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| Wonderland Trail, near Longmire |
"'No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws must have left their mouldings there since yesterday,' murmured Starbuck to himself, leaning against the bulwarks. 'The old man seems to read Belshazzar's awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly. He goes below; let me read. A dark valley between three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil; but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer. Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we would fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain! This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me. I will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely.'"
Herman Melville, from Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.
Texts
Live
 |
| Wonderland Trail, near Longmire |
Harmonia Chamber Players II
University Unitarian Church, Seattle
Eight Songs on Poems by Emily Dickinson - Aaron Keyt - Karen Dunstan, Jennifer Chung
watch your fingers now
these settings bite back
Six Poems of Carl Sandburg - Carol Sams - Cassandra Willock, Anjali Chudasama, Lyon Stewart, Gabriel Salmon
syllabically playful
Monteverdish
attending to phonemic colors
fast and loose with word repetition
String Quartet No. 2 ("Riddles") - Huntley Beyer - Stephen Provine, Fritz Klein, Katherine McWilliams, Matthew Wyant
humane and pleasing
a gracious host
Recorded
 |
| Wonderland Trail, near Longmire |
Madrigals, Book IX: Bel pastor, dal cui bel guardo - Claudio Monteverdi - Concerto Italiano - Rinaldo Alessandrini
syllables
and phonemes
and notes
oh my!
Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist, BuxWV 208 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
these lines are having a quiet chat by a warming fire
Nun ist das Heil und Kraft, BWV 50 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Gächinger Kantorei, Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, Wurttembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn, Helmut Rilling, Arleen Auger, Philippe Huttenlocher
the fugue is instructive of the text set upon it
Sonata in A Major, Kk. 301 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
clarity of figure of the moment
their metrical contours
and the
tightness
of their fitting together
Kreisleriana, Op. 16 - Robert Schumann - Éric Le Sage
feral meter
spills over the ends of lines
until
its bursting
forth
is exhausted
the placement
of the notes
we hear
as the tune
with
respect
to the notes
within the figures
that echo it
or pre-echo it
metrically
shuttles us
across the gap
between adjacent metrical cycles
mind you
this is all going by
lickety-split
so
hang on
tight
a book of daydreams
there's always time to be found
for a lovely
decoration now and again
multifaceted moments of experience
(kernels)
Buch der Lieder I, S. 531: No. 1, Die Loreley - Franz Liszt - Alexandre Dossin
transformation by touch
off on an adventure!
this music tells
tales
Etude in F-sharp Major, Op. 42 #3 - Alexander Scriabin - Dmitri Alexeev
those damned little triplet trills
 |
| Wonderland Trail, near Longmire |
A Monday Date - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives and Sevens]
showmanship up front
wow 'em with razzle dazzle
The Middle of Love - Blossom Dearie [from Give Him the Ooh-La-La]
all the iddle rhymes
preposterous sky
Until the Real Thing Comes Along - Aretha Franklin [from Laughing On The Outside]
the musicians respond
as though they meant it
The Love of My Man - Etta James [from Tell Mama]
testimony
with extravagant vocal expression
Any Colour You Like - Pink Floyd [from The Dark Side Of The Moon]
an instrumental interlude
Fire - Bruce Springsteen [from Live at The Roxy]
could imagine this song
as an Elvis the Pelvis rockabilly
Every Breath You Take - The Police [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
jealousy
threat to chattel
woman
object
Perdulaise - Aaron Keyt - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded October 19, 2006]
so that
each moment
is clearly drawn
with no sound extra
Just Say I Love Him - Nina Simone [from A Single Woman]
cabaret vibe
Gigue - Tingstad & Rumbel [from American Acoustic]
more easy-going than jolly
Track 5 - Eckstein Middle School Students [from Mach 6]
something stirring and patriotic no doubt about it
all the approved inspirationals
 |
| Wonderland Trail, near Longmire |
bursts of bursts
could one count them?
gets easier later
coincidence complicates count
each burst
an object
does a blip
count
as a burst?
can bursts count?
can
blips?
the incidence
of coincidence
diminishes
as it goes
along
these silences have flavors
nameless flavors
the anominable flavors of silence
November 25, 2025
I Wanna Be In The Deadbars - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The Comet, Seattle]
with distinctly tin pan alley changes
equipment adjustment
Frankie and Johnny - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded March 29, 2019]
with distinctly non tin pan alley changes
in order to open thoughts
about how such changes function
making recalcitrant material sing
Spaceship - BLDGS [from Dirt Cult Records - Dead Bars- You Don't Have to Be Cool Vol 1]
four line poem
and short ones
Get Up Off Your Knees - Ethel Waters [from That Devilin' Tune]
laying down the law
When Will The Blues Leave? - Ornette Coleman [from Something Else!!!]
last line
of three
wraps it up
Do You Want To Know a Secret - The Beatles [from Please Please Me]
speaking directly
to the listener teen
 |
| Wonderland Trail, near Longmire |
story teller
letter writer
instrumentation extends
past from the song
A Quiet Place to Live - Carole King [from Fantasy]
journal entry
addressing herself
Pléïades: IV. Peaux - Iannis Xenakis - Red Fish Blue Fish
drums have location locked down
the timpani are revving their engines
JB KEE 831105 - Jill Borner, Keith Eisenbrey [November 5, 1983]
guitar tuned loose
piano
and Roger
a bass line
and
some chords
chatting after
music on the back porch
Rattled - Traveling Wilburys [from Traveling Wilburys]
old-guy get-together
Gone With The Wind - Sun Ra [from Monorails and Satellites]
the annotations
have a dance party
Track 7 - Richard Rorex and Reid Merryman [from Mood for Rochelle]
a smoke filled cabaret
from South of California
Banned Rehearsal 660 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [November 17, 2003]
how we chatter
toward discovery
get onto something interesting
to gnaw at
change of topic
by collective drift
 |
| Wonderland Trail, near Longmire |
Appalachian Haunted Spring
across the prairies
brave skies
starfilled nights
the strings have gotten all excited
and tied themselves into a
fugue
all the ponderous beasts arrive
to assist
holy sweeping panoramas Batman!
clean up crew
with timp buckets
Dixie Cups and Jars - Waxahatchee [from Cerulean Salt]
something vaguely bad going down
by the beat writing alone
Polluted Skies - The Bombpops [from Dear Beer]
80s surf vibe
St. Peters - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [August 27, 2023]
the added parts
disguising
as other hymn tunes
among
the given
hymn tune
Deep River - Forbes Randolph Kentucky Jubilee Choir [from Really The Blues]
must have been a challenge
to place the microphone
My One and Only (What Am I Gonna Do?) - Sarah Vaughan [from Sarah Vaughan Sings George Gershwin]
predicaments
must rhyme
to be
with the time
the unmistakable cleanliness
of a recording studio
Masters In This Hall [from The Life Christmas Treasury]
I have sung exactly this arrangement
in costume no less
Mrs. Robinson - Simon and Garfunkel [from Bookends]
humming moans in the back
 |
| Wonderland Trail, near Longmire |
Jesus Children of America - Stevie Wonder [from Innervisions]
it is unclear
to whom he is addressing this song
odd message for the dance floor
as
it is more of a sermon
or
harangue
than a titillation
or encouragement to romance
Eternal Day - Sacred Harp Singing Group [from The Art of Field Recording]
truly scary
Batman - 6 6 12 [from Bard Sampler 82-83]
there were always people
who had picked out some tune or other
and
would plunk it out
on any piano they ran across
to pretend
something
kin to Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater
and Chopsticks
but
for guitars
Banned Rehearsal 151 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [September 1, 1988]
a marching rhythm
on drums
a few low notes on piano
and
tenor sax
with a new player
(Karen?)
in a music mood
a loud music mood
did you ever notice
how a saxophone
looks like a steam
engine?
some sessions have a Dada energy
rousing rendition
of Sentimental Journal
we find a stiller room
where sternness weighs heavy
music box to the rescue
aunty sesquicentennial
a goal of this music
might be
not to be great
but
to
allow ears a space to wander in
or out
this certainly succeeds
in not being great
very often
There Will Always Be You - Lennie Tristano [from Note to Note]
the good stuff passed
sub table
sub fame
straight thought
for any to hear
Da' Art of Storytellin', Pt. 2 - Outkast [from Aquemini]
since I don't understand
most of this tongue
it becomes
a
drumming
that trips
but that's incorrect
it jolts
forward
with a propulsion
of explaining
it tells
it
to you
Water - The Humidiflyers [from Humidiflyers]
playing with back-masking
like Rain
an epistle
into the could have beens
being a working band
is a kind of disaster
to endure
perpetual crisis
add success
and stir
for melee mode
 |
| Carter Falls, Paradise River |
beginnings are fun
endings allow thought
experiences
consist
of a set of dyads
the first member of
which
is signal
and the second member of which
is theory
theory
is signal's reverberation
signal
is theory's
inspiration
are these random sounds
gathered into a temporal box
or
do
they gather themselves
by some pre-conscious meta-theory?
when and where is all this happening?
is there anything they have in common
(so as to effect a grouping)
that we haven't theorized
because
we would never
need
to be able to
do so
in order
to survive?
the concept
of a moment
we stumble through our lives of moments
pretending to ourselves
that we have been here the whole time
where does attention flag to
when it flags?
the sparse and specific nature
of the sound bits
allows one
to note
the effect
some
produce
on the guitar
leaning
to the left speaker's left
and
to surmise
a similar
potential
effect
(much subtler)
from
the clavichord
to the right speaker's right
name
moment
person
spot
Track 2 - Red Ribbon [recorded live at The Comet, March 5, 2013]
hi everybody
a great weight
sinks deep in
firmly planted heel
Figure Study 180820 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [August 20, 2018]
soon to be
on one of my bandcamp releases
need to see what I can
do
about some clipping artifacts
this is me
thinking out loud
with my hands
 |
| Wonderland Trail, near Carter Falls |
this sounds like a music
made in a room
the real thing
a violin
and a piano
with people around them
and movement of
body sounds
must be a dancer or more
we are moved
slow as shadows
moving toward dusk
holds
intensity
He Is My Story - Arizona Dranes and Choir [from Goodbye, Babylon]
a strong rope
piano
and something dulcimerish
and Arizona
and others
singing along
boom chuck chuck
boom chuck chuck
Mad About The Boy - Morgana King [from Sings The Blues]
head rhyme
sad about the boy
glad about
I sense some conflict
in our narrator
a rhyme twist song
cinched tight
Here Comes Santa Claus - Bob B. Sox and The Blue Jeans [from A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector]
so bright
it hurts my teeth
"8"Teen - ? and The Mysterians [from The Best of ? and The Mysterians]
a brag
and an apology
at once
heat it up to finish
 |
| Wonderland Trail, near Longmire |
Don't Bring Me Down - David Bowie [from Pin Ups]
it
(recorded music)
is produced
in the real time
of
the past
and
is
amply annotated
in the historical
record
so that
we can trace influences
or
so that
we think
we can
but
are the facts
of a track's
influences
what the track is?
for whom?
Shout, Lulu - Uncle John Patterson [from The Art of Field Recording]
brought back from England
years ago
first banjo
my daddy got
first tune
ever played
on a banjo
In Session at The Tintinabulary
November 23, 2025
Majesty (double) - Keith Eisenbrey
the tune is by Billings
this was fun
 |
| Nisqually River, near Cougar Rock |
Gradus 423 - Neal Kosály-Meyer
first:
and then:
paths across the pitchscape
deep background purpose of Gradus:
to addle the earbrain
change
its hearing
countable thoughts
so plain
begin your count
from any point
November 25, 2025
Detritus 9 - Keith Eisenbrey
Detritus 10 - Keith Eisenbrey
Detritus 11 - Keith Eisenbrey
Postscripts
Drops
Music of Gavin Borchert (part 1)
some piano pieces from 15 years ago or so, and a bunch of more recent two-part inventions 2020 played on clavichord.
recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream
