"But ambiguity, specifically the ambiguities of outcomes as between stimuli and responses, between actions and experiences, seems ontologically contained within the very being of the experiential. And while every experiential outcome is internally absolute, holistic, and determinate, the ambiguities ensure the indeterminacy of any one outcome relative to any other; and the ontological ambiguity issuing from the awareness that any construal of experience, any individual instance of experience, is ultimately indefinitive relative to any other either between or within individual persons - such ambiguity inscribes the aura of unlimited new-revelatory possibility that pervades the psychic territory of the experiential. [For everything in experience is determined within each span of receptual-event-time, and everything experiential is absolutely indeterminate prior to a receiving event, unsusceptible to anterior prediction. That means that I can't even mentalize the specificity of any experiential music-event because its only specificity is itself: its determinate feel; that is, that in this case, mentalizing the music and mentalizing the experience of the music cannot be discerned or practiced as distinct different mentalizing acts.]"
Benjamin Boretz - "inside in, outside out" from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020
Texts
Streaming
Soundbox 2: Millenial Sunset - Tristan Gianola
Tristan Gianola, Electric Guitar/Electronics; Jake Sele, Narrator; Heather Bentley, Amplified Violin; Alina To, Amplified Violin; Alex Guy, Amplified Viola; Maria Schere Wilson, Amplified Cello
Once again I missed the original stream on the 11th, but was able to check in later.
voice of
trapped
competitive despair
in isolation
marooned abandoned
unremitting self
personal outlook
bleaker than thou
shouts itself down
existential anxiety
exploded outward
cheery fellow
doomscroll
mythos
last living boy in New York
big screen dystopia
see
Planet of the Apes
Damn You All To Hell
romanticized
passive
death
From Recent Arrivals
February 16, 2022
Drifting Day 2 Take 1 - Motoko Honda - Motoko Honda
solo piano
stepwise noodling
varied diatonic accompaniments
activity tracks energy
focus is on the figurational flux
After Tonight - Mariah Carey [from Rainbow]
bimodal vocal:
cheek-to-cheek-dance earwhisper
and full-voice
cryout
switching quickly
either actually
or manufacturally
a self-duet
I Wanna Be Where You Are - Michael Jackson [from Got to Be There]
not showing a lot of range here
but he was only 13
Easy Living - Miles Davis [from Miles Davis Plays for Lovers]
they'll all get there
one beat or another
stutter breath between
verses
always exactly together
The Night Has a Thousand Eyes - Morgana King [from Miss Morgana King]
show-off technique
at the service of tasteless sophistication
love it
Recorded
February 12, 2022
If You'll Let Me Be Your Little Sweetheart - Gene Autry [from Evans 78s]
sentimental view
of the old ways
even back then
paternalist
protection plan
Duncan and Brady - Lead Belly [from Where Did You Sleep Last Night, a Lead Belly Legacy]
a murderer and his victim
discussing calibers of guns?
the same
couplets
circle around
What Is This Thing Called Love - Charlie Parker [from The Cole Porter Song Book]
big bands were possible
because labor was cheap?
back to the
economics of nightclubs
in the 40s and 50s
On Green Mountain, for jazz ensemble - Harold Shapero - Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose
more big band sound
with harp
the sensibility
with which the
passacaglia theme puts itself together
is more 19th Century European
than jazzy-chord-change
- it cadences
which may be the
oddity of this
a big band piece
that speaks tonal
Haydnesque
cadence oriented phrases
Keep Your Hands Off My Baby - Little Eva [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
Ha-aaands
Ba-aaa-by
Ti-ime
He-ead
the melody is
composed
and the lyrics
so that certain open vowels
can
punch the microphone
Lo, How a Rose - The Philadelphia Brass Ensemble [from A Festival of Carols]
stately, plump
four cellos
and taped voice
music minus the other one
old culture is encoded
into every sound of this
the tape has an
audible hiss glow of presence
but the gimmick
is a small part of
what this is
it would work just as well
with four singer clones
it being
the identity of the singers
rather than its
tapedness
that is the compositional thrust
a preternaturally
blended choir
the cellos
should be played by clones also
||
back to the culture encoding
discussions of the individual
and identity
and community
it takes place
in an empty
space
in the earmind
a chamber
architected
out of
encoded culture's obsessions
anxieties
this is a pretty nifty piece of composition
under scrutiny
Jahreslauf - Karlheinz Stockhausen
enter with bells and clangor
they come
they go
another slow
procession
the processors
are all in slow motion
possibly
circling
time is kept
drums punctuate
flowers arrive
and are announced
in base 10
does it mean
what it
stands for?
we are deliberate
we go through all the steps
nothing will hurry
it along
gravity
don't you know
so heavy
traffic has
arrived
with honkers
and prizes are offered
a recorded big
band sound drifts by
in a haze of bubble
and party lights
perhaps Stan Freburg
hired them out
bombs go off
the
old clock
is winding down
tipping
slowly
over the
edge
down it goes
It's Your Turn - The Who [from It's Hard]
celebrating something
ridicule perhaps
whatever it is
it has
got to be said
with loudmouth effort
Standing Waves-78/87 - Stuart Dempster
inhabiting a volume
into
its queer corners
its distant apses
February 14, 2022
Banned Rehearsal 310 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [October 30, 1992]
questions one might ask
of a music:
A
what sounds are in it?
B
what sorts of things are happening simultaneously?
C
what types of things establish boundaries?
vertically or
horizontally?
D
how does it fill up its time?
vertically or
horizontally?
E
how distant from me
does it feel?
F
how are connections made?
vocal sounds
both singing and speaking
B
ditto
C
vertically
voice
and the distinction between singing and speaking
horizontally
breath
word
syllables
pitch
D
vertically
transparently
horizontally
overlapping activities
of various independence
E
in the same room
family intimate
F
lexical ideas
transfer
from layer to layer
recognizable answers
conversational procedures
sharing of phoneme sets
pitch play
pulse play
suddenly Old Mcdonald makes an appearance
must be heard to be believed
choo choo
vacuum
if a vacuum
is an absence of matter
in space
why do you need to clean it?
applause
play
I am unspooled
by no one
{from my journal entry of June 6, 1995:
Baboo!
Lion
sheep
vocalizings
John knows animal sounds
vocalizations
Big! EAST
up
car
dizzy wizzy
Ring Round Rosie}
February 15, 2022
Things Fall Apart - Mary Lee Roberts [from Open Space 9]
partial sounds
chopped and smooth
or both
rooms inside rooms
liquid swells
speech from outside
Jeremiah 17: 5-8 - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church on February 23, 2002]
my recording levels were so low
some of the keyboard part is lost
Karen sounds good though
bass and drums
an occasional vibraphone strike
now a shaker
the pitch of the bass shifts
but only to shift back
big
shaker episode
a guitar I guess
possibly synth
definitely a
post early Pink Floyd groove
we shut it down slow
modularly
What's Wanting For (draft) - Your Mother Should Know [May 1, 2012]
a bridge loaded with similes
never have been sure how Ecclesiastes got
in there
guitar and drums sound good
Different Now - Chastity Belt [from I Used To Spend So Much Time Alone]
self instructive beat construction
lyrics applied sparingly
could
be reflexive
or advice
or both
Banned Rehearsal 1044 - C, D, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Ahava K, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer
after adjustments of position and equipment
we begin together
the
goal
is to broaden
to open
to widen
with focus
earth firmly underfoot
a different household wires in
wirelessly
from Lake City
households converse
it persists
in its own sputtery space
quietly about its
business
until Tam Tam
awakens
Lake City
gently
now done
Pavana, Fvb 85 - Peter Philips - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
the three types of motion
as commonly abstracted
similar
oblique
and contrary
but the particular intervals
involved in any one case
both
absolute
and functional
complicate the question
past the
point of possible
denial
or confirmation
Partita in C minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Gunther Hasselmann
each bit
tells a portion
of the argument
placard-like
the motions
are not just between voices
but
between
figuration complexes
as both wholes
and
as internally moving
wholes
and parts
I note that he skips the mordant
in the Courante
that was giving
me the puzzlements this morning
so that
it can seem
to go sideways
he digresses upon himself
comes back around from elsewhere
so that
where you started
is no longer
where you started
but
where you passed through
on the way to
oops
done
Symphony in A Major, Op. 92 (#7) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert van Karajan
pressure against a barrier
flowering
spills over
as pressure
builds
the lid suffers damage
its joints
loosen
punchy
punctuation
echoed later
by piano punctuation
(no punch!)
in a similar structural location
violins
biding time
Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64 #2 - Frédéric Chopin - Peter Katin
chromatic complexes
establish
a key of their own
a key of
distances
within
another sense
of key
New Orleans Lowdown - Duke Ellington, B. Miley [from Allen Lowe's Really The Blues]
more
blueser
than
you sir
so:
Liszt Chopin CPE Bach and Liberace
all crowd into the same
pianist
In Sentimental Mood - Florence Price - Lara Downes
I would watch that movie
somewhere between Joplin and Evans
Hey, Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo and the Beat]
a brag
on a train chug rhythm
with punch
Road Runner - The Ventures [from Walk Don't Run]
pre-meepmeep
cruisin' tune
beatnik nerves
greaser cool
24 Preludes, Preludes 17-24 - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, on June 21, 2003]
I was sure I had played these
on a recital
at some point
but
had had no record of it
when I found copies
of the program
kept
for scratch paper
and
thus
had
a date
and so
found
the DAT
oh joy
mostly played pretty well
May I - Maurice Williams and the Zodiaks [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
chromatic dips
falsetto harmonies
and oobie-doobies
what's
not to like
however
there is a reason musicians chafed
at 2 minutes 30
Peter's Jones - Bloodstone [a Rescued Record]
funk
mixed up
call and response
rides a groove
for
dancing
Ebb Tide - Elaine Barkin - Kenneth McGrath, Aaron Smith [from Open Space 16]
tentative
searching
touch
pull back
retouch
two vibraphones
magic wetlands
crabs
under cover
of rocks
pools
anemones
limpets
barnacles
Allentown - Billy Joel [from The Essential Billy Joel]
on Springsteen's turf
this is just lame
journalistical
Assembly Rechoired 18 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [March 14, 1987]
a cat
is purring
in the microphone
Anarchy or
Amnehitabel
once again
I am playing with tape recorders
leftover silly
from the session with Paul
and Happy Birthday
a bad case of
chipmunks
Aaronsbundler
to the rescue
this one goes hog bonkers
one more generation
one last generation
a truly silly noise
with hints of a speech rhythm
play it again
February 17, 2022
Colorscope - Michael C. Viens - Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Robert Stankovsy, Volker Schwarz
sophisticated naivete
or naive sophistication
or naive naivete
with some arrangement chops
precious
looking firmly back
one presumes
it adequately fulfilled
a commission
Banned Rehearsal 464 (digital) - Pete Comley, Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály- Meyer
 |
| my journal entry of February 17, 2022 |
heavy on bass
the drums
a dense opaqueish roar
do the sounds
lack presence
or is their presence obscured by the drums
this
recording is largely the victim of poor mic placement
I wonder if the
general EQ
couldn't be amended toward the high end
it just seems
dull and heavy
claustric
Not the First Time - The Humidiflyers [from Blue Ducky EP]
a reminder
in time of trouble
make a big rolling noise about it
Consider the Birds 13 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]
starts tiny or distant
some sounds
seem to echo off
some sit
still
or ask questions
or whisper
patient
waiting out
the night
one louder sound
like a sneeze
echoes off
with the others
we
are the sole speakers
of our
idiowhims
We Were Young - Youth Rescue Mission [recorded live at the High Dive, Seattle, April 6, 2012]
the slow liquid affect
of the vocals
makes their downbeats
sound like the offbeats
assisted
by heavy
or
nonexistent
actual offbeats
and imprecise syncopation
technically
they're inverted quasi-doubles
in a baroque double
the bass parts remain the same
as in the original
and the
melody
is an ornamented form
of the original
here
the
melody
remains identical
and the alternate accompaniments
are paired with it
(and derived from it)
or
the
original is left out
ghosted
as it were
Amy Denio has my undying gratitude for allowing me the use of her tune
1~~-~-~-~~-~~-~-~~-~-(Rojahn Remix) - Lost Chocolate Lab [from (Previously) Clean]
guitar
incites a throb in the basement
cut loose
it drifts
into clouds
solid thinking
In Session at the Tintinabulary
February 13, 2022
Banned Telepath 81 South - Steve Kennedy
February 14, 2022
Banned Telepath 81 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer
February 17, 2022
Banned Telepath 81 Toad Hall - Aaron Keyt
Banned Rehearsal 1045 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer
February 18, 2022
Anybody's Fingerbook 3x3 (augmentational) A B C - Keith Eisenbrey
Postscripts
Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery
more doodles from 1987
