"We make things dumb dumbing things down."
George Quasha - from "Not Even Rabbits Go Down This Hole"
Texts
Live
September 7, 2023
Christoff + Goldston + Icasanio
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Christopher Icasanio
four drums
four cymbals
rolling
singing cymbal
high skill development
to require attention
and overwhelm
self-consciousness with intent activity
allowing access
to what
then comes through
music
a carrier wave
for that which comes
through
drawn down into pianissimo
Stefan Christoff, Lori Goldston
gentle souled
lyrical spirit
wisps on the broad back of a
sustained sonority
constant immersive embrace
melody only partly
described by its notes and rhythms
as much by the care taken
September 2, 2023
Focus - St. Rage [completed at The Tintinabulary, Seattle, on November 12, 2017]
the glockenspiel is a nice touch
just a pinch of sparkle dust
Meditation 3 - Sascia Pellegrini [from Meditations]
nearly subaural pitch sonority
beneath slowly shifting tones
with
throbs and geigery taps
a miasma and its chemical cloud
and
leechings
and seepings
a cell dividing
conflagration
threatens
briefly
passes away
Sonata in D Major, K. 311 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Kristian Bezuidenhout
the glow of the strings inter-reverberating
when the dampers are lifted
is a different color of glow
than is heard on a modern piano
with its heavier tauter strings
whether the difference in sound and response
between a period
forte-piano and a modern instrument
is more true or not
to what
Mozart intended or not
or
to
therefore
what the piece
is
assumes
that this
is the goal of performance
it is
not
the goal
is to realize the implications of the score
in
the realizor's own music-tongue
there is no vitrine capable of containing music
outside those of our own
conceptualizations
Études sur un Thème de Beethoven - Robert Schumann - Eric Le Sage
voicing study
launches into outer space
on the thrust of a single
chord
the wind blows loose leaves
into ephemeral poems
figure magic
a music or two
converse within the fingerwork
keep in mind
that Beethoven's 7th Symphony
(of the titular
Thème de Beethoven)
was a recent piece at the time Schumann did these
- 30 years?
- 1812 to 1832
- just 20!
not so long as
all that
chromatic neighbor tones used
to bend the harmony into new forms
poetic harmony flux
Nocturne in C minor, KKIVb/8 - Frédéric Chopin - Garrick Ohlsson
an ornamental earmind
each moment a new figure
a song with a thunder effect
drum that responds harmonically
in
proper motions
Shall We Gather By The River - Charles Ives - Kia Sams, Russ Warner
the harmony debases itself at
"at the throne of God"
Savoy Blues - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives and Sevens]
some intimate guitar playing
as though for those who sit on porches
Waltzing Down The Aisle - Sarah Vaughan [from In A Romantic Mood]
unashamed Hollywood arrangement technicolor ready
Careless Love - Ray Charles [from Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music]
preaching from personal witness
to a late night
lazy
modified
chattanooga choo choo
back rhythm
Brown Eyed Handsome Man - [Nina Simone from High Priestess of Soul]
all those stories
each told from within a tightly held conceit
Labyrinth - Carole King [from Simple Things]
the ping of her voice occupies these production numbers
in an oddly
sincere character
new age propaganda
My Love Will Not Let You Down - Bruce Sprinsteen [from Tracks]
cue up my signature E-Street sound
apply on my command
Bad - Michael Jackson [from Bad]
a strut
I had a bad bike
no more
Little Pig - Mike, Peggy, and Penny Seeger [from Animal Folk Songs for Children]
what is a folk song?
a song that has been floating around a population
of musicians
originated by someone
changed by others
but
all they remember
is where they heard it
and who had changed
it
into what they heard
Boundaries 7 - Jarrad Powell [from Natural Selection]
information provided
abstraction of speech
Dungeon Ghost - Goat [from Live at Sonarchy]
adrift on an inland sea
gentle harbor swells
pressure increases
the surface warps
now we're moving forward
with power behind
us
it has passed on
hum
idle
keeping the lights on
this music is a being
that comes and goes
gently but certainly
Track 3 - Black Plastic Clouds [recorded live at The Sound Effects Cafe, Seattle, October 26, 2012]
cartoon hero song
donning manliness as a cloak
a manliness-fashion
show
for displays of manliness cloaks
a long track with several
songs strung together
the way dive bar bands do sometimes
City Life - Steve Layton [from No Answer]
constant motion without progress
plant two just came on line
assimilated
there's plant three
also assimilated
plant
four
plant five
all hum along
check the settings
and
yes
the biggest whammy
plant seven
a happy connected land
a song
that is less a musical setting of a
poem
than a music upon which poem parts have been pasted
Caprice en forme de Valse in B Major, Op. 2 #5 - Clara Schumann - Susanne Grützmann
the opening starts just like Mahler's fifth
not Clara's fault of course
she got there first
but it jolts just the same
the trumpet
calls the dancers to the floor
having fun with repeating action
Baby (demo) - Little Richard [from Here's Little Richard]
apparently something recorded for the studio's files
kept on his
permanent record
(Be Careful of) The Stones You Throw - Bob Dylan [from A Tree With Roots]
a collector of songs
who also composed his own
allows songs to
inhabit
Gamblin' Man - Bonnie Raitt [from Sweet Forgiveness]
hey you a lecture to you yes you backed by a band
Raisins and Almonds - Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Dov Seltzer, Itzhak Perlman [from Tradition]
so much warm glow
Hollywood Ending - Sleater-Kinney [from One Beat]
our syllable
stuck onto the notes
word splits
are ex
pected
words as syllable sets
Losing Heart - Brandi Carlile [from The Story]
is so much battle armor required
to say a thing safely?
Track 3 - The Hunting Club [recorded live at The Sound Effects Cafe, Seattle, October 26, 2012]
a simple keyboard figure repeated
from which the vocal in the first
verse hangs
a scamp from an elm branch
the rest of the time on the
ground
Focus "vocal" - St. Rage [completed at The Tintinabulary, Seattle, on November 12, 2017]
not your typical pop sound
Ketawang Panembah - Gamelan Pacifica [from Vessel]
homogenous color scheme
by instrument design
and pitch mode design
a malleable homogeneity
allows collaboration within it
a
shared space
Lovin' Up A Storm (take 3) - Jerry Lee Lewis [from Rare and Rockin']
charming sleaze bag
charming to some
sleaze bag to many
Very Early - Bill Evans [from California, Here I Come]
the beats seem to trip over each others' feet
as though they had been
re-sequenced
Jump Street - Ornette Coleman [from Of Human Feelings]
busy surface sixteenth notes
ripping by
The Ballad of Dorothy Parker - Prince [from Sign O' The Times]
a whole little flirtation at the cafe
not the Dorothy Parker the writer
the wit
a different one
Track 11 - The Humidiflyers [from Humidiflyers 2002]
same song as last
in battle with the recording
understood perhaps
without the sudden cut-off
song
an enclosed scenario
question is always
nope
cut-off
I Blame The Jews - The Capitol Steps [from O Christmas Bush]
from a mock Mel Gibson
April Fool - Tea Cozies [from Bang Up]
power pop
girl group
theme mood
for mall teens
Praia da Lese - Camarones Orquestra Guitarristica [from Feeexta]
this room is too pumped up for my comfort
Only Guessing - Star Anna [from Live at Rimbert Illustration]
playing a guitar is how we sing with our hands
the motions needn't be
fancy to be true
fanfare of unsteady gait
divided attention
snagged
pestered
the parts have had a few too many
all of them
each and severally
even the nightwatch
a dark turn is taken
a strange and cautious alley
God Rest You Merry Gentlemen - The Philadelphia Brass Ensemble [from Festival of Carols In Brass]
a stern greeting
Zeroes - David Bowie [from Never Let Me Down]
the new Ziggy Stardust
with snazzy gizmos
Don't Trust 'Em - Ice Cube [from The Predator]
paranoia porn
sequence of interstitialized vocals
Dancing In The Ether - Tom Baker Quartet [from Look What I Found]
implications of low tones
and squeaky swings
Mellow Toner - O-Face [from Shrug Life]
concerning the propaganda
to be more manly
about it
Jesu, der du meine Seele - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded at The Tintinabulary, Seattle, December 12, 2019]
accompanying chords transpire in fluctuation realms
Of Everything - Michal Bisio, Matthew Shipp [from The Flow of Everything]
piano thinking
along Thelonious's lines
but with fascinating
commentary
relaxing into togetherness for another sally
Not Fade Away - Buddy Holly [collected by Neal Kosály-Meyer in Bo and the Beat]
we can hear the size of the studio
it's a real place
the drums are
muffled like cardboard boxes
Melancholia - The Who [from The Who Sell Out]
I self describe my outfit
I hope they don't ruin this song by tacking on
an ad
I'm kinda digging it
damn they did
oh well
Piano Concerto in C minor, Op. 18, first movement - Serge Rachmaninoff [from 100 Greatest Classics]
great cinemetography
less adept editing
we must kiss every brick
of the privilege palace
as we are torn away
display
as image
conjured
Zwischen - An Auf [from An Auf]
synaptic regions
micro dissection
Drunk in Love (feat. Jay Z.) - Beyoncé [from Beyoncé]
moment in a box
inescapable
The Vapors - Shelby Earl [from The Man Who Made Himself A Name]
some gamer thing?
or is it about vaping?
not
I presume
the euphemism
Kraftfahrzeugsinnenausstattungsneugeruchsgenuss (Automobile-Interior-Furnishing-Aroma-Pleasure) - Eric Nathan [from Missing Words]
keeping the pitch work in clear view
right on top
a little poem
Before You Accuse Me - Bo Diddley [collected by Neal Kosály-Meyer in Bo's Milieu]
blues platform
for type tale text
Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk - Pink Floyd [from The Piper at The Gates of Dawn (digital)]
meds kick in
Trumpet Voluntary - Jeremiah Clarke [from 100 Greatest Classics]
how rotundly tory
Wastin' My Time - Boomkat [from 8 Mile]
plain words from anyone
set as singing
Babe - Smokestack and The Foothill Fury [from Kitchen Recordings]
eloquent slide guitar doings
I'm Not Going Anywhere (And Neither Are You) - Swingset Showdown [from Short Bus Ruckus]
song as public opportunity to say things hard to say in regular life
or
an example of what one might want to say in regular life
O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at The Tintinabulary, Seattle, November 21, 2019]
of music and its parts
Bathing - Wang Lu - Stephanie Lamprea [from Quaking Aspen]
hyper expressed words
harsh sound
really getting into the
particulars of imagined horrors
Symphony in G minor "1905", op. 103 (#11) - Dmitri Shostakovich - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz
light changes dimly
troubled memory
sullen containment
an orchestra of what 80?
all trained to perform exact acts
to
enact this re-enactment
a hubbub boils up
seethes down
as we were
subito activity up
front
ends in weary sadness
from which we move to more heavily
laden sadness
grim resolve
the songs will be sung firmly now
back to that monk in his cell at the beginning of Boris
inert
activity somewhere near
Penny Lane - The Beatles [from Anthology]
in celebration of benign civil service
bankers policemen firemen nurses
barbers
things to be
typical genders unquestioned
See How We Are - X [from See How We Are]
the process of anthemization blurs distinctions among their subjects
all
fade into a blob of subject matter
Misty - Glenn Tate [from Some of My Favorite Love Songs]
the pianist disappears behind dreamy memory fog
The Island Life - Peter Fedofsky [from The City of Good Neighbors]
fear of circumnavigability
Hills - Chris Brokaw [from Stories]
personal messages
below the radar
among the equally lost
I'm With You - Lures [from There's No Pressure]
from word's point of view
song is poetry with a specific pronunciation
from music's point of view
song is an analytical statement
about a poetry
Part 5 - Claire Lodge [from Seconds]
the articulation point is not cadence
but arrival
at time point
at downbeat
or its subsidiaries
Raunchy - Bill Justis [from Sun Records Definitive Hits]
an instrumental back when such could be a country hit
Don't Go Home (My Little Darling) - Shirelles [from The Shirelles Anthology]
dances from a simpler time
The Nun's Chorus - Johann Strauss [from 100 Greatest Classics]
European sacred signifier
unadorned
homophonic
syllabic melody
clear articulation of
cadences
the soprano line is uncomfortable in its wimple
Lullaby - Mariah Carey [from Charmbracelet]
lines drift toward the top of the mouth cavity
a dance song
finds
a groove
and spins its words around that
Dreams and Drunkenness - Curtains For You [from Heaven's Waiting]
In Seattle
in my experience
there is very little dancing going on
in dive bars
those who are there to hear the bands
crowd up front
which can occasionally result in a mosh pit
which is a sort of mob
dance
but mostly there's standing and bobbing
standing and bobbing
in a crowd
is a popular pastime
Haunt Me - Red Ribbon [from Time Is Running Out]
composed from the words
Kitchen - Keith Eisenbrey [November 14, 2017]
putting things away
with their clinks and hinge squeaks
running
sink water
In Session at The Tintinabulary
September 3, 2023
Slade - Keith Eisenbrey
Another arrangement of an old shape-note tune.
In The Unknown Tongue - Jim Knodle
I made a recording of Jim's piece, leaning into its hymnodic melody and phraseology.
Gradus 388 - Neal Kosály-Meyer
number count
quantity
size
we count things
we perceive quantities
do we?
and
proportions
when?
keeping track of it as it goes
a memory skill?
a psychic
trap?
discipline
attend to the smallest instance of now that you can
eschew
memory
shun prophecy
gesture attempts to jostle me off task
get right down
inside these
sound itself
as an experience that (physically) requires time to
happen in
and to be perceived in
jostles us out of instant perception
there is
no instant instance of sound
like the Quasha question
when is the meaning of a
sentence
before it gets there?
that A
for so many years
the root
the tonic
transformed now
to a flatted mediant
the method
(global)
of sequencing the new
pitches in Gradus
some from the bottom (left) (like A)
some from the top
(right) (like E)
tends to obscure their relationships to each other
from his
nomenclature
without also knowing the order in which the pitches make their
appearance:
A E C-sharp G B D F-sharp
constructing a D Major collection
starting from its Dominant Seventh segment
plus the Subdominant
pulling the
final trigger on D Major (D Aeolian)
by means of its mediant
Postscripts
Drops
Keith Eisenbrey 2: 1981-1982
I have begun sharing collections of my compositions in albums on Bandcamp. AKU was composed in 1981 for the Synclavier in the Department of Systematic Musicology at the University of Washington, and Book of Windows occupied my time between graduation and launching myself at the East coast in 1982.
Keith Eisenbrey 1: 1979-1981
These are the keyboard works I composed while an undergrad at the UW.
All are free for download.
Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery
listening journal doodles from 2009
