"Now
heroes
bold
in
leather
breeches
do
leap
o'er
five
barred
gates
and
ditches
the
perils
of
the
field
to
dare
and
hunt
that
furious
beast
the
hare!
Oh,
courage
rare!"
from
The Comic Almanack
an Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry
Tales, Humorous Poetry, Quips and Oddities, First Series, 1835-1843
Texts
Live
December 13, 2024
Red Pants Collective + Kin of the Moon
Heather Bentley, Kaley Lane
Eaton, Giordana Falzone, James Falzone, Leanna Keith, Hannah Rice
The
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
what portends before the song begins...
partly hushed private chats in a public space
attentions
preparing
to key into collective experience
soon
the hush presaging
setup is relatively light on electronics
nary a laptop in sight
entrance of the celebrants
a composed event
slowed breathing
twisting the floor
walking from air
moving pillars
leaping to breathlessness
music sings to heal and restore
harass and beguile
leaves as gently as arrives
I have been in a strangely reclusive mood of late
but this was just what
I needed and I'm glad we went.
I was especially taken with the permeable
boundary
between the movement-artists and the sound-makers
- a
remarkable and healing Gesamtkunstwerk.
Recorded
Argentina - Corina Nolting [from The World Sings Goodnight]
I believe this album
(a cassette tape)
was a gift to our family
at some point back in the 90s
when we had small kids
it was
never a favorite
innocuous music is an existential problem
Banned Rehearsal 491 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [April 18, 1998]
assertions are made and quickly discarded
our thoughts wander
the
sounds in this session
seem to be reluctant to get into common spaces
with their fellow sounds
disinclined
to engage
goes through motions
puts in time
the possibility
that
feedback could erupt
provides stakes
a too-easy effect?
aims
too low?
the round-robin sessions
were predicated on an assumption
that if
one was in the room
one was expected to be making sound
as a
social requirement
but
does leaving the space
even
or
especially
if done on a schedule
and re-entering
merely make public
a decision
to not be engaging
in
the prescribed manner
for a time
a decision
that doesn't
need to be made so theatrically public?
an enforced shaming?
or
a spontaneously arising ritualization
of various transformations
among the members
that affect their interactions?
an episode
within a work in process
{journal entry of March 21, 2006:
narration by Isaac
lots
of plucked
and strucked
until
the organ comes in
low
then carefully glowing
around
certain individual sound spaces
roundrobin session
with characteristic transparence and episodicity
one bad transfer spot
I wonder what that was about}
Intrada - Ryan Hare [from Intrada]
a blatant fanfare
for a blatant time
the extended techniques employed
(singing while playing?)
serve
the music
because they are so clearly heard
on the composer's
part
and
their sonic manifestations
are so precisely
integrated into the pitch world of the piece
December 9, 2024
Banned Rehearsal 732 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [February 4, 2008]
and speaker placement
are determinants of the virtual space
the projected sound is in
(sounds are in)
although
a sensitive ear can tell
that some sound
is being projected from speakers
that sound
is not different
from sounds otherwise produced*
(sound is sound)
they are sounds with peculiarities
*the ear hears them
by the same mechanism
and wetware
the
distinction
is entirely in-house
to the listener
we posit histories
for the sounds we hear
and
we fancy
we can determine traces
of that history
within the sound
as well
as though memories of artifacts' histories
(how
those sounds got into those speakers)
clarinety feedback
electric guitars
and autoharp
and little
bells
and xylophone
Snohomish Mash-Up Piece #1 - Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer, Steve Scribner [from Odds and Ends]
a complexly layered artifactual history
the senses in which
I know
what I'm doing
are peripheral to the doing
Patti's Parlour Pieces 17 - 20 - Ken Benshoof - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, February 24, 2018]
careful attention
to the beats between beats
Suyama - Steve Peters [from Chamber Music]
its own virtual chamber of music
an odd little music-dimensioned maze
here is a heart of it
Geistliche Chor-Music, Op. 11, SWV 369-397 (1648), Volume 2: XXVI. Sehet an den Feigenbaum - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana
how grandly we slowed
times within times
Deuxieme Ordre (ré): Passepied - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert
too enjoyable to think
Barmherziges Herze Der Ewige Liebe, BWV 185 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir, Ton Koopman
imitation:
ritualized memory
presented as an aesthetic process
finger slap
or extra-resonant sounds
from the organ(?)
not
exactly part of the pitch-music
a marker
for a voice within the
fabric
this stop just does that
Keyboard Sonata in E-flat Major, Kk. 253 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
runs a prescribed course
this part is for endurance
trial by
modulation
Symphony in C Major, Wq. 182/3 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - English Consort - Trevor Pinnock
count carefully
we're full of sudden divisions and hold-ups
we
form incoming sound
into an expression
we desire to make
with that sound
even
if that desire
was inchoate
until that incoming sound
formed it
or awakened it
from in us
String Quartet in D minor, K. 421 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Budapest Quartet
a common tone
sunk into the depths
by a melody of intervals
by the book cadences
extended by fragmentation and repetition
still signify formal articulations
serve as punctuation
excursus:
in two major-key collections
related to each other by
transposition of six semi-tones
the subdominant of one
is the
leading tone of the other
and vice-versa
of course
and
they are the two common tones between them
6 semi-tones apart
as can be easily seen
that's why they're common tones
String Quartet in G Major, Op. 54 #1 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Endellion Quartet
always clever
where all the parts come from
figures
sliced
out of melody
dissected fancy
in the Haydnesque four-movement format
the first and last movements
are generally in the same key
but
they are different
versions of that key
derived by independent means
no two G Majors
are made alike
Mass in D Major, Op. 123 "Missa Solemnis" - Ludwig van Beethoven - New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, Elisabeth Soderstrom, Marga Hoffgen, Waldemar Kmentt, Martti Talvela
whence this material?
it coalesces instantaneously
a blinding
flash
it is essential
that each voice
stick to its guns
do NOT glance fetchingly
at any of your fellows
(or you're
next)
suddenly
we've still been here
at the blinding flash
Gloria:
(a reasonable reaction)
successive entrances
stacked
create the illusion
of further
entrances
within the mass
of those original entrances
as
they proceed
psycho-acoustic moil
emerging from everything
and nothing
the soloists
are not soloists
they are parts of a thing happening
with fiery tongues
stern credo-lotry
he means what he says
the voices float upon the Gospel
cyclic recitation
Kierkegaardian
repetition
echoes
and echoes
of echoes
of entrances
and entrances
of entrances
it overwhelms utterly
(a truly epic amen)
the harmonics
of wonder and awe
we have moved beyond the world of figures
Frühlingssehnsucht - Franz Schubert - Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, Gerald Moore
tempo change
as though glancing worriedly over ones shoulder
6 Concert Studies on Caprices by Paganini, Op. 10 #6 in E Minor, Sostenuto - Robert Schumann - Florian Uhlig
roll a chord
and the downbeat
is the top of the top
a figuration freak like me
Polonaise in A Major, Op. 40 #1 - Frédéric Chopin - Peter Katin
entrance of the grandees
their medals that gleam
and jewels that
glitter
pomposity after pomposity
Denk es, O Seele! - Hugo Wolf - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Daniel Barenboim
toward
stream-of-consciousness through-composition
away
from
Romantic folkish strophes
Etude in F-sharp Major, Op. 42 #4 - Alexander Scriabin - Michael Ponti
gently drifting down to slumber
Suite, Op. 8 - Darius Milhaud - François Choveaux
1
softness upon softness
a gently colored painting
soft
trees and gentle waters
2
a wind-up toy dance
steps ex mechanisma
3
a forthright approach
will see us through difficulties
4
dark and murky
as the sun descends
adventure portended
be brave
and stand firm
5
is this dawn we see?
a paler dark
in the East sky
gathering our forces
for struggles ahead
re-waking
reluctantly
In a Nutshell #2: Gay but Wistful - Percy Grainger - Percy Grainger [from Percy Grainger plays Percy Grainger]
in the style
of piano pounding for the flicks
no sensibilities
will be offended
Confidénces - Ernesto Nazareth - Marcelo Bratke
the somewhat sentimental music of the streets that surrounded modernity
Left Alone Blues - Ishmon Bracy [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
you can smell the dust of the streets in this
Nobody's Sweetheart - Arthur Briggs [from That Devilin' Tune]
to be sung on stage
with a cane and hat and tap shoes
vigorous piano pounding
Mathis Der Maler (Opera): "Mein Bruder, Entreiße Dich Der Höllentiefen Qual" - Laß Mich Im Pfuhle Untergehen - Paul Hindemith - Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin , Leopold Ludwig, Donald Grobe, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
singing dialog in epistolary rhythms
paragraphs traded via song
volume modulates with emotional emphasis
I Cried for You - Billie Holiday (with Benny Goodman and his Orchestra) [from Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia]
reversal of fortune
my how her lines float!
Mass - Igor Stravinsky - English Bach Festival Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, Trinity Boy's Choir, English Bach Festival Chorus, Nicholas Cleobury
stripped down
to follow twisted paths
to articulatory concords
and their clear progeny
intimate statements
of inscribed
words
as sung
by the assembled
liberate dissonance
and liberate harmony
and notes and syllables
while you're at it
one can listen
to a setting of the Ordinary of the Mass
as a
concert piece
or
one can listen
as a believer
how
might it benefit us
to make it a conscious choice?
(or both of
course)
this faith is timeless
ecstatic
monasterial
learned
practiced
histrionics are irrelevant here
it prays constantly
holy repetitions
a traditional
incantation
of course
it is always clear
that this music
is about The
Mass
in a peculiarly
meta
manner
{journal entry of December 29, 2005:
1
kyrie:
each statement carefully
individually
rendered
not: dramatized
rather: highlit
2
gloria:
lyric stasis
3
credo:
enunciation
4
sanctus:
declamation
hosanna
--
5
agnus dei:
beginnings
no endings}
Klavierstück IV - Karlheinz Stockhausen - Aloys Kontarsky
maximate dynamic range and precision
it is insistent
that its
cultural importance
should be emphasized
vehemently
Music Walk - John Cage - Stephen Drury
isolation
each bit in its box
nobody is in the same room
the
strictest observance
of these orders of freedoms
is required
this music
is a strict observance
of the orders
beauty
is beside its point
Call On Me - Bobby Bland [a Rescued Record]
the beach blanket bingo moment
the singer is top notch
Who's Making Love - Johnnie Taylor [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
a dance to shake some sense into you
Panic in Detroit - David Bowie [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo & The Beat]
the triumph of production value
Blue Skies - Willie Nelson [from Stardust]
blue skies
for blues guys
Let the Passers By - Jill Borner, Keith Eisenbrey, Dan Sedia [recorded live at Bard College, March 8, 1983]
on target:
guitar (Dan)
and sandblock (me)
and Jill
being brilliant
Need - Mudhoney [from Superfuzz Bigmuff]
power steps
for simple words
bang on the head
Banned Rehearsal 333 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [June 25, 1993]
let's all tune to the Funmaker
and be unfair to our elders
the Greek word for sound
was lying on the floor
with the twinkle
star
playing with the snare
to make the toddler laugh with amusement
a flimsy and cheap imitation
of what's supposed to be a veil
three quarters of us
have gone to diaper town
Aaron is left
to fend for his self
Sog of the Bood
To Zion (feat. Carlos Santana) - Lauryn Hill [from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill]
gospel testimony
within a reimagined hymn
(one of my favorites
too!)
Sounds of the Brush: Improvisation 6 - Gust Burns, Adam Diller, Keith Eisenbrey, Mike Marlin, DL Scott, Adam Weiss [recorded live at Chamber Theater, 4th Floor, Odd Fellows Hall, Seattle]
socially
we wish to participate in the music
that is amenable to
our personalities
the success of that music
as an influence within society
is
irrelevant
to our desire
to participate in it
dunes - Dorota Czerner [from Open Space 24]
cyclic word ripples
moving through us
moving through
Attitude - Doug Palmer - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded November 4, 2014]
distracted
A Question, A Rose - Benjamin Boretz - Pauline Kim Harris [recorded from a streamed concert December 4, 2024]
the public space
just organized itself
to attend
to this
intimate moment
collective
total
engagement
the grip
of musical attention
Banned Telepath 98 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [March 13, 2023]
hoots from Hoonah
ahre ahluded tooah
fascinated with revolutions
of elliptical arithmetics
(genuine
fascination:
arising from within the musical activity itself)
there are musicians
who face the public
and there are musicians
who remain private
must be me on piano
working on the problems I was having
with my
work in Subvector Colloquy
specifically:
the most congenial way for my playing
to participate
in that environment
we gather in small groups
to share what we are working on
how
Methodist is that?
my ear is concerned with the notes I'm playing
even when
it
doesn't matter
(how they don't matter
matters)
(they must
not matter
in a particular way)
(their manner of mattering
or not
matters)
can music withdraw into its own thoughts?
the various bells and gongs
arranged around the Kingsbury
are necessary acolytes to it
Benvenuto Cellini, Act I, Scene 2 - Hector Berlioz - Orchestre National de France, Chorus of Radio France, John Nelson, Gregory Kunde, Patrizia Ciofi, Joyce DiDonato, Laurent Naouri, Jean-François Lapointe, Renaud Delaigue, Eric Salha, Marc Mauillon, Roman Nédélec, Éric Huchet
the person of this
is uncomforably close
in Wagner
the whole of the drama
is present to any moment
in
this
any moment
is all the drama it could be
(a musician's composer)
Preludes, Book 2 #5: "Bruyer" - Claude Debussy - Paul Jacobs
brushstrokes
Everybody's Crazy About the Doggone Blues But I'm Happy - Wilbur Sweatman [from That Devilin' Tune]
this song
is a three-ring circus clown car parade
Mr. Crow and Mrs. Wren Go For a Walk - Ruth Crawford Seeger - Jenny Lin
frivolous but sharp
Die Dreigroschenopr (beginning) - Kurt Weill - Sender Freies Berlin Orchestra, Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg
the ungrand opera
this music holds us
and itself
in utter contempt
the gig pays
in meta-coin
(you'll never get the irony out of the carpet)
more than halfway to Partch
(8mm
3-penny
musical)
proverbs and commentary
Western Cowboy Huddle - Leadbelly [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
each verse ends
in a multisyllabic nonsense cadence
each verse
has four lines
and three parts
accelerating
to the
aforementioned cadence
(cattle calling)
Passionette - Willie The Lion Smith [from That Devilin' Tune]
fractured measure
(after-balance)(?)
balancing measure
free
within the time grid
Study No. 11 (mid 1930's) - Charles Ives - Charles Ives [from Charles Ives plays Charles Ives]
composes like a painter
We Will Know - Roy Lanham and his Gospel Quartet [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
music shapes itself to its stage
(radio being the stage)
Invocation and Dance - Paul Creston - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz
like a film of an historic ballet score
not quite the real thing
keeping the fires of early modernism alive
for film fans
everywhere
a touch of Igor
a dash of Maurice
cleansed of offense
all
your favorite bits
from the old icons
(back when Le Sacre
was unfashionably weird)
wants visuals to complete it
for when there isn't time
for real Spring
In Session at The Tintinabulary
December 8, 2024
Barby - Keith Eisenbrey
December 9, 2024
Detritus 3 - Keith Eisenbrey
polypticules tickle
it has become traditional
to leave long gaps of doing nothing
great heaps
of undigested Cagean silence
for ceremony's
sake
acquisition
and use
of assets
tokens
for combination
Postscripts
Drops
recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream
