Playlist

Preface

"Most recently, I've developed a much more expansive sense of the possibilities of musical writing ('discourse' included), locating its value not so much in its aesthetic or philosophical modalities, or its phenotype, but entirely in the imaginativeness of its writing and reading. The limitless possibilities of imaginatively writing about something - something as compelling to some persons as is music - in any of the rhetorical, symbolic, formal, or synthetic languages one might invoke seem to be irresistibly inviting, infinitely more than the aspiration to 'authority'."

- Benjamin Boretz "On Reading Each Other"  from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020

Texts

Streaming

May 22, 2021

Choral Tapas - Seattle Pro Musica, Karen P. Thomas, director

"Behold, God the Lord passed by!" from Elijah, Op. 70 by Felix Mendelssohn

not my favorite big early 19th Century piece, but well sung

the smoking gun ad astra
was the cocktail
demonstrated herein

Welcome Table by Saunder Choi

text is
spoken word sung 

sung word music 

interesting tenor voice
really nice 

stray thought
the importance of poetry
of a certain kind
for the less powerful
or
for group identity

Abendlied by Josef Rheinberger

still awful pretty

Wayward in Limbo

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series now moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is curating and commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of exclusive material. Many of these will be essentially “live” performances recorded at home for this occasion. Others may create a mix of pre-recorded material that has not been previously released elsewhere.

- from the Wayward Music Series website at https://www.waywardmusic.org/.

May 22, 2021

Dick Valentine

we follow this sound in
hear what it hears
auditor
(s)
(ium)
electronique 

lofty chambers
for soaring birds
cavern critters
cloister songs 

our hosts
the guide bats
return 

or we have
back
to more like earth life
day and daylife 

where we were
when we first followed

May 23, 2021

Don Berman/D2 - Don Berman, Dick Valentine

And The Elephant - Don Berman
Simplest Possible - Dick Valentine
One for Milford - Dick Valentine, Don Berman
Take 19 - Don Berman

outfit for battle
out on the town
putting up the cool front
drumming in the woods
in the light rain
moving slow and certain
an internal conversation

May 28, 2021

Joshua Kohl

Snapshot Spring 2021
Skeleton Flower Audio Sketchbook

strum hum
zither buzz
inside
we find a place stabilized by cyclicity
but the walls vanish
so too the ground 

we float through
new masses
galleries might move us through
one of those times
sounds on walls
an alternate tour
nearer night
loose ideas

Recorded

May 22, 2021

My Little Cousin - Peggy Lee [from The Complete Recordings 1941-1947]

a song fit for urban nightclub
tables and drinks
a little vocal show-off move
at the end
shadowing the reed

I Just Keep Lovin' Her - Little Walter, Othum Brown [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

nearly rock & roll?
guitar and harmonica and voice
Allen calls it Swing Era
or early harbinger of the new blues changes

Monkey Motion - Houston Boines [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

blues with harmonica
was this that
that had been harbinged above?
but heavier on its feet, stompier

Bye Bye Love - The Everly Brothers [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

rhythmic enthusiasm spills into spare syllables

Anna (Go To Him) - Arthur Alexander [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

such a sob story

May 23, 2021

Selections from The Sound of Music - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, director, JoAnne Deacon, piano [April 1967]

as a story
TSoM deflects the horror of the Anschluss
by making it about an aristocrat and his political problems
the Nazis were simply too boorish for words
a gaslighting 

there's my Mom singing The Lonely Goatherd (with spirit) and Edelweiss

May 24, 2021

I Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody's Home - Ann Peebles

affect count
one
could be a Baroque aria

"...such words as it were vain to close..." - J. K. Randall - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded April 2016]

Keith Eisenbrey · J. K. Randall - ".....Such Words As It Were Vain To Close....." (160422)

a different viscosity than JK's recordings
the public this addresses
is a different animal
than his was 

the experience of listening back
is wholly different than the experience of playing it 

while performing
one is so constantly conscious
of the counting
that how the whole goes
or seems
is largely out of conscious hands 

quite a tender performance past me!

I Want Candy - Bow Wow Wow

potent
infantile
lust anthem

Banned Rehearsal 111 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [January 1987]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 111 870107

a gentle start
kalimba ocarina violin
then bugle? for kalimba 

we focus only then
the outside radio world intrudes
but we are equal to it 

preachin' brought in
a thing to be grasped
we are studying the great kenosis passage
it is helpless in our rude hands
of course we had the Funmaker Sprite

understanding the world through data scrambling
sure fire
a slow announcement of our present activity
with cow bells
6PM Wednesday of the first Banned Week
selected paper scores provided

Raccoon and Possum - Mike Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Penny Seeger [from Animal Folk Songs for Children]

tail ID
then a 'simmon line
disjunct word bits

May 25, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 445 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 445 970215

a gooey mass extrudes
slow
heavy
commingled
we'll never get that out of the carpet
grind it in
drill holes
press hard
incessant weather
weight on weight
density maximized
all the charm of a wailing toddler
a brief sniffling calm toward the end
may not last though
partial success

9:11 Blues - Toby Twining - Matt Haimovitz [from Please Welcome Matt Haimovitz]

a continually recurring fragment
ghosts through it all

Consider The Birds 39 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 2007]

dove cote murmurs

Joe Lies - Prom Queen [from Covers]

a shape of changes
like blues in mirrors

May 26, 2021

Gradus 305 - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 2017]

firmly footed
limits are a type of essence
likewise essence is a type of limit
a type
or an image

an example of a type
can be reduced to its type 

an image insists on its relatedness

from my blog post of February 4, 2017: 

Rich Trove struggling to cross Vast Emptiness. Pushing, spreading, expanding, more inexorably than the possibility of measuring. // Delving, pushing down against buoyancy.

Muscadin, Fvb 19 - Traditional - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzgerald Virginal Book]

short
a transcription?
made fancy for public use?

what
if ought
of the transcription's subject
survived the process?

Symphoniae sacrae II "Ich danke dir, Herr, von ganzen Herzen", Op. 10 #7 - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

sometimes a statement requires its own tempo
or always 

fond of direct repetition
of what is sung by the solo instrument voice
entwined

Suite in D Major, BuxWV 232 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella

two movements
neither long
not composed to be complete in themselves
or with each other as companion
incomplete in new ways

Fughetta super Gottes Sohn ist kommen, BWV 703 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Michael Chapuis

fragment
thing
on tune name
from Chorale
set to text
that begins

Troizieme Ordre (si mineur) - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert

sequences that part company midway
we wander to twig's end
each successive piece through the first three
is a more substantial plant part 

sunlight has descended

May 27, 2021

Sonata in D minor, Kk. 120 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

the appearance of continuity
through the mere fact
of pulse invariance

from within
is constructed
an improvisatorial hierarchy
to exponentialize
the counting to three

Arioso with 7 Variations, Wq. 118.4 - Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

intent on taking stuff apart
for his own investigations
not for entertainment

Sonata in A-flat Major, Hob. XVI.46 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

this is avoiding something
talking around it
loves its own distractions

May 28, 2021

Sonata in C Major, K. 309 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Mitsuko Uchida

one is in a suite of rooms
a set of personal relations
people have troubles to work out
the suite of rooms
is coercive to working things out
the structure as seen from above
key relations and figuration patterns on a time line
and the like
are at the service of a new experiential structure
as lived through
the long line emerges as an idea

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

had not yet far enough known with impunity

but if Titorelli had never known

it yet again for heart of his wife it

Reality Check::

monologue in the world

the ground wind sees

emphatically the sound of creaking house

Playlist

 Preface

"So where do discourses about music as expressive language locate themselves relative to music as music? Insofar as what they are is writing, done by musicians or by other people with serious relationships to their own musical experience, their relationship to music as music is less like the relation of theories to objects or phenomena than like the relation of poetry to love, or - indeed - of poetry to objects, phenomena, ideologies, ideas - to, even, theories. Namely, - by the nature of a music as a non-verbal utterance, as a phenomenon ontologized purely as experiential - such discourses are creative expressions, compositions, perforce creating verbal spaces resonating against the non-verbal spaces of music."

- Benjamin Boretz "Text: (for the Graduate Music forum at UCSD, 1/28/2003) Is Music Necessary?"  from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streaming

April 10, 2021

Choral Tapas - Seattle Pro Musica, Karen P. Thomas, director

music by 

Johannes Brahms - Wie Lieblich from the German Requiem

Jerod Impichchaachaaha Tate - We are the Storm

and Serge Rachmininov - #6 from the Vespers

along with talk, snacks, and drinks

Wayward in Limbo

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series now moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is curating and commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of exclusive material. Many of these will be essentially “live” performances recorded at home for this occasion. Others may create a mix of pre-recorded material that has not been previously released elsewhere.

- from the Wayward Music Series website at https://www.waywardmusic.org/.

April 10, 2021

Raica (Chloe Harris)

1
why am I reading
this opening cyclic metrical pattern
as
first part second part
it isn't really the particulars of the pitches
or their patterns
is it that there is
||: 1/8 1/8 1/8 1/8 1/8 1/8 1/4 :||
that doesn't let go
it isn't until deep in
that I'm no longer sure I have been consistent
in assigning their ordinal functions
but the functioning assignment
continues unabated
even if erroneous

2
in this one I count to four
to organize a descending sequence
but it does not continue as cyclically countable
or usefully so

3
here the cyclic is a gently throbbing trochee
possibly groupable in 3s
but that is not an urgent inescapability

4
less need to group
but easy enough to do
behind and beneath these beats
are slower tones
catching
passing
in the distance
holed up
further in

5
the beats have fled
we enter the congress of slower tones
in their temples

6
here is where they keep the drumi-tones
articulate as two hands are

7
where the wind blows us
into the threes

April 11, 2021

Marcus Price

stepwise
it is a sound
that changes pitch
first
not a set of pitches
that share a sound
or
that share an emitting body
sliders
and dials
readouts in graphic form
linear chatterers flit past
don't mind the mess
we're doing some work
is it getting warm
or is it the sunshow coming on
enjoy the pretty
kick back

Recorded

April 11, 2021

Hallelujah - Cotton Belt Quartet [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

vaudeville gospel

Duo Concertante - Igor Stravinsky - Itzhak Perlman, Bruno Canino

I think this was the first middle period Stravinsky that I ever heard
back in High School
so pretty
so jaunty
this music was a stylish mix
a little song recital for violin and piano

Partita for Flute, Violin, and Strings - Paul Creston - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz, Scott Goff, Ilkka Talvi

dredging up the baroque as an antidote
to the modern
(times were bad, for sure)
back then we knew our place
we were servants
entertainers amusing our betters
in an orderly society
graceful tunes in stepwise descending sequence
harmless

Lincoln Portrait - Aaron Copland - London Symphony Orchestra, Aaron Copland, Henry Fonda

he really really really really wanted to be The American Composer
we are the hokum folk
whitewashed our past
some of this contrapuntal stuff is just holding a space open
prolonging the waiting
a portrait in a series of pairs
1 a statement of facts
2 a quotation
with precious little rhetorical connection between the subject matter of the facts and the subject matter of the quotation

Lady Be Good - Ella Fitzgerald [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Did she ever work with Art Tatum?

Choral Prelude on "Bromsgrove" - Alec Rowley - Howard Wolvington [from a private recording]

big full sounding chords
patterns of older church musics
persist long past the fashion
I think the size of this piece was not helpful
unwieldy
undercomposed

Jim Dandy Got Married - LaVern Baker [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

a hero for an age
comic book type

April 12, 2021

Five Songs for Children - M. Henneyan - Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [ca. 1962]

clever pop
modern russo-francophilic
diatonic polite 

Mom was probably working these up for a Music Society meeting.

I Had a Dream - Paul Revere and the Raiders [from The Legend of Paul Revere]

California psychedelic
the Raiders had an uncanny ability
to sound exactly like their slice of the times
at the time
at whatever time they were
then

Artsah Ainu - arr. Schuddron - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [April 1972]

world folk
as arranged for concert
I think I have those finger cymbals
it might even have been 13 year old me playing them 

("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...") - Benjamin Boretz - Sarah Rothenberg

I find myself noticing the pedal mechanism sounds
and the sounds that the room made
with a person (or two)
in it 

the slower tempo helps keep the layers separated
or clearly organized
it removes forward pushing momentum buildups
keeps it cool
keeps its focus on each dyad's now
looks neither back nor forward
though it does
by this method
expand the diameter of its now

{performance note to self: don't worry about having gotten to something focus on what might be starting from here now}

Pastorale: The Color of Water - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [live at the Thumbnail Theater, Snohomish, October 14, 2010]

never lose an opportunity to use too many words
::
this was a nice concert to be a part of
very brainy
but totally low key in its presentation
odd sounds
and a bunch of curious people
conversation between the odd sound people
and the curious people
naturally ensued
circles in slow deliberate paces
marks each magic place
in turn

I Ain't No Joke - Eric B. & Raqim [from Paid in Full]

I need to come up for air
more often than he does
rhymes like a bronco
wicked kick

Banned Rehearsal 288 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [March 1992]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 288 920320

Toad Hall,
as we had no piano yet at the Tintinabulary
we select these sounds
at these times
these sounds are chosen
intended
not others
these
there they were
rattles only
the room hums
whistling is not humming
aestheticization is dislocationing colonizing
J is nearly one

the sound file that is part of the Banned Rehearsal canon
the entire accumulating corpus of signal description
that is Banned Rehearsal
or an artifact
is now your primary password
walks on tape
we hooray! for J!
Uke thwipple whistle rattle
if there is a drum
you are holding it now
and drumming upon it
modulation
OOBA bangbangboom
tip top hip hop
waddaya mean by that
next movement piano intermezzo
total over the top max perfection on the horn piano sound
we blat blatantly
blatantly blat we
wwwwWADDUZZEEMEAN BY THAT
tip tip top top ten Toven!
Scherzo of Nine
as backdrop
who's he
Tip Top!
The graphic is my journal page from July 5, 1992.

Ninety-One - The Keeners [a Rescued Record]

we did our best
it was not a good situation
trauma, dealing with

April 13, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 627 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 2002]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 627 020104

at a low heat
making stock
cooking up a rumble carcass
pour it off
set it out to cool
music at ebb
boats left behind
warm blanky
cup of tea
drum up some energy
not likely 

||
real time somebody ran some water
in another room
I incorporated it
into the sound from the speakers
and was momentarily perplexed
as to how we managed
a running water sound
in the Tintinabulary
|| 

this one is not getting out of bed today
keep it easy
tap a few
rattle some
ends with a wake up tonic rattle drum

Violin Duo - Elaine Barkin - electronically realized by David F. Long

close flight
interweaves
notes from the pizz. box
dawn sky
canvas
expanse

Gradus 204 - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 2012]

lots of As
first lot
second lot
us to the lots
there are differences
but the differences
aren't a lot
until the issue is
if it will be forced
or otherwise composed
lot one
single tones peacefully pressed
perhaps a modest increase in notes per minute
not a lot
less than a lot
more insistency perhaps
but single tones still

Go Pagal - Raftaar, Nindy Kaur, Majn Jusik, Nilesh Patel [from Bollygood Volume 1]

anything might go anywhere

Pavana, Fvb 16 - Traditional - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

though clearly gussied up for appropriate home use
among the gentry
one presumes another
more common music
from which it must have sprung

Mass for Five Voices - William Byrd - Oxford Camerata - Jeremy Summers

this music cries for its architecture
it doesn't
it can't
properly exist
without a cathedral
makes painfully plain
the inadequacies of recorded sound
and
one presumes
it needs its proper Propers
this is not a concert work
but part and only a part
of a liturgy

April 14, 2021

Symphony sacrae II "Meine Seele erhebt den Herren", Op. 10 #4 - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

each stanza is in turmoil
triple echo on "leer" (empty)

Aria "More Palatino" in C, BuxWV 247 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella

it don't mean a thing
if it isn't repletely embellished
and varied
its meaning becomes clear
through its embellishments
and variations
varying by means of shipping
with new consorts

Fantasia super Jesu Meine Freude, BWV 713 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Michael Chapuis

constructs a music within which a tune can be hidden
then shows it
what was within
has come out

Lamentationes pro die Veneris Sancto 2, in F Major - Jan Dismas Zelenka - Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Rene Jacobs, Guy D Mey, Kurt Widmer

early appearance of clarinet (1722)

Sonata in B-flat Major, Wq. 65.9 - Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

moves with the smallest steps possible
I am holding very still
but I am not comfortable
single movement

Sonata in C Major, Kk. 117 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

goes
then observes
finds a new angle
goes there
then observes
better leave a few breadcrumbs

Trio Sonata in C Major - George Phillip Telemann - Opus 4

each movement has a name
perhaps for a tableaux
everybody dresses as an historical figure
and gives a report

Sonata in D Major, K. 311 (#9) - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Lili Kraus

starting to sneak some formal hijinks in
such as the tagline measure at the end of the first movement's exposition
and then basing the development's opening
largely on that tagline measure's figuration 

composed to attract attention
please hire me

April 15, 2021

Symphony in G Major (#88) - Franz Joseph Haydn - Austro Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, Adam Fischer

from back when symphonies were
for Haydn at least
mass market money making ventures
composed to be popular
royal favor no longer being enough
one wonders were his operas as full of fine music as the 2nd movement of this
I presume there are some
I may be wrong
[yes there are quite a few and also some Marionette operas and musical comedies (music lost alas)]
no matter where he gets to
he has always brought us
right there with him

Sonatina in G Major, Op. 36 #5 - Muzio Clementi- Howard Shelley

good left hand practice
and also for flipping the tune between the hands
keep it light

Symphony in D Major, Op. 36 (#2) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter

I forgot to edit out the needle drop
the pressure is never released
there is no going back
each move to the next tonal area
goes both up and down
sometimes out
sometimes in
secret revenge
of the throwaway figuration
melody consisting of how figurations answer
each other
joinery
this is not Haydnesque
(just saying)
Sturm und Drang
fully integrated
tres Romantic
the weather changes
no bottle will hold this

Impromptu in G-flat Major, Op. 90 #3 - Franz Schubert - Murray Perahia

not among the standard key choices
indication that a bend toward the subdominant
would take us into realms heretofore unsearched
travel by way of the relative minor

Etude in E Major, Op. 10 #3 - Frédéric Chopin - Cecile Licad

another Romantic key - Bach's influence?
had equal temperament finally caught on
or had composer types just begun to stretch their wings
but also and more crucially
a new concept of how keys are expressed
and hence a completely new notion
of what a key might be

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

the always seemed so suited to the flock

friend brick factory had a stained a grimy

was copper in back the tin minister's

Reality Check::

monologue in the world

the ground wind sees

emphatically the sound of creaking house

Playlist

 Preface

"{Continuity, consecution, in this precis, is, of

course, surreal.*}

{*as music is.*}"

- J. K. Randall "Program note for shouldn't we talk ?:"  from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streaming

March 13, 2021

Choral Tapas - Seattle Pro Musica, Karen P. Thomas, director

Joseph Rheinberger, Melissa Dumphy, Gabriel Fauré

flocking pages

a fancy margarita
smoky triple 

with lots of fun sounds 

woke with production value 

"career"
(MD's amazing accent)
Brisbane being infiltrated by Philly

March 14, 2021

Concert IV: Ha-Yang Kim - the day is burnt, the night is calm - Seattle Modern Orchestra, Tiffany Lin, director

we are dark
we are blue 

dragon snore 

black light
music lifting up
dragon dream 

curiculums vitae
are not so much irrelevant
here
as they are
incongruous 

a rumbling in the presence
sleeps with Patience 

seeping force
into repressively permeable time

were
we gray
or blue

Wayward in Limbo

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series now moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is curating and commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of exclusive material. Many of these will be essentially “live” performances recorded at home for this occasion. Others may create a mix of pre-recorded material that has not been previously released elsewhere.

- from the Wayward Music Series website at https://www.waywardmusic.org/.

March 13, 2021

Garrett Fisher & GraceAnn Cummings

Raga Études for Piano - Book I: Winter

sweeps and washes
gnaws relentless 

who speaks
and from where
who speaks
speaks 

from behind the canvas
as one might imagine Debussy
behind an orchestral sound 

cyclic pieces named for time of day and of season
solar calendar 

taken as pieces they emerge complete from the start
at the end
intent on static projection
of something inside
as a light might glow 

a time is not a story but a moment protracted
a tight squeeze
should you seek to enter
the sonorous surface 

but these
are different pools
they move en masse
stick together

March 14, 2021

Paurl Walsh

tonality per 18th Century practice
involves the establishment of a reference set
the tonic triad
and a set of triads
relating to that reference set
which  (I V IV) together are the key or tonality of the work
which work
would typically explore that key
in terms of that key's relationships
to analogously structured keys
related to the reference key
by relative maximal common tone relationships 

this music
if considered as a structure of triads and keys at all
departs from that practice
or at least doesn't appropriate the sense of a single reference set
a home
rather
a slow oscillation of triadish simultaneities
provides a wash or backdrop
against which other sounds are presented
without phrases
cadence
or need to explicitly compose all the sounds
so that they are tightly bound
structurally or tonally
to the oscillatory atmosphere
nor to its particulars
the pitches of which it is made
are immaterialized

a chamber
slowly fills

Recorded

March 14, 2021

Music for Piano - John Cage - Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Lise Mann, Neal Kosály-Meyer [April 1985, Meany Studio Theater, Seattle]

a lot of white noise in it
and dancers in the attic 

musicians who have learned to listen to each other
will compose with the sounds they make
cooperatively
as in conversation
without regard to what the notes are
nor how derived 

we aggressively
express
we communicate with each other
amongst ourselves
without regard to the relative opacity
of our communication outside our group 

this performance 23 years after the score's propagation
is now 36 years past 

like hell I was going to learn all those notes to play them right
instead I considered the score to be a score of gestures
more than of notes
gestures notated
as one would notate notes 

I will let the night sky
or the paper maker
imagine my music for me 

do we have personalities
clearly 

do those personalities mold these tones
unavoidably 

I am antagonistically related
to John Cage (as a body of music)
why 

he fills me with things to think
couched in terms of antagonism
habit of thought
if you don't take him too seriously
he's just fine
or rather
if you take yourself more seriously

antagonistic but not dismissive

subject matter
a critique of
or critical analysis
of arranging how things are
so as
to out the face of culture
he's talking about our doing 

co-optivator of experience
not liberating 

the original audience
to this presentation
allowed themselves
to wander around
I will also 

a chance based system that I can explain to you in a minute
or a deeply derived system that defies our explanations
essentially 

Horrorland
or or and
HorRorLand
hORrORlAND

hrl
HRL

His Royal License 

critiques of masterwork culture
the loudspeaker effected a more profound change
in our listening psyches
than Cage ever could

March 15, 2021

I Can See for Miles - The Who - [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

yet another stalker anthem 

translation
my suspicion is boundless and incontrovertible

Adoramus Te - [?] - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, director

pretty high-toned for the LWS
mom tried

Anais - Diane Thome - Michael Finckel, Diane Thome

acoustic and electronic talking
early days
electronic sounds starting where they split from the acoustic
like sparks 

at the time
no way existed
I think
to make the digital electronic part
real-time realizable
it had to be pre-synthesized
composed ahead

Pastorale: "The Color of Water" (texts) - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 2010]

Neal talks
quoting his program notes
and epigram
and a poem
the color of eyes' intersection

the first pass through
isn't really playing it
sure it is 

the tempo at the Cause Célèbre

March 16, 2021

Cassini Tests - Scott Worthington - Scott Worthington

A.
synth and bass
bowed
acoustic upright 

discussing matters across languages
that share of themselves
but whose times operate
at different lags
or that share time
but not space

B.
believably lyrical
human sized expression
pose-less
gentle
thoughtful
playful
generous 

or like a body language
translated across a gap
or around a bend

March 17, 2021

A___'s First Sermon - A___ B___ [1987]

a documenting artifact
recorded from the standpoint of a concentrated listener
a perfectly still listener
wavering in focus never
notes
but doesn't attend
its fellow listeners

March 18, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 287 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [February 1992]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 287 920228

foghorn sax
at the tintinabulary
our drums
P's tenor sax
since passed along to Doug P. 

quantum flip
the standing wave

sax style

neck strap
for nursing tad
not sure what it would hitch to 

drums puttering
making one with general puttering
and moving into
and cohabiting
with just so and whatever 

you are a fuss
music for nursing by
stones
rocks
tones
rock
spears
football 

little lists
big game
that's a bone
a critter bone
hedgehog 

words related or not
these are a few of my favorite things 

disemboweled otters
disillusioned electorate 

a list of plural noun phrases
typesetters
transcendentalists
direct to cassette mastering
masterless mastering

you can't leave until
you open the door
open lee
a door 

odor

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

first stanza concerning this dark night and its

now to discuss the about which love's urgent

longings 1 of dark night and its traits it

Reality Check::

don't count

roll a clam shell down a level plane

redwing blackbird on a bare tree top

Playlist

Preface

"Take history: it is a determinate reification of the antecedence of our sentient existence, a demonstrated perspective on who we are, on where we are. Its truths are inescapable, and pervasively account for major aspects of the world that directly and significantly affect everyone's life. Nevertheless, persons do not perforce experience their conscious living as history, as historical events, or qualify their experience in the vocabulary of historical predicates. You could say that history proceeds, in a self-defined, self-contained way, on the outside of most people's lived lives, accumulating and accessible at any time by observations which can be perceived by anyone as true, without being, except in that sense, the actual content of anyone's experienced life-events."

- Benjamin Boretz "Prologue to ("Whose Time, What Space"): [A Seminar Talk at Eastman]" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streaming

February 20, 2021

Choral Tapas - Seattle Pro Musica, Karen P. Thomas, director

Laudate Dominum from Solemn Vespers - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

western music cleaves to the linguistic model
notes
syllables
statements
making language as beautiful as possible
to say what it says
in the best possible taste

My Heart Be Brave - Marques Garrett

among other entries in a compendium of modern music types
what is this
or would it be
choral
secular
inspirational

February 26, 2021

nevertheless, we persist . . . (a virtual concert) - Julia Lougheed, clarinet, etc.

music by Bill Clay, Jessi Harvey, Kim Farris-Manning, Gabo Champagne

we had this going while eating dinner
hence few notes 

but I would like to lift up the piece by Jessi Harvey, formerly of the Seattle area,
involving spoken texts
overlapping spoken texts
(I think,
we were eating)
and clarinet percussion.
perked my ears right up. 

stray notes about the set as a whole

::
euro vision
re-canceled 

there is an integrity about this event
that I truly admire 

this silence can not be imagined
it can only be done

Wayward in Limbo

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series now moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is curating and commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of exclusive material. Many of these will be essentially “live” performances recorded at home for this occasion. Others may create a mix of pre-recorded material that has not been previously released elsewhere.

- from the Wayward Music Series website at https://www.waywardmusic.org/.

February 20, 2021

Josh Medina

steady state
sounds exist together
like a river and a hill
exist together 

neither moves the other
they keep their places
the light changes around them
through the hours 

but there are no landslides 

and if we move to a new viewpoint
we have no qualms
any of it has vanished from continued existence 

 the mix is distinguishable from other mixes
clearly
just as one landscape is distinguished from another 

visitations occur
but don't change the river
or the hill 

larger changes may incrementally alter everything
but can only be imagined 

we are left with a sound
that analyzes itself acoustically
without demarcated objects
syllable-less
phoneme bereft

sequence not confused
nor fraught
just not possible
flow without motion

February 21, 2021

Tiffany Lin

autoharp unzipping
reveal each chord
accept as such (familiars) 

a chord change sequence
is not
primarily
a method for establishing* a key
*or evoking one
is its own thing 

more like 16th Century practice than 18th

Recorded

February 20, 2021

Camptown Races - Stephen Foster - the Gregg Smith Singers [from The Great Sentimental Age]

complete
with
carefully
enunciated
gwines

Largo for Violin, Clarinet and Piano - Charles Ives - Chamber Music Northwest, David Shifrin, Eriko Sato, Irma Vallecillo

violin and piano
kept in separate room
from the clarinet and piano
and from the three together 

no fraternization allowed

Meditation on a Theme by Claude Debussy - Zoltán Kodály - Jenö Jandó

we are conveyed on the dream stream through perfumed grottos 

will-less

February 21, 2021

Images - Claude Debussy - BRT Philharmonic Orchestra Brussels, Alexander Rahbari

key click immediacy in recorded image
pitch structure is as essential to hearing what's going on
with these music sounds
as the motions among instrument groups
he's working with 

each together and more 

our shape shifts
different parts of our shapes
shift differently 

the depth of focus
in the mix of sounds
making up
that just so sound 

it isn't that he's the best orchestrator of his age
though that he may be**
but that he composed*
with his orchestration 

*lyric doubles of ravishing dance 

**but then Stravinsky

Hungarian Peasant Songs and Dances - Béla Bartók - June de Toth

National Identity
was a thing back then
still a problem 

arted up transcriptions

these sound like they were recorded in a small room
another peculiarity in the production
with no reverb as such
small room
the sound just stops
the signal clears quickly 

so they squeeze the tracks together uncomfortably 

Lisztian transcription for concert performance

Wind Quintet - Carl Neilsen - Athena Quintet

such pleasant harmless games
must be a gas to play
everybody gets to sound great
social orchestration 

and a very nice hymn indeed
variations
everybody comes out in a new costume every minute or so
hymnody in the background

Let's Misbehave - Cole Porter - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey

nice job past us

Gone Dead Train - King Solomon Hill [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

flexible tempo extreme
strict when it wants to be
generous with the surface of time
upon which to spread
the blues are a prayer

Barefoot Boy With Boots On - Roy Cox [from Evans 78s]

a question
the blues is a particular confluence
of harmonic structure and lyric slant
were there
are there
other such confluences
that never made the big time 

extemporary verses in a solid frame

Danses Concertantes - Igor Stravinsky - Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Neville Marriner

every move repercusses
and there are many moves
every pass
any segment
is a slide specimen of music history
orchestration
sharper edges
brighter more primary colors

{from my blog post of April 25, 1995: the sense of a set of pieces, without, somehow, the actuality. Overlapping of tempo boundaries/thematic boundaries/activity envelopes. more clearly: out of precisely sized fragments of pieces a sense of listening to a set of pieces is formed. Slipping continuously into a new piece: almost Mahleresque in the constancy of its shiftings.}

February 23, 2021

Ritmo Afro Cubano - Chano Pozo [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

fast multipitch drumming with cyclic punctuation
regularity presumed
as an image
if not graspable
as obviously true
with vocals overlain
that may match up with the cycles
or have their own

Symphony in C-sharp minor, Op. 131 (#7) - Serge Prokofiev - Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Neeme Järvi

back to the CCCP
because unlike in the USA
symphonic concert music was still a vital cultural activity
here:
moribund
what was vital here
was alien
back to where people remember
what he remembers

Why Baby Why - Pat Boone [a Rescued Record]

why (won't you please me when you know you care (can)) 

let me count the whys

Baby, I'm In the Mood for You - Bob Dylan [from Biograph]

trying on another Bob Dylan for size
can't quit nail the yokel vocal

February 24, 2021

24 Preludes, 5-8 - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey [from Preludes in Seattle Part 2, March 17, 2007, University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle]

rushed

Tableaux - Milton Babbitt - Robert Taub

this music has a plenitude of corners for music to hang out in
and it does
 jumps out like spiders 

arachnid
xtuple-dimensional
speed chess

("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...") - Benjamin Boretz - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded at a home recital on February 26, 2020]

this music
seeks out 
explores carefully
checks back in
fills

Wimpy - Orbaneja [from Orbaneja]

this music is on stage doin' a show

February 25, 2021

Prelude - Aaron Keyt - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded October 19, 2006]

nicely played past me!
nothing in this piece is overwrought
a lovely study in figuration, melody, counterpoint, and harmony
all in a balance
quasi pastiche

Introduction to Grand Serenade - P.D.Q. Bach [from Music for an Awful Lot of Winds & Percussion]

that's it, just the introductory we're all in on it wink wink

Banned Rehearsal 442 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 1997]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 442 970125

recorded hot so drums have presence
even the light percussion is right there
drums electric guitar tenor sax violin light percussion 

we are a large crowded painting

my journal page from September 28, 2004

in lively colors 

we gentle out

slightly raucous
lurking cornet

the era between the last Brechemin gig
(Banned Rehearsal 440)
and Teach Yourself to Drive
(our CD) 

banjo speaks dulcimer also
as amplified
or perhaps tenor banjo
with steel slide 

giant
belly
raspberry
jams 

 ticka ticka tickle too 

some synth sound I don't recognize
the Wurlitzer possibly
yes the mighty W
its
self 

nothing will be turned down
play it big
blast furnace
white hot

theme song for the decade of chaos
Mosh at Banned Hall
even the funmaker gets its jollies 

we make this noise because we are here
before we hung the plow wheel
from the rafter 

In Session at the Tintinabulary

February 21, 2021

Banned Telepath 71 Toad Hall - Aaron Keyt

February 22, 2021

Banned Telepath 71 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Banned Rehearsal 1020 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1020 210221-22

As has been our practice while in seclusion, Aaron sent sound from Outpost Toad Hall and Anna and Neal called in from Outpost Lake City to where Karen and I were improvising at the Tintinabulary.

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

sint mecum ut maybe also may work

in the which I do by nature which is

looking out 11 tells you that that

Reality Check::

a such beetle like thing

spins the blades 

of Jack the Ripper

Playlist

Live

April 14, 2018
48-Hour Composition Contest - Sounds of Late
Gallery 1412, Seattle

April Showers  - Noel Kennon

As I Sit Here With My Trendy Tea Beverage - Spencer Arias

August Amble, Alaska State Fair - Aaron Keyt

Lullaby - Timothy O’Brien

Minuet in a Minute - JD Davis

Tetractys - Count Constantin Pârvulescu

At The Quiet Limit - Jacob Mashak

Threnody - Jim Knodle

When I Fall - Blaire Ziegenhagel

A lively subset of the younger folks doing their new thing for the community. We were there to hear
Aaron's new piece and were delighted to find that veteran Jim Knodle also had a lovely thing to share. And what fun everyone was having! Nary a clunker in the bunch, lovely performances all around, and the evening ended with silly prizes from the thrift store. DIY is where it's at. I also learned a Chicago slang term for the string bass  - "doghouse" - courtesy of JK.

April 19, 2018
Jaap Blonk
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

I was remembered of my introduction, in June of 1982, in the home of Leon Botstein, President of Bard College, to Charles Stein, the protean poet/soundpoet/thought-delver. I was 23, newly dropped onto the East Coast, knowing not a soul for hundreds of miles, still pretty uncertain how the whole find food for oneself thing worked. Ben said "This is Chuck Stein" who stretched out his hand to me and said something very like "djlsji wi! df;focmgkj4 ordkfwsjudpfdjfifi  fififi 'asf;dhslfdsp=-[dgfaf' 1;dap-d da9dre0den,nds;ig'arg ae8id ][dfila;jud dd==gljd;l." Somehow I found this tremendously comforting. My people!

I was remembered of the gibberish stories I told my sons when they were small to make them laugh.

As do many of my favorite people, Jaap talks eloquently with his hands. And his face is an expressive field all on its own.

I was remembered of the scene in Men In Black 2, where K, in amnesious retirement at the Post Office is shown all the space aliens he works with and asked "Why do you think you're so comfortable here?"

and I was quite comfortable here. A joy.

Recorded

April 14, 2018
Peyote - Bakshish [from Sonicabal 2001]

synthetic didjeridu-ish rhythm drone
over which is added (to complete the picture) a first nations-ish chant
fade out
not unattractive, if somewhat harsh

Gradus 97 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [April 2006]

configurations of pitch sonority sets allowed space to move around and to vanish entirely
receding through the wheels of memory

when sound enters or music enters consciousness it enters a massively complex continually ontologizing organism

and we in turn enter it
because it addresses us

our madly ontologizing consciousness
as a fellow

Stumblin' Man - Youth Rescue Mission [from Youth Rescue Mission]

guitars in the immediate
vocals vary
but generally on stage with the drums

Banned Telepath 46 Seattle - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer [March 2016, for Banned Rehearsal 907]

we woohoo! for Aaron and Jennifer
one strand: a slowly cycling chorale mostly on piano
another: lots of banging on things and lots of things there are to bang upon too!
no sound but isn't precisely drawn in place, transparent to all others
the amplified bits don't overdo their power, but mutter to themselves on the same state
gradations of: pitch <-> noise || presence <-> diffusion || high <-> low || pure <-> complex ||ringy <-> tight ||
intent rubbing audiates surfaces
moan tube gives its what for and enters a conversational space with the otamatone
as the last sounds drift off downstream
as though
but perhaps not
but yes

April 15, 2018
Lord Willobies Welcome Home - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

parts braid filligree with their cherub hands flitting - mind flash on the opening credits of Fractured Fairy Tales

The Downfall of Nebuchadnezzar - Rev. J. C. Barrett [from Goodbye, Babylon]

ecstatic ignition into possession
prophetic proto rap

Rip It Up - Little Richard [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

playing the same possession game but with chorus cooldowns keeping it under control

Detour Ahead (take 1) - Bill Evans Trio [from Waltz for Debby]

such a gentleness in everything, a kind-to-each-other music

Cloudy - Simon & Garfunkel [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme]

#pop #mood for #feel #good

Unnamed Track 10 - Tillicum Junior High School Band [from my mom's tape of a concert of March 3, 1971]

the sort of comic martial march music one might expect of a mechanism at a fair

Tide - Walt Wagner [from Caprice]

quite the echo on that piano!
tin pan
tune smithery
tune pipes

Echoes - Karen P. Thomas - Seattle Symphony, Michel Singher [from a private tape, Spring 1981]

in a cave with dim lamp sense of dread
as is revealed in several parts
until the whole
Heroic!
flute at end as tale within tale to pass us up the ladder
to our seats

Let Me Tell You - Julian Lennon [from The Secret Value of Daydreaming]

either: so full of himself as to be a monster
or: playing a more knowing game
or: a wall

April 17, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 263 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [August 1991]

readjusting our grip on the world at Toad Hall
fall away to deep sedatory
sediment
whose weight will press
nearly disappearing
often doing several things
often not adding up
or falling away from adding up

doldrum

competitive gibberish critter listing

In Session at the Tintinabulary

April 15, 2018
Fish Distributor b/w Ruined It - Your Mother Should Know [mastered from takes made in March 2018]

To be released on Bandcamp, at some point. Not perfect, but this is Seattle. We don't iron.

April 16, 2018
Gradus 331 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

there is a time it takes for a pitch to speak
different for each note
different also
in kind of time
to the duration of each note
and different also
among the various registers
because at the low end and at the high end there is the separate time of each pitch locating itself
as well as their respective times of speaking
and if several are considered together
struck or not together
do the intervals precede the pitches in experience?
and then there are the gradually revealed sonorities of rolling tones
humming space