webern look almost Pre-Raphaelite gauzy - certainly made their music sound all warm and fuzzy suddenly."

- Benjamin Boretz - "A Quasi-Personal Reflection on Milton Babbitt's Centenary and its Celebrations"  from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020

Texts

From Recent Arrivals

September 25, 2021

Encore - Anthony Braxton Quartet [from Anthony Braxton Quartet Birmingham 1985]

Bursts assert
together apart together

September 26, 2021

Tell All The World About You - Ray Charles [from What'd I Say]

ninety nine parts gospel

Love is 4 Me - Rina Sawayama [from Sawayama]

first blush
the voice has a similar pitch and ping to Madonna
the volume of the projection is armor

Don't Leave Me This Way - Tina Turner [from Twenty Four Seven]

prayer anthem

Things You Say - Whitney Houston [from Just Whitney]

vocal cadenzas applied liberally

Recorded

September 25, 2021

Soft Winds - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [April 10, 1962]

Hollywood heaven sheen lushness

The Unicorn - The Irish Rovers [from The Unicorn]

This song really took my 8 year-old fancy. Though I didn't know it for years, it was my first introduction to the work of Shel Silverstein. I remember singing it to myself in the empty lots below our house, before they built houses down there, leaping across ditches from dirt mound to dirt mound, and being surprised and mortally embarrassed to be discovered at it by a neighbor girl.

This Is Your Life Betty Eisenbrey [Bellevue First United Methodist Church, June 4, 1972]

My Mom was feted at about the time she was moved out of her 15 years of employment directing the choirs at BFUMC, helped along by injuries from an automobile accident that made it difficult to conduct, but also pushed by the new pastor, who was not happy with women in leadership positions in the church. But this was quite a nice gesture - an hourlong program at the front of an ice-cream social, after the pattern of the old television show.
Back in the time when choir robes were made by the church members by hand.
By the end there were 5 choirs: Cherub (for the littlest ones), Carol (for the girls) and Wesley Boys (for the boys) Chapel (I don't recall this one precisely) and Chancel (for the adults). The show finished with the assembled masses singing Jacob's Ladder and Kum Ba Ya. 

Clash City Rockers - The Clash [from The Clash]

invasion of the British Urban attitude
resentful of the image of suburban Penny Lane quaintness

Intermezzo I - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded February 22, 2010]

Keith Eisenbrey · Intermezzo 1 (100222) 821102

taking a leisurely amble throughout it
(but not as slow as originally conceived,
nor as fast as for the recital I gave of all six of them in 1984.
Slow enough to be plenty spacious
giving time for each step to sink in. 

It has been a long road from here to the fingerbook. 

a shapely piece, on to something

September 26, 2021

Overture to The Barber of Seville - Gioachino Rossini [from 100 Greatest Classics, Vol. 7]

in the slow intro
the passage starting with the long oboe note
on an harmonically ambiguous pitch
gradually adding notes
until the goal is clear
very much like how some rock/pop/jazz songs
as commercially arranged
work a similar play
with ambiguous parts of the meter
interesting to think
that for Rossini
Spain was an exotic locale
(though one with which Beaumarchais was familiar). 

Banned Rehearsal 296 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [July 10, 1992]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 296 920710

drum
ocarina as spring corps
sedentary division
we stop
regroup various things
roll sticks and Funmaker drums
each toot
there are many
has a unique pitch contour
as does each triangle strike
the big
come in for dinner
triangle
not the little
shiny
one

my journal entry of January 10, 1995

Aaron is the knight who says toot
and we have Aaronsbundler on the Funmaker
scratching the radio
an episodic feel to it
though they move into and out of each other without trouble
snare drum
radio noise
duet
some egregiously harsh sounds in there
listen at your own risk
piercing
if this doesn't scour your ears out clean
nothing will
the guy on the radio mentioned
the given culture wars
where does this fit
Amazing Grace
awesome
take me out to the ballgame
our portrait of America
root root root
for the toot toot tooter man
you do not have green eggs and ham
a quest is made

September 27, 2021

Notorious Thugs (Amended/Remastered) - The Notorious B.I.G.[from Life After Death]

defining articulate on his own terms
verbal and musical

Work / Architecture / Unity / And / The (Demo) 020112B - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [January 12, 2002]

playing a recorded version of the piano back into the space
for live percussion to interact with
balance is a problem
but I was going for test of concept
not public consumption

September 28, 2021

Watching You Go - Jennifer O'Connor and Choo Choo La Rouge [a Rescued Record]

this could be a St. Rage song (by Carol Anne?)
perfectly suited to acoustic guitar and woman's voice
exactly the size the song demands

Gradus 207 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [March 5, 2012]

a significant portion of the value of the Gradus project has been, for me, the sheer time it takes, time I have used to think about music, how we put it together in our earbrains. 

listening to the piano
making sounds that don't put themselves together as music
often
exactly
hearing what those sounds sound like
a focused
long term
meditational cogitation project
from our discussions
it is clear to me
that there is no intent
that this be any sort of music
other than what it ends up being
that is
simply the music
that arises
out of the procedure

Exercices - Dara Haxo - Splinter Reeds [from Hypothetical Islands]

1
still moments moving into and through

2
organized functions to the figuration
the chords are one thing
and the oboe tune is another
they are in the same room
looking at each other
the bassoon may be an ally for either

Gloria Tibi Trinitas, Fvb 44 - John Bull - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

what is constant seems so likely at first
the company pulls it along
figurational peer pressure
such a nice garden

Symphoniae Sacrae II, Op. 10 #22 "Von Aufgang der Sonnen" - Heinrich Schütz - Academy Augustana

more basso and basso profundo
the two voice parts have some canonic stuff going on between them
but I suspect much more besides

Prelude and Fugue in B-flat Major (Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1) - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet

sweeping exhilaration
whoosh
catch your breath
ready
here we go

Sonata in E Major, Kk. 134 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

jumps right in
elbows and all

Sonata in G Major, Wq. 62.19 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

1
these items don't balance
they elaborate
without balancing
quite

2
the bass line supports
but also comments to the side
who me?

3
where were we going again? 

Trio Sonata in G minor, TWV 42g2 - Georg Philipp Telemann - Opus4

textile art
two recorders and continuo
woofing and warping away
social music for the musicians' social enjoyment

Symphony in B-flat Major (#35) - Franz Joseph Haydn - Austo-Hungarian Orchestra, Ádám Fischer

dynamic punches
something else he can use to pattern with
a bit of the old Sturm und Drang in the B section
a nice series of sequences may get it straightened back out

Concerto in E-flat Major, K. 412 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz, John Cerminaro

horn posing as lyric baritone
comes across as smarter than Papageno does

Sonata in D Major, Op. 28 "Pastorale" - Ludwig van Beethoven - Wilhelm Kempff

we follow the course of a brook through fields and forest pools and rocks
it is always the same thread of water
certain of its flow
things look different at night
and here a happy window
not for me though
woe and curses and woe
prodded awake in the haystack
hey it's morning
a pleasant view stroll
just stay away from the geese
and city thoughts

September 29, 2021

Etude in E-flat minor, op. 10 #6 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot [1933]

a vocal study
breath support is everything
thinking the whole phrase to the end
even when it might take a turn

Selection 14 from Selections from The Nutcracker - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy

such a twirling of silk skirts

Trinidad Paseo - Lovey's Trinidad String Band [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

twisty tune head hangs in a tight corner of the tonality

Kitchen Mechanic Blues - Excelsior Quartette [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

a black pride sketch
switch rhymes kitchen and chicken

I'm Gonna Meet My Sweetie Now - Jean Goldkette [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

tin pan alley harmonies
ready for Broadway or the screen
Hollywood finessed ending composed
with the engineer's red light in mind

Moten Swing - Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra [from The Smithosonian Collection of Classic Jazz]

big band arrangement
with wiggle room
one must keep the dancers happy

Love Me - Art Tatum [from Classic Early Solos]

relatively subdued for Art
until suddenly it goes crazy for a stretch
I thought for a moment he could play it straight
but I guess not

Symphony 1 - Bohuslav Martinů - Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Peter Flor

the struggle to remember
the curtains rise unwillingly
when we lift
we all have to lift together
big tune is a corporate endeavor
information can be difficult to access
quite the times we live in
the chord voicing verges on too much too much of the time
but it's kind of fun
a bit like Art Tatum actually 

if an orchestral sweep can be slotted in
then do it
and he does seem to be mostly immune
to the tunebird virus
keeps it away with muscle dance
musical material includes its harmonic density as a proper part

A Survivor from Warsaw - Arnold Schoenberg - BBC Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Boulez, Gunther Reich

must have been unconscious
are all dead
counting
snare drum
Achtung
as if prearranged

Spiel - Karlheinz Stockhausen - Sinfonie-Orchester des Sudwestfunks, Karlheinz Stockhausen

follow instruction precisely
leave music to the experts
if the instructions are precise enough
they'll presume it's smart and cool and modern
and yet behind it all
lurks the Romantic Symphony
fastloud/slowsoft affective movement

No Huhu (Don't Be Mad) - Rusty Draper [a Rescued Record]

no huggy huggy by the cherry tree
if you don't make it with the rice and shoe
no hu hu
sex strike threat?

Hully Gully Callin' Time - The Jive Five [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

another dance call
do the Frank Sinatra
do the Hula Hoop (registered trademark r mark here)
no mashed potato though

If I Could Build My Whole World Around You - Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

they're starting to build these around separately recorded tracks
corporate engineering

Natural High - Bloodstone [a Rescued Record]

slow dance devotional time
one presumes it's about another human

September 30, 2021

Only The Good Die Young - Billy Joel [from The Essential Billy Joel]

old dude stepping into the shoes of someone's idea of someone's fantasy
simply tries too hard
I'm your bad boy dream boat

Adoration - Keith Johnston

hard surfaces
all sides
inside long tubes
metallic shouts and drum strikes
a beast down there
bellowing
spatial placement
nonliteral on this end
by being literal space to start with
an announcer discusses a large number of Canadian businessmen

Gradus 5 (San Diego Series) - Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 15, 1987]

another sound with non-literal spatial placement
here produced by octave differentiation
register and dynamic contrast
malleable space
1st and 3rd A-nats up
101 as it were
another take on counting
each pitch class is separate from the others
the a-nats count
and the E-nats count etc.
so that each rung could be expressed as a matrix or an array
12 rows 8(7) columns
add 4 or 5 columns as necessary
to make a 12x12 grid
and one could make a rung by reading vertically
if the keyboard had 12 full octaves
OR one could use a different smaller modulus
so that the quantity of pitch classes in play
equaled the quantity of modulus cycles contained within the keyboard
OR adjust the tuning
9x9:81
closest fit
the extra 7 notes could be part of a separate grid
perhaps a transposition factor
or some other function altogether
clumsy but perhaps useful in another context
I note that Neal is currently
here in 2021
moving up and down the registers like a land surveyor charting sections in a township
back and forth
left to right
down a section
right to left
down a section
left to right
the fist pitch was a low one
so the last will also be a low one
F-sharp??

This Is Always - Morgana King [from This Is Always]

nightclub combo
brush drums
piano
guitar
a string synth (I think?)
some horns
could also be synth
or smoothly recorded live studio performers
distinctive vowels to finesse the chromatic appoggiaturas
slipping in just so

Banned Rehearsal 452 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 452 970510

the path begins in thorns
tools will be required
progress will be slow
we have time
it can be a delicate business
such low lusciousness accumulant
where it goes
nor if we know
not a new space
we will pause
clarinet and infant wail
internal duet
piano and electric guitar
another
we are reduced
perhaps it is night
when we sleep
we strum
when we drum
we dream
the guitar persists throughout
hoping to provide a cover
for any else that might ring
shaker evening
scrape and sing
on the downhill slope
done

{{from my journal entry of January 2, 2005}}:

immediate fiddly noise, settling down to find its slower rhythm - but explosive, or suppressed, restless - adolescent. then dim to just guitar and room fiddling, tickly bangmetal deep low dij in drainpipe support guitar solo - morphing background sounds - organ 16' stops in du and chimney. The Creation of the Mondo. the Giant BIG FAT sound. The 500 lb gorilla of our mutual antagonisms. Isaac sings a yeah yeah yeah. we sing back. well in we fall apart - become, to Anna giggle, just piano & guitar & Isaac - (then drums) and we've all back. fussy. And then some really nice stuff - guitar, piano - fluty throaty, clarinet-y, clacks. ocarina-y. DIM --> to tiny sounds (and big CLACK. I wish the clarinet were not so melodic, so stepwise breath lengthy - better when he flips into the overblow. dim again ugly morning-after music. then, except for the woodbang - could be the soundtrack to some nature-show. complete with bell-tree and harmonics - continuing into some fabulous percussion sounds. if anything, it suffers from a kind of easy music-y persona - after the great bells the guitar gets too empty-big. like a balloon - fat and unavoidable, but void.  over-use of room resonance. this focus on one aspect of our acoustic space has a similar function in the pitch-timbre reality, as steady beats and ostinati have in the ongoingness. We devolve profoundly into conversational though members attempt to keep it going. We practice some close pitch singing - with rattles- which actually ends up getting pretty fun -

Tilt - Jarrad Powell [from Natural Selection]

monument melodic
articulate synthetic embouchure
sputter and pop and tongue and cavern
damn fine cup of skald this music is

Consider the Birds Mix with pine forest - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]

species of sounds
in an environment of species of pulsing
the sound of this mix
is nicely transparent
made with a preset called pine forest

In Session at the Tintinabulary

Banned Rehearsal 1035 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1035 210927

We gather as we have been, Neal calling in from Outpost Lake City

September 27, 2021

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

all the of this belong to has more it

enters into we can say that there are

possible deeper than the many kinds

Reality Check::

the wizard

inverts

his desert