Playlist

Preface

"But ambiguity, specifically the ambiguities of outcomes as between stimuli and responses, between actions and experiences, seems ontologically contained within the very being of the experiential. And while every experiential outcome is internally absolute, holistic, and determinate, the ambiguities ensure the indeterminacy of any one outcome relative to any other; and the ontological ambiguity issuing from the awareness that any construal of experience, any individual instance of experience, is ultimately indefinitive relative to any other either between or within individual persons - such ambiguity inscribes the aura of unlimited new-revelatory possibility that pervades the psychic territory of the experiential. [For everything in experience is determined within each span of receptual-event-time, and everything experiential is absolutely indeterminate prior to a receiving event, unsusceptible to anterior prediction. That means that I can't even mentalize the specificity of any experiential music-event because its only specificity is itself: its determinate feel; that is, that in this case, mentalizing the music and mentalizing the experience of the music cannot be discerned or practiced as distinct different mentalizing acts.]"

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

Texts

Streaming

February 15, 2022

Soundbox 2: Millenial Sunset - Tristan Gianola 

Tristan Gianola, Electric Guitar/Electronics; Jake Sele, Narrator; Heather Bentley, Amplified Violin; Alina To, Amplified Violin; Alex Guy, Amplified Viola; Maria Schere Wilson, Amplified Cello

Once again I missed the original stream on the 11th, but was able to check in later. 

voice of
trapped
competitive despair
in isolation
marooned abandoned
unremitting self
personal outlook
bleaker than thou
shouts itself down
existential anxiety
exploded outward
cheery fellow
doomscroll

mythos
last living boy in New York
big screen dystopia
see Planet of the Apes
Damn You All To Hell
romanticized
passive death

From Recent Arrivals

February 16, 2022

Drifting Day 2 Take 1 - Motoko Honda - Motoko Honda

solo piano
stepwise noodling
varied diatonic accompaniments
activity tracks energy
focus is on the figurational flux

February 18, 2022

After Tonight - Mariah Carey [from Rainbow]

bimodal vocal:
cheek-to-cheek-dance earwhisper
and full-voice cryout
switching quickly
either actually
or manufacturally
a self-duet

I Wanna Be Where You Are - Michael Jackson [from Got to Be There]

not showing a lot of range here
but he was only 13

Easy Living - Miles Davis [from Miles Davis Plays for Lovers]

they'll all get there
one beat or another
stutter breath between verses
always exactly together

The Night Has a Thousand Eyes - Morgana King [from Miss Morgana King]

show-off technique
at the service of tasteless sophistication 

love it

Recorded

February 12, 2022

If You'll Let Me Be Your Little Sweetheart - Gene Autry [from Evans 78s]

sentimental view
of the old ways
even back then
paternalist protection plan

Duncan and Brady - Lead Belly [from Where Did You Sleep Last Night, a Lead Belly Legacy]

a murderer and his victim
discussing calibers of guns?
the same couplets
circle around

What Is This Thing Called Love - Charlie Parker [from The Cole Porter Song Book]

big bands were possible
because labor was cheap?
back to the economics of nightclubs
in the 40s and 50s

On Green Mountain, for jazz ensemble - Harold Shapero - Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose

more big band sound
with harp
the sensibility
with which the passacaglia theme puts itself together
is more 19th Century European
than jazzy-chord-change
- it cadences
which may be the oddity of this
a big band piece
that speaks tonal
Haydnesque
cadence oriented phrases

Keep Your Hands Off My Baby - Little Eva [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Ha-aaands
Ba-aaa-by
Ti-ime
He-ead
the melody is composed
and the lyrics
so that certain open vowels
can punch the microphone

Lo, How a Rose - The Philadelphia Brass Ensemble [from A Festival of Carols]

stately, plump

Missa Brevis - Vivian Fine - Jan DeGaetani, Eric Barlett, David Finckel, Michael Finckel, Maxine Newman

four cellos
and taped voice
music minus the other one

old culture is encoded
into every sound of this
the tape has an audible hiss glow of presence
but the gimmick
is a small part of what this is
it would work just as well
with four singer clones
it being
the identity of the singers
rather than its tapedness
that is the compositional thrust
a preternaturally blended choir
the cellos
should be played by clones also
||
back to the culture encoding
discussions of the individual
and identity
and community
it takes place
in an empty space
in the earmind
a chamber
architected
out of encoded culture's obsessions
anxieties

this is a pretty nifty piece of composition
under scrutiny

February 13, 2022

Jahreslauf - Karlheinz Stockhausen

enter with bells and clangor
they come
they go
another slow procession
the processors
are all in slow motion
possibly circling
time is kept
drums punctuate
flowers arrive
and are announced
in base 10
does it mean
what it stands for? 

we are deliberate
we go through all the steps
nothing will hurry it along
gravity
don't you know
so heavy
traffic has arrived
with honkers
and prizes are offered
a recorded big band sound drifts by
in a haze of bubble
and party lights
perhaps Stan Freburg
hired them out
bombs go off
the old clock
is winding down
tipping
slowly
over the edge 

down it goes

It's Your Turn - The Who [from It's Hard]

celebrating something
ridicule perhaps
whatever it is
it has got to be said
with loudmouth effort

Standing Waves-78/87 - Stuart Dempster

inhabiting a volume
into
its queer corners
its distant apses

February 14, 2022

Banned Rehearsal 310 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [October 30, 1992]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 310 921030

questions one might ask
of a music:
A
what sounds are in it?
B
what sorts of things are happening simultaneously?
C
what types of things establish boundaries?
vertically or horizontally?
D
how does it fill up its time?
vertically or horizontally?
E
how distant from me
does it feel?
F
how are connections made?

A
vocal sounds
both singing and speaking
B
ditto
C
vertically
voice
and the distinction between singing and speaking
horizontally
breath
word
syllables
pitch
D
vertically
transparently
horizontally
overlapping activities
of various independence
E
in the same room
family intimate
F
lexical ideas
transfer
from layer to layer
recognizable answers
conversational procedures
sharing of phoneme sets
pitch play
pulse play

suddenly Old Mcdonald makes an appearance
must be heard to be believed
choo choo
vacuum
if a vacuum
is an absence of matter
in space
why do you need to clean it?

applause
play

I am unspooled
by no one

{from my journal entry of June 6, 1995:

Baboo!
Lion
sheep
vocalizings
John knows animal sounds
vocalizations
Big! EAST
up
car
dizzy wizzy
Ring Round Rosie}

February 15, 2022

Things Fall Apart - Mary Lee Roberts [from Open Space 9]

partial sounds
chopped and smooth
or both
rooms inside rooms
liquid swells

speech from outside

Jeremiah 17: 5-8 - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church on February 23, 2002]

my recording levels were so low
some of the keyboard part is lost
Karen sounds good though

Knight in Armor - Low Hums [from Sounds of Speakers]

bass and drums
an occasional vibraphone strike
now a shaker
the pitch of the bass shifts
but only to shift back
big shaker episode
a guitar I guess
possibly synth
definitely a post early Pink Floyd groove
we shut it down slow
modularly

What's Wanting For (draft) - Your Mother Should Know [May 1, 2012]

a bridge loaded with similes
never have been sure how Ecclesiastes got in there
guitar and drums sound good

Different Now - Chastity Belt [from I Used To Spend So Much Time Alone]

self instructive beat construction
lyrics applied sparingly
could be reflexive
or advice
or both

Banned Rehearsal 1044 - C, D, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Ahava K, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1044 220131

after adjustments of position and equipment
we begin together
the goal
is to broaden
to open
to widen
with focus
earth firmly underfoot 

a different household wires in
wirelessly
from Lake City
households converse
it persists
in its own sputtery space
quietly about its business
until Tam Tam
awakens
Lake City
gently
now done

February 16, 2022

Pavana, Fvb 85 - Peter Philips - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

the three types of motion
as commonly abstracted
similar
oblique
and contrary 

but the particular intervals
involved in any one case
both absolute
and functional
complicate the question
past the point of possible
denial
or confirmation

Partita in C minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Gunther Hasselmann

each bit
tells a portion
of the argument
placard-like
the motions
are not just between voices
but
between figuration complexes
as both wholes
and
as internally moving wholes
and parts

I note that he skips the mordant
in the Courante
that was giving me the puzzlements this morning

so that
it can seem
to go sideways

Sonata in F Major, Kk. 168 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

he digresses upon himself
comes back around from elsewhere
so that
where you started
is no longer
where you started
but
where you passed through
on the way to

oops
done

Symphony in A Major, Op. 92 (#7) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert van Karajan

pressure against a barrier
flowering
spills over
as pressure builds
the lid suffers damage
its joints
loosen
punchy punctuation
echoed later
by piano punctuation
(no punch!)
in a similar structural location
violins
biding time

Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64 #2 - Frédéric Chopin - Peter Katin

chromatic complexes
establish
a key of their own
a key of distances
within
another sense
of key

New Orleans Lowdown - Duke Ellington, B. Miley [from Allen Lowe's Really The Blues]

more
blueser
than
you sir

Beautiful Love - Art Tatum [from Classic Early Solos]

so:
Liszt Chopin CPE Bach and Liberace
all crowd into the same pianist

In Sentimental Mood - Florence Price - Lara Downes

I would watch that movie
somewhere between Joplin and Evans

Hey, Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo and the Beat]

a brag
on a train chug rhythm
with punch

Road Runner - The Ventures [from Walk Don't Run]

pre-meepmeep
cruisin' tune
beatnik nerves
greaser cool

24 Preludes, Preludes 17-24 - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, on June 21, 2003]

I was sure I had played these
on a recital
at some point
but had had no record of it 

I was cleaning out my desk
when I found copies
of the program
kept
for scratch paper
and
thus
had
a date
and so
found
the DAT
oh joy 

mostly played pretty well

May I - Maurice Williams and the Zodiaks [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

chromatic dips
falsetto harmonies
and oobie-doobies
what's not to like 

however
there is a reason musicians chafed
at 2 minutes 30

Peter's Jones - Bloodstone [a Rescued Record]

funk
mixed up
call and response
rides a groove
for dancing

Ebb Tide - Elaine Barkin - Kenneth McGrath, Aaron Smith [from Open Space 16]

tentative
searching
touch
pull back
retouch 

two vibraphones

magic wetlands
crabs
under cover
of rocks
pools
anemones
limpets
barnacles

Allentown - Billy Joel [from The Essential Billy Joel]

on Springsteen's turf
this is just lame
journalistical

Assembly Rechoired 18 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [March 14, 1987]

Keith Eisenbrey · Assembly Rechoired 18 870314

a cat
is purring
in the microphone
Anarchy or Amnehitabel 

once again
I am playing with tape recorders
leftover silly
from the session with Paul
and Happy Birthday
a bad case of chipmunks
Aaronsbundler
to the rescue 

for a session that starts out pretty quiet
this one goes hog bonkers 

one more generation
one last generation
a truly silly noise
with hints of a speech rhythm 

play it again

February 17, 2022

Colorscope - Michael C. Viens - Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Robert Stankovsy, Volker Schwarz

sophisticated naivete
or naive sophistication
or naive naivete
with some arrangement chops
precious
looking firmly back
one presumes
it adequately fulfilled
a commission

Banned Rehearsal 464 (digital) - Pete Comley, Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály- Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 464 970906 digital

my journal entry of February 17, 2022

{from my journal entry of June 28, 2005:

heavy on bass
the drums
a dense opaqueish roar
do the sounds lack presence
or is their presence obscured by the drums
this recording is largely the victim of poor mic placement
I wonder if the general EQ
couldn't be amended toward the high end
it just seems dull and heavy
claustric

Not the First Time - The Humidiflyers [from Blue Ducky EP]

a reminder
in time of trouble
make a big rolling noise about it

Consider the Birds 13 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]

starts tiny or distant
some sounds
seem to echo off
some sit still
or ask questions
or whisper
patient
waiting out the night
one louder sound
like a sneeze
echoes off
with the others
we
are the sole speakers
of our idiowhims

We Were Young - Youth Rescue Mission [recorded live at the High Dive, Seattle, April 6, 2012]

the slow liquid affect
of the vocals
makes their downbeats
sound like the offbeats
assisted
by heavy
or nonexistent
actual offbeats
and imprecise syncopation

Ghosting Doubles (first sighting) - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, on March 24, 2018]

technically
they're inverted quasi-doubles
in a baroque double
the bass parts remain the same
as in the original
and the melody
is an ornamented form
of the original
here
the melody
remains identical
and the alternate accompaniments
are paired with it
(and derived from it)
or
the original is left out
ghosted
as it were 

Amy Denio has my undying gratitude for allowing me the use of her tune

1~~-~-~-~~-~~-~-~~-~-(Rojahn Remix) - Lost Chocolate Lab [from (Previously) Clean]

guitar
incites a throb in the basement
cut loose
it drifts into clouds
solid thinking

In Session at the Tintinabulary

February 13, 2022

Banned Telepath 81 South - Steve Kennedy

February 14, 2022

Banned Telepath 81 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer

February 17, 2022

Banned Telepath 81 Toad Hall - Aaron Keyt

Banned Rehearsal 1045 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1045 220213 - 14 - 17

February 18, 2022

Anybody's Fingerbook 3x3 (augmentational) A B C - Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · Anybody's Fingerbook 3x3 (augmentational) A B C 200513 (220218)

Postscripts

Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery 

more doodles from 1987

Playlist

 Preface

"Unlike you, I'm not personally frustrated by the current abasement and commoditization of the culture of music performance or that of art exhibition.

Because, some time ago, I decided to detach myself from the 'evils' of 'the culture' to find alternative psychic spaces where life choices and environmental effects are ontologized with a perspective that dis-reifies the irrelevant and renders it ineffective, while proactively reifying the qualities that are abundantly available to nurture the lifestyle which is desired. There's a confusion: 'art' ('music', 'concerts', 'museums', etc.) have symbolized an 'enlightened' ('elevated') lifestyle - they don't, anymore, as a general cultural phenomenon; but this doesn't mean that there isn't abundant stuff in our world which is nurturing to such a lifestyle; consider that at an earlier time, there were massive cultural phenomena which were non-nurturing (brothels and gambling palaces in Havana, Broadway musicals, bullfights in Madrid, bloated gourmands in Paris, mass-produced horse and dog races, charlatans doing magic and selling nostrums - & on & on) - but the presence of these phenomena did not appear to threaten the lifestyle of people who read books, listen to music, etc."

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

Texts

Recorded

August 7, 2021

Trombone Slide - Roy Palmer, Bob Hudson [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Playing within a style involves inventing a plausible style that it is played in,
an agreement among two
a collaborative invention.
Even if it is purported to be in a recognizable style
it is difficult to tweeze out which parts
we as listeners
are buying into
as signaling that style
without critique
even if such style can be named, there will be arguments.
That is,
these styles may not be as recognizable as you think,
except in extremely broad
(and thus next to useless)
terms.

When a Woman Loves a Man (take 1) - Art Tatum [from Classic Early Solos]

So where does that leave us with Art Tatum?
Held together less by style
than by personality
like spring in Seattle
if you don't like it
wait a few beats

All I Need Is You - Peggy Lee [from The Complete Recordings 1941-1947]

Benny Goodman and crew
provide the aural equivalent of her sparkly gown
and spotlight
high end
style and class

Sonata #1 - Pierre Boulez - Klara Komendi

this,
however,
was not yet a style at the time
a collection of qualities of gestures
figures persisting for arbitrary durations
resolving into gesture set regions
coherence involves us convincing ourselves
that we have perceived an individual thing
out there in our experience
it doesn't involve figuring it out
in any more technical sense
at least not necessarily

Better Late Than Never - Buster Pack and His Lonesome Pine Boys [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

scribble fiddle
banjo twiddle
up tempo
hoe down dance

Don't Forbid Me - Pat Boone [a Rescued Record]

too many more verses
and this could get adult 

good time to switch gears and sing a chorus
ramp it up
bluff and switch

Veni Jesu - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [April 10, 1962]

the style of this one soft sells itself

Baby I Love You - Aretha Franklin [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

her band supplies the hip english
style solidly built

Lolly Too Dum - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [from Betty's Picks]

threat to never get married
a girl in my position
don't wait too long
fancy show tune type

Roman Nights - Meco [a Rescued Record]

all light show precious little else
sample ready

August 9, 2021

Book of Windows, Side B (820804) - Keith Eisenbrey - Jill Borner, Keith Eisenbrey, Bruce Huber [recorded in a common area at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, August 4, 1982]

Crumar is the ground
upon which is etched
the electric guitar
the text
wafts through like smoke
the Crumar's slowly shifting patterns
terrain bouldery
piled moraine
earth air and soft water
light and prying ice
footing not secure
a field of ankle breakers

This was an important work for me to have done (for me), not exactly a dead end.

Sound Examples for "A Tonal Model of an 'Atonal' Piece - Steve Larson

voice
singing solfeggio
(fixed do?) I think
and piano
and fine examples they are too
they like fa
a Schoenberg song

Banned Rehearsal 293 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [May 29, 1992]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 293 920529

flutes and wooden thumps
the crows outside this evening are heading home
John is near speech
pot lids make quite a racket
so there is singing and hominine chatter
tambourine rhythm
brief
partly regular
regular enough
so that irregularity shows
speaking as an activity
is prefatory to the lexicon
patterns of expressing expression
are there in babble
sounds like the Big Red Bag of Fun
piano
must mean Toad Hall
sail boats pound
pout
tap tap tap tap
shake
bong goes the bell
elsewise we have become quiet
with lots of shifting around
tins and lids
a whistle is heard
more fipple flute than ocarina
John sits hard on a microphone
we bong more bells
and rub lids
John is a helpful little dude
coda of doom
we wandered off somewhere

{{ from my journal entry of December 27, 1994 }} ::

revolvular metal scrape
HOO!
Dance Dramatic peering up onto a tabletop of sound
sibilant bells
clicking like water dripping
like elemental sounds heard prior to cognition
preverbal
just like John
or at the turning point
just verbal
struggling articulation
revolving back to where the potlids began
the Potlidiad

August 10, 2021

Dig Me Out - Sleater-Kinney [from Dig Me Out]

XXA XXB CDEFGH . . .
schematic lyric structure
a switch
ends as it begins
guitar

Work / Architecture / Unity / And / The - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded on April 7, 2021]

performed as a continuity
but could be finessed (the gaps)
weighing the balance of time as experience
each segment has its internal tempo
and the gaps could be listening more carefully
to those tempi
there may be no right way to play it 

cool!

The Friend - Low Hums [from Sounds of Speakers]

lives up to the name of the band
a vibe for a mood
for an image
some cymbals
a synth
hand drums
below it all
the sea floor bass
crows are on the move
wordless

Gradus 205 - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [February 6, 2012]

Many A-nats
both slats
this piece lives in this room
its resonance occupies this space

autopedagogic
teaching one's feet
to climb the steps
agogically 

clock time
history
nor time line
history
are granular enough
or round enough
to accommodate
(a) musical event(s)
nor any

pitch space image is not location space image
an effort might be made to mitigate their interference
so that where an event is
or emanates from
doesn't obscure where it lands
in the image of pitch space

{{ from my journal entry of February 6, 2012 }} ::

hints of Bs 7th
[NB presumably I was hearing the upper harmonic of one of the low A nats]
odd it should take so long

Alleluia - Margie Palmer [from Make a Joyful Noise]

[NB - Margie is a cousin on my Mom's side of the family, this is from a private recording]

McAbee voice similar to my Mom's but as a Soprano

August 11, 2021

Saint Thomas Wake, Fvb 36 - John Bull - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

Did they ornament their vocal music too
when they sang?
In practice if not in notation?
It may sound like aimless noodling to our ears,
but their aims were not ours
those are precise and individual noodlings

Symphony Sacrae II, Op. 10 14 "Verlieh uns Frieden genädlich" - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

surface continuity is not his bag
there is a thread
but the terrain it winds through is tricky
there are gaps

Suite in G Major, BuxWV 240 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella

the voices stop
hold up
to be sure
their fellow voices can be clearly heard
sometimes
hurry to catch up
everybody gets to the end of the trail

"Lobt Gott, ihr Christen, allzugleich", BWV 732 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Michael Chapuis

played first plain
but with cadential ornamentation
then played plain
then played full fancy
with more of that cadential ornamentation

Sonata in A-flat Major, Kk. 127 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

threads aplenty
but they are abandoned with abandon
picked up later
get stuck in loops

L'Ernestine, Wq. 117/38 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

in a lyrical 3 meter
songlike
a teaching piece?

Sonata in A Major, Hob. XVI: 12 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

also (like the CPEB above) performed on clavichord
phraseological head rhymes keep us from wandering too far

August 12, 2021

Rondo in A Major, K. 386 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardner, Malcolm Bilson

call it a rondo and everyone will know it starts at home base
(attend the immediately repeated notes in each figure)
(and where within each figure they sit)
(another thread to tie it)
(you may applaud now)
(hire me if you like)

Theme and Variations in F Major, Op. 34 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Artur Schnabel

spacious theme with room to breathe
lovely lines
interesting Feng Shui
loosely limbed
tightly sinewed
good bones : gracious
in a way that neither the Eroica nor Diabelli sets are

declines to process
accepts to enjoy

returns the theme burnished but unsullied
doubled
bow put on
among his more civilized compositions

Sonata in D Major, Op. 106 - Johann Nepomuk Hummel

Romantic or proto-so
in the sense that it is modeled on Romantic opera
someone is singing
but they aren't fighting their own means
like Beethoven did
or subverting it
like Chopin does
one would enjoy this
as one would one's favorite number
from the show last night
here's the ingenue's boudoir scene
brushing her hair
somebody put florid in the water
scene with the chambermaid
somebody is hiding behind the arras
shenanigans transpire

Mazurka in C minor, Op. 30 #1 - Frédéric Chopin - Vladimir Ashkenazy

each register has its own ideas
about how the figuration understands the key
nearest analog: Scarlatti?

Klavierstücke, Op. 118 - Johannes Brahms - Julius Katchen

1
a strong step
then a stumble
meter play in long lines

2
Aaron's Intermezzo 
shorter lines
that build and fold inward
bivalent meter
complex in several dimensions

3
let's get muscular and manly
but with tender hearts
after all we once were sentimental

4
anxiety and abruptness

5
peace
and tranquil thoughts
happy memories
be gone dark corners

6
darkening skies
in the night
has it come to this
pathetic end
Manfred?

Soir de fete, Op. 32 - Ernest Chausson - Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Michel Plasson

buildup upon buildup
hype
excitement
the fete-ands now in their own places
preparing
such pretty gowns
celebration of fashion and society
(just wait
the Sacre is right around the corner)
pious dreamer
heart pittapat though it mittamat
back to the ballroom
such a lovely evening out here in the moonlight

August 13, 2021

Bill Bailey - Arthur Collins [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

blackface as desire
desire to be what
black?
goes to great lengths
to make laughable
the image
of black
that they share for us

but desire
is desire 

even when disguised or denied
like 10 year-old boys pulling girls' pigtails

Poeme-Nocture, Op. 61 - Alexander Scriabin - Michael Ponti

huge registral range for both the bass and treble
any part of the harmony
nearly
can be in any part of the registral space
uses the whole keyboard freely
sensitively
inner part voice leading
slippery as wind puffs

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

league stacks along with all the bigs he was

probably offed he wasn't rubbed right likes

Stalin chances of age surviving that

Reality Check::

through matrix

trace result

sand paper

Playlist

Preface

"And as he stood there, gazing at his victim,
A voice was heard, coming from where, he knew not,
but he could hear it saying: "Why, O Cadmus,
Stare at the serpent slain? You also, some day,
Will be a serpent for mortal men to stare at."
- Ovid "Metamorphoses" (translated by Rolfe Humphries)

Texts

Recorded

Ravenna Park, Seattle

March 28, 2020
Sonata in G minor, K. 108 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

Just how close are those closely related keys? Etched so clearly they seem more clearly distant.

contrapuntaled key parts

Sara (Live 1982) (Remastered) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

So: If the referenced story or milieu is irretrievable from this text residue, as such, what parts of it might not be? Perhaps only or as much as the gap between what of the story or milieu can be told to any others, or by any others. The shift of points of view from line to line is the heart of it.

Johnny 99 - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

I'd love to hear someone like Braxton take a run at that opening harp Schrei. Once again, the room is too big for the lyrical thrust of the song. He has to shout.

Gradus 201 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 2011]

Ravenna Park, Seattle

Music may be without purpose. Yet it seems to possess one. Or it seems it must have one in order to possess it. But does it need purpose to exist? Purpose for us or for it?

It (can) witness(es) us back to us.  mirror by which we hear our face, or see our voice.

Different pedaling provides multiple splash patterns for sympathetic reverberings.

sounds awaken wires
sound wakes wires
SOUNDS WAKE WIRES!

echolocation of the soul, man
groovy

::{{dis-alliteration: gradually removing alliteration to reveal the residuals, the outliers}} thus: graduy removing aiteraion to revea the residuas; gaduy emoving aiteraion to revea the residuas; gaduy emoving aiteaion to evea the esiduas; gaduy emoing aiteaion to eea the esiduas; gadu moing aiteaion to ea the siduas; gau moing aiteaion to ea the siuas; gau moing aiteaion to ea the iua; etc.
::

Purple Berries - Low Hums [from Shine Rock] 

absent tracks are allowed to bleed
melodic construction (by the quatrain) straight and clear

Sonata in A minor, K. 109 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

How much of the key do we glimpse at once?

Reading: Luke II 20-21 - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

were there now
abiding you say

An Experiment in Reading (Beckett) - Jill Borner, Benjamin Boretz, Charles Stein [from Open Space 3]

Ravenna Park, Seattle

Jill's speaking voice is sparing of the hard "t"
a remarkable set of vowels and rhythm of reading
the words of at least one speaking reader seem to affect the pattern of the others' patterned appearance

an image like any other

March 29, 2020
For When I Go - Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs [from Alone In This Together]

anguish as fuel
to lift anguish to voice

no slack

Gradus 299 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 2016]

The two rungs are distinguished from each other only by the inclusion of a C-sharp in the second that isn't in the first. The size of the collections is large enough that the single distinguishing feature could be regarded as ineffective, unless you knew to listen for it.

However, Neal usually makes a compositional decision to also distinguish co-sessional rungs by a shift in performance approach. What might the motivation for that thumb on the scale be?

This music speaks piano. It does not imitate. It clears a space for itself, a wide open space.

Sonata in A minor, K. 110 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

Ravenna Park, Seattle

The ornaments are anything but ornamental. They are tools to pattern with. Put pin here.

How Still My Love (Live 1982) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

Word play (on "still" - used two ways) to hook.

Wraps the line up in a cocoon. The rest of it is a conversation cloud around the hook.

Reason to Believe - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

A well written song, even for Bruce, who is no slouch most of the time. the tune and delivery isn't so far lifted from conversational description - just lifted enough.

Banned Rehearsal 804 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 2011]



A procession with instruments
into a chamber
like a toybox
more to process with

calling to
within the chamber
each gesture
has ceremonial intent

We have learned to play the rattle.

seed shaker and tinkly bells
new sounds new phase
cowbell takes an extended solo
bell canto

leads to the misty pool
so we shift gears
get in the boat

preset intros
out us

sunda - Paul Kikuchi - Paul Kikuchi, percussion; Taina Karr, oboe and english horn; Ivan Arteaga, clarinet; Greg Sinibaldi, bass clarinet; Natalie Mai Hall, cello; John Teske, contrabass [from Autonomic]

Skunk Cabbage, Ravenna Park, Seattle

overtly ceremonial
no troop of misfits these!
poeticized minimalism
made lyrical

Sonata in G minor, K. 111 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

oh the hang
of the beat three!
oh!

syncopation owned

This Man is Mine - Heart [from Greatest Hits]

Well, those vowels sure are.

Ungaresca -  - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

on recorder
with fancy fancies
and odd tuning

Monster - Tyrannosaurus Grace [from E.P. 1]

This song is clear in how it wants to sound. The combined gender vocals are killer.

Banned Rehearsal 920 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 2016]



We start off where we left off
→→→→excelsior!←←←←
breathing
imagine that(!)
pitched thumps thumping
impact-rhythm-farben-melodien
→→→→Impakrytmusfarbenmelodeon←←←←
meddlodeon

each corner of the room has its voice, its aural face
wholly fine in how each successive moment clarifies the past
exquisite pp percussion bit

pitch returns
to our world

the Pythagorean authority of a pitched wire
returns to our world

March 30, 2020
Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 112 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

stumping the GPS
loves square corners

Edge of Seventeen (Live 1982) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

propelled past all by the motor
it spills over the 4X4

Born in the U.S.A. - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

It isn't like he goes to great trouble to make himself understood. He starts nowhere and goes back to it in some sort of triumph, I guess.

April 1, 2020
Gradus 202 (Rung 1) Live at the Chapel - Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 2011]

For his live presentations Neal performs three rungs spread out over two hours. The ratio of time spent on each rung is 40/60/20. Usually one of the rungs exhibits a single pitch for its entirety. Sometimes that's the 60 minute rung. He generally inserts a lengthy silent bit in each rung, proportioned (I think) to that rung's duration. Here, the first rung is 40 minutes, and has three pitches, all A-nats: one high-mid, one low-mid, one quite-high.

The chapel has things to say.

More later.

Crapitol Hill - Choke The Pope [from Emotional Material]



local flavor place name dropping with sophomoric attitude in prominent display. Not profound.

Jim Squared - James Kelly, J.K. Randall [from Inter/Play]

If what we do in this moment adequately composes this moment, then what do we care else of deeper structure? Closely following its own impatience with stagnation, it shifts on its haunches and plays with the woowoosterious, steps back to take in a lovely thought. Our fingers fiddle jointly. It stops mattering who who is, though we know who who is. (Or what is.) When two are four. Ears when followed lead deeper. Unknown where we are. Light a candle. Look around. It was growing into a dynamic harmony blob that might be an other self. Enter without thought of a prior substrate.

The End of September - Larry Solomon

We are in  control of these pulses. We have all agreed not to move. Do not let go. Though the ground will.

Track 1 - High Class Wreckage [Live at the Funhouse, July 2011]

From which (HCW) Neal got his loud DeVille amplifier. Beer spewers of yore. So long ago. This was, or so I hear, their last good {epic, totally} show - the last one in which the guitarist wasn't so wasted as to fail. Too fancy to be punk. Flipoff Metal? Jalopy racing.

April 2, 2020
Penny for My Thoughts - Robber's Roost [from Swallow Your Fears]



hardened data bits
under pressure

Rhiannon (live 1982) (Remastered) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

Maple Leaf, Seattle

grieve out dancing

at one point actual grief intrudes upon the proceedings

||:: an aesthetic issue with direct emotional expression. It shows up the inadequacy of the means by which emotion is expressed in aesthetic discourse, or it undercuts that discourse's strength of expression? even money, I suppose ::||

Nouvelles, Nouvelles - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

Reconstructed practice. We guess at it. Plausibility rather than authenticity is the best we can do.

Gradus 202 (Rung 2) Live at the Chapel - Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 2011]

Rung 2 (60 minutes) is a very low A-nat, one instance of which is enough to suffice as to the greater score. Ring the rung for all it's worth. While listening to this live I became obsessed with the endings of tones. Beginnings can be big or little. Endings can be many things, or it might be supplanted, made never was, by a new beginning of the same tone.

Knells.

Postscripts

encounters it flame on both persuading
love holy execution stem from god
hence the soul thinks time this shoots up delight

a such beetle like thing

spins the blades

of Jack the Ripper

Playlist

Preface

"...does a musical image incandesce because it flashes forth by a twinkle of surface the full depth of the pool of reference on which it floats? Floats: The twinkle is the depth's edge, ultimately depthlimiting. twinkle at poolbottom, and there will be only flat bottom perceived; but twinkle at top, and there is a pool to float over felt, surface, depth, bottom, all together. So the experience of riches of musical depth comes by way of the acuity not the complexity of the musical surface; all is conveyed by the explicit sparkle of that twinkle: high atop a deep or boiling or tranquil or shoalfilled current; or just a map of the bottom of something or other. Still waters evaporate, vanish in sands, leave perception high and dry; to keep buoyant the flashes must flicker evernew dimensional senses (not another pool over there, but another depth, an unpremeditated cove, an elusive channel, connected within a timespan of spacesense: the pool reshaped as twinkles unveil newfolds, eddies, islands, inlets, changes over time become part of what it is: roiled, glossy, ripply, sparkly, gloomy, gleaming, reflected invert blueskybowl: time, shaped over time; space, shaped over time; (leafflutter: a still image that only a movie camera can record).) And if the texture datasaturates, repletes unto itself, color neutralizes, drains: demorphizes. If the reference is the surface, then the incandescence never glows."

Benjamin Boretz "Mirage - benjamin boretz notebook entries 1974-1976"
from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 1: 1960-1978"

Texts

Recorded

November 24, 2019
Cricket - Aaron Keyt [from November Choses]

a rhythms three be these:
one | first | too fast to count the clicks || tempo flexible
two | second | not quite too fast to count the clicks || tempo stable-ish
three | third | too slow to count a tempo at all

Deathwish Moss Lawn - Yuni in Taxco [from Slow Charade]



Syd Barrett in #Electronic #Ecstatic #Bath

Thanks Everybody - Karen Eisenbrey [St. Rage Book Launch, August 2016]

the legend of the magic hat

Sonata in C minor K. 56 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

uses every part of the meter
every portion's part
even the oink

to build above the meter
a stunning over-arch

soaring

Secret Love - Billy Stewart

pan placement:

left || right

space between | |

a countable set of locations
from which sounds are presented as coming from

Edge of Seventeen (Early Take) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

The words can mostly be understood,
which ends up being neither here nor there.

the lines are chosen by their phoneme mix and pattern
symphonic projection a given

Clairvoyance - Screaming Trees [from Clairvoyance]

tightly held affectual range
from part of verse to part of verse
so that the very simple is
HUGE
within its context

Symphony in G Major (#8) Op. 33 III. Allegretto grazioso - Molto vivace [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

music harking back
symphonic music as such

what an extremely odd thing to have ever occurred to anyone to do
19th Century Synthesizer
Berlioz Model

ZFP All 110917 - Keith Eisenbrey [September 2011]

exploring the notion of signal
the dragon of cyclicity itself
lower to higher

meta instrumental

[I wanted a wide and dense frequency band to play with]

we make sense of music with the same innate desperation with which we make sense, or attempt to, of talk

long range translation of transformed duration pattern

I waited out the reverberation of the strings

we hear these events differently for having heard them before differently

Skateboard - Low Hums [from Shine Rock]



hiding behind an effects wall
compressed

skate
board

definitely two words

November 26, 2019
Sonata in B-flat Major K. 57 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

Keep each phrase in its own pocket.
(to show how it's done)
motoric continuity honored in its breach

Is there a music more tempting to analyze than this?

Strawberry Fields Forever(demo sequence) - The Beatles [from Beatles Anthology Volume 2]

an image behind
what we now all know it became

Hyperactive Child - Dead Kennedys [from Plastic Surgery Disasters / In God We Trust]

brief
a relief

November 27, 2019
Banned Telepath 7 San Diego - Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer, Yvonne Meyer [November 1986]

This was part of what was eventually assembled into Banned Rehearsal 105. I was amused that I was listening to it on November 27, 33 years to the day after it was made - if Neal labeled it correctly. Karen and I made a tape in Bickleton on the 28th - see below. Later in December Aaron was visiting us in Seattle so we made a third Telepath. The whole was finally put together early in 1987.

guitar (acoustic): the tongue drum (now living in the Tintinabulary, beneath the xylophone, next to the little marimba): kitchen implements. A song (Neal), sudden: Just Another Thanksgiving

Either Neal is bending pitch habitually or there is some variability in the tape mechanism's speed. Flute holes are blown across. thudding drumming - as might be box or suitcases: lip vibratories, tubes activated, running water into a sink in the distance, tiny rattles up near, occasionally steady pulse gets going, but low key not unduly coercive

The Telepath Project was, socially, a binding mechanism. It gave us, even before all the marriages, a way to continue to interact with loose coordination across distance and time. In this session no intense energy is expended on the task of performative projection, and yet it wanders by now and then.

cornet
with mute object
in water
blurbling

An A-list Novel

Crow Call - Aaron Keyt [from November Choses]

conversational
as with JKR's pine cones

caw
and response
and grapple

Into The Night - Ancient Warlocks [from The Superwizard 7" Single]



the live version
was heard recently
this being
one of their songs
(as in songs)
it's a whole thing

pronouncement production
accent accentuation
pitch:
all led by the beat or rhythm section

beat factory
pulse grooves
surfers' waves

That's just how you have to say it to stay in the tube.

That Last One - Karen Eisenbrey [St. Rage Book Launch, August 2016]

I like how my recording picks up the audience reaction, Nan's laugh.

November 28, 2019
Sonata in C minor K. 58 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

chromatic fugato passing through the diatonicscape

Strawberry Fields Forever (take 1) - The Beatles [from Beatles Anthology Volume 2]

The metrical flow of the text drags against the friction of the one two one two one two one two of the instrumental/vocal pitch partitioning

Think About It (Alternate Version) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

a letter of support and advice, set to a generic tune

O Little Town of Bethlehem - London Symphony Orchestra [from Listen to the Joy]

a perfectly good singalong song overencumbered with orchestration

First Contact - Robert Tree Cody, Will Clipman [from Heart of the Wind]

flute and drum support a single unison tune
never straying far from each other

Gradus 197 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [September 2011]

register
is not as simple as
high tone low tone in between tone

there is more audible sound signal in the low
i.e. the low contains or includes high, while the high does not include or contain the low

moving from one extreme through the middle to the other, there is a shift in depth

obvious stuff, but worth bearing in mind when relying on register as a compositional determinate

squeaky pedal

If: the point is to compose
and if: the point is to not compose a piece
but to compose without composing a piece
then: Gradus is a systemic solution attempt
an experiment

Shizukasa - Paul Kikuchi [from Autonomic]



so let us wallow
in low tone roll around
mid tones enhance
observe
float

November 29, 2019

Sonata in F Major K. 59 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

the fine and politic art of hijacking an answering phrase

Sonata in D minor Wq. 62/15 - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

cobbled together from un-like-to-be-fitting parts
phrase elision: the sense that a note not the beginning has become a beginning
its form identity elided
a never was, except as an anticipation of a now narrowly avoided

La Forqueray - Jacques Duphly - Christophe Rousset

a graciously lyrical continuity, so civilized!
then another, for distance

Roll Up The Ribbons - Harvey Schmidt - Mary Martin, Robert Preston [from I Do! I Do!]

a little waltz for two
waiting for you

Kepone Factory - Dead Kennedys [from Plastic Surgery Disasters / In God We Trust]

a strong song for DK, benefiting again from incomprehensibility

Banned Telepath 7 Bickleton  - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [November 1986]

Karen reads from Barbara and the Rage Brigade
Neverending Bookshop, Edmonds

thump

upon guitarbody

nudge
the dragonbody
snoring in the corner

layers of armored scales
dragonsleep

tempting the dragon
to peer through
a tiny aperture

to appear
partially

little drummy sounds on the guitar or som'm

Karen's drums were still in Bickleton, perhaps we brought them back with us that trip?

Intent on composition the same way that Gradus is (see 197 if\and if\then above)

drum whispers
in dragon's ear

dragons sure are stage hogs

oh and now we sneak up on
yes
once again

The Aaronsbundler is
>ANNOUNCED<

:: at which silence falls

goes elsewhere
back to guitar
Karen bumps the drum
drawing down to its
scaly bed sleep

In Session at the Tintinabulary

November 25, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 994 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt



Neal is home rehearsing for an upcoming Finnegans Wake Chapter. We carry on. Beatnik Blanket Bongo.

Postscripts

it into little shouldn't give does tell

i'll show you minister into orange

crates he nails bookcases aside all the

it is violet now and I am not

der Mond scheint

the time