"A Rising Genius.
Timothy Sly's own Epistle (not the Master's).
Dear Dick, - I copied my school letter to Father and Mother ten times before one was good enough, and while the teacher is putting the capitals and flourishes in I shall slip this off on the sly. Our examination was yesterday and the table was covered with books and things bound in gilt and silk for prizes but were all put away again and none of us got none only they awarded Master Key a new fourpenny bit for his essay on Locke because his friends live next door and little Coombe got the tooth-ake so they would not let him try his experiments on vital air which was very scurvy. It didnt come to my turn so I did not get a prize but as the company was to stop tea I put the cat in the water butt which they clean out in the holidays and they will be sure to find her and we were all treated with tea and I did not like to refuse as they might have suspext something. Last night we had a stocking and bolster fight after we went to bed and I fougt a little lad with a big bolster his name is Bill Barnacle and I knocked his eye out with a stone in my stocking but nobody knows who did it because we were all in the dark so I could not see no harm in it. Dear Dick send me directly your Wattses Hyms to show for I burnt mine and a lump of cobblers wax for the masters chair on breaking up day and some small shot to pepper the people with my quill gun and eighteen pence in coppers to shy at the windows as we ride through the villiage and make it one and ninepence for there's a good many as Ive a spite against and if father wont give it you ask mother and say its for yourself and meet me at the Elephant and Castle and if there's room on the coach you can get up for I want to give you some crackers to let off as soon as we got home while they are all a Kissing of me Your affectionate brother Timothy Sly."
from The Comic Almanack an Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humorous Poetry, Quips and Oddities, First Series, 1835-1843
Texts
Live
Kin of the Moon, with Tom Baker
The Chapel Performance Space, Good
Shepherd Center, Seattle
A Lack of Anchors - Sarah Perske
distance from home
clearly coded
more dumping on Schoenberg
(just stop please)
surrounding decor
to the vocal line
Built to Last - Leanna Keith
upgrade your experience
vocal becomes part of the ensemble
well
integrated
music as social commentary
Improvisation
like breathing
Recorded
Danse Bacchanal from Samson and Delilah - Empire Brass [from Class Brass On The Edge]
opera favorites
leeches
upon the body operatic
Dempster Retirement Jam (continued) - University of Washington Contemporary Group Improvisation Ensemble Alumni [recorded at the The University of Washington, June 19, 1998]
chasing rolling sticks
across the floor
hold to your pitch
Track 1 - ?? [from Eisenbrey 2003]
{NB from my mother's collection, presumably from a Chamber Music Camp she attended in 2003}
a song
amateur engineering
overpowers the medium
Dear S. - Brian Cobb - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded Jun 16, 2010]
now we will consider the simplest things
in all their nakedness
Trintão - Camarones Orquestra Guitarrística [from O Curioso Caso da Música Invisível]
music like an engine
coming up to power
to do its work
tricked out bike
Gradus 329 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [March 5, 2018]
a field
of unstomped snow
flakes
big fluffy ones
absorbed
one by one
soft
slow motion
we read
their pattern
in time
and fields
shapes
like
graspable processes
slowing
alternation
accelerating
et cetera
shapes
like our utterance
declamation
explanation
oration
et cetera
we
are
organizing piles of notes
excursus:
Q: when we say
we hear an interval
(as,
or
without an as)
what is it
in the sound
that
is
the interval
we say we hear?
A:
an interval
is
the distance
between items
or
an interval
is the spin
that items
put on each other
items
being pitches
or groups of pitches
or amplitudes
or groups of amplitudes
or
whatever it is
that is heard
as having an interval
so
what we mean
when we say
we hear an interval
is
that we discern
an interval
from what we
heard
factoid
humans can be capable
of some pretty fine discriminations
of pitch intervals
making pitch intervals very useful
for musical
intercourse
as harmonies pulse through the moil
of partials
those harmonies
gain a rhythm
of reemergence
as though
they were revolving
slowly
The African Kimono - Kevin Leystah II - Soren Hamm [recorded live at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, February 27, 2025]
a line drawing
gracefully in ink
garment poetry
Madrigals, Book IV: A un giro sol de' begl'occhi lucenti - Claudio Monteverdi - Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini
song:
language shaped like music
:-:
music shaped like
language
O lieber Herre Gott, SWV 382 - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana
:-:
language shaped like music
shaped
like the sacred
charisma
Lobt Gott, ihr Christen, Allzugleich, BuxWV 202 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
clockwork church
Premier livre de clavecin: Triosieme Ordre (ut) : La Favorite, Chaconne a deux tems. Gravement, sans lenteur - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert
beneficence flowered down upon us
wave after wave
Ich Hatte Viel Bekümmernis BWV 21 (Appendix): Coro: "Sie Nun Wieder Zufrieden" - Johann Sebastian Bach - Amsterdam Baroque Choir, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Ton Koopman
voices dance
clockwork paths
across-upon
the pitch stage
Sonata in A minor, Kk. 331 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
bespoke articulations
Sonata in A Major, K. 331 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Lili Kraus
variations
party game
with costumes
each character
makes what it can
of the theme
in turn
Concerto in E-flat Major pour Clavecin et Pianoforte - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Ton Koopman
wide ranging discussion
across the assembled panel
sharing tender
solicitudes
at the hearth
an excursion in the bright day
String Quartet in C Major, Op. 74 #1 - Franz Joseph Haydn - The London Haydn Quartet
pulled up by the collar
attention guided by hand
paths may be made
only
upon the notes given
exposed skill
execution
points
of all things gracious
bagpipes or droners
what fun
6 Etudes de concert d'apres des caprices de Paganini, Op. 10 #6, in E minor - Robert Schumann - Florian Uhlig
arrival at
counts
as establishment of
or
we'll
punctuate
with a chord
so
we know
where
we
thought
we were
Prelude in F-sharp minor, Op. 28 #8 - Frédéric Chopin - Garrick Ohlsson
figurational reverberance
Slavonic Dance in A-flat Major, Op. 46 #3 - Antonín Dvořák - Royal Philharmoni Orchestra - John Farrer
charmed at first
then inveigled
enfolded
included
blank face of charm
Etude in C-sharp minor, Op. 42 #5 - Alexander Scriabin - Dmitri Alexeev
in the key of troubled waters and restless hearts
upright and solid
gay cheery times
Batuque - Ernesto Nazareth - Marcelo Bratke
everything is square
at the same scale
a machine music
for
automated reproduction
one machine
one music
just insert the
barrel of cams
the music's jig
A Jazz Holiday - Benny Goodman [from That Devilin' Tune]
promenade in finery
Study No. 2 (end) (1938) - Charles Ives - Charles Ives [from Charles Ives Plays Charles Ives]
flailing away at murky
Song for Quetzalcoatl - Lou Harrison - San Francisco Contemporary Music Players
sound track
of a film
that is itself
that film
inside
the sound track
of its going
Dancers In Love - Duke Ellington [from Piano Reflections]
finger snap breaks
cute and light
Sea Fever - Peggy Lee [from Sea Shells]
this is a very strange track
for the sophisticated 50s hi fi enthusiast
Fingertips Pts. 1 and 2 - Stevie Wonder [from Recorded Live - The 12 Year Old Genius]
in command
(Sweet Baby) - Since You've Been Gone - Aretha Franklin [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
a narrative
hiding in an epistle
with commentary
Here Comes the Night - David Bowie [from Pinups]
relation between verses and chorus
not narratively clarified
Space Monkey - Patti Smith Group [from Easter]
urban disintegration pressure
apply attitude liberally
armor
plated
meted out
KE SJ DS 630602 (side 2) - Keith Eisenbrey, Sarah Johnson, Dan Sedia [recorded at Bard College, June 2, 1963]
we'll let it sit for a moment
after each event
serendipitous
co-invented chord
my obsession with pitch
on the path
to 5 Movements
Dan the feedback whisperer
I am the floor
I will hold firm
what sort of voice is it
that it has?
a voice of three voices
I ... Dreaming - Stan Brakhage
film
as a music
its verses and vices
supremely lovely
Banned Rehearsal 341 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [September 10, 1993]
in our new home
first recording in the garage studio
introducing
the Mighty Uncle Wurlitzer
and a new shape of space
to attempt to
record
a new play room
for John
scrubbing all the surfaces
with bow and rosin
we must shout
to hear ourselves shouting
into the environs
sawing
through the allotted time
overwhelming
the bass
a fantasy
with Aaronsbundler as tour guide
no ho
backhoe
Ohio
big groups of backhoes
under rocks
at night
{journal entry of September 29, 1998:
we enter the studio for the first time
and the big Wurlitzer}
Drowned World/Substitute for Love - Madonna [from Ray of Light]
language is never just a sound
neither is music
nor dance
motion
nor sculpture form
nor painting paint
Gradus 42 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 5, 2003]
A five
(fifth A)
hushed
an object
touched gently
pointed at
indexed
were there to be a second pitch
appearing
a motion
would be
imputed
to something
(the line)
(which line
was
created
by the motion
imputed)
I.D./Feedback - Janet Jackson [from Discipline]
hi tech fetish
Banned Rehearsal 836 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 13, 2013]
make the music at hand
a drumming about
resolves
into a conversation
of taps
continuities of activity bundles
rather than
structures of
discontinuities
of repetition patterns
(see Scarlatti)
river thread
spun
not woven
responding to each moment
as it creates them
we
are getting
quiet
in depth
Light Body - Hanna Benn [from Divide]
magic intonation
a vial of liquid song
(more hi tech fetish)
Sinfonia 1 (clavichord) - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [April 16, 2023]
composition
is discovery
of an ideational organism
Midnight Blues - Ethel Waters [from Really The Blues]
the voice of conscience
Charleston is the Best Dance of All - Charlie Johnson [from That Devilin' Tune]
music and dance
joined at the center of gravity
instruments played by bodies
Coal Creek March - Pete Steele [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
homespun virtuosity
banjo:
American flat head kora
Sonatas and Interludes: Sonata V - John Cage - Adam Tendler
finger drumming
My Happiness - Elvis Presley [from Sunrise]
no blue memories then
epistolary conceit
as though recorded in a living room
the die-for vibe
of playing
for each other's pleasure
Roly Poly - Willie Nelson [from Here's Willie Nelson]
he would be singing about a child
more or less my own age
at the
time
Little Boy Lost / Little Boy Found (Blake) - Allen Ginsberg [from Holy Soul, Jelly Roll]
each word a plane and an angle
The Real Me - The Who [from Quadrophenia]
rock opera
a concert of rock music
with a plot of sorts
(much like early opera)
Three Songs - ?? - Betty Eisenbrey (with introduction by Carlyle Kelley)
Carlyle was my mom's voice teacher in 1950
three songs she sang when she
was 24 or so
multiple dubbings back in history
to get to the
original singing
China Girl - David Bowie [from Let's Dance]
narrative collage
in a crowded world
Banned Playalong Playedalong 2 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [March 25, 1988]
Aaron made a tape
and sent it to us
we played it back into our
space
and responded
with sounds
recording the results on
tape
a constant hum
boat engine
idling
in motion
long
voyage
below decks
banned ship
Greenwood Big House
rattle
to pass the time
of transit
Has tu point veu - The Baltimore Consort [from La Rockque'n'Roll]
tavern song?
Dempster Retirement Jam (continued) - University of Washington Contemporary Group Improvisation Ensemble Alumni [recorded at the The University of Washington, June 19, 1998]
more conversation
catching up
kissing the bust of Mozart
at
La Boisserie
it occurs to me
that Stu
was probably then
about the age I
am
now
(wow)
there must be a group picture somewhere
since there we are
arranging it
free flowing polyconversational
In Session at The Tintinabulary
March 9, 2025
Nichols - Keith Eisenbrey
March 10, 2025
Banned Rehearsal 1121 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt
March 11, 2025
("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...") - Benjamin Boretz
getting there
March 12, 2025
Preludes 1, 2, and 3 - Lockrem Johnson
March 13, 2025
Preludes 4 and 6 - Lockrem Johnson
I'll be working on getting solid recordings of all 24 now that my piano is in tune
Postscripts
Drops
One of the shining lights of the local music scene during the pandemic lockdown was Nonsequitur's Wayward in Limbo series: 134 commissioned recordings of new work by local musicians. I was honored to be asked for a contribution. The essential intimacy of the clavichord seemed fitting for the occasion, and I offer this series of short improvisations for your enjoyment.
recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream
