"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
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
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]
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]
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
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
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
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?
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
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
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
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
