Playlist

Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon

Preface

"'So they spoke,
and a wicked intent prevailed among my companions.
They opened the wallet,
and all the winds erupted,
and a wild gale seized them
and bore them wailing away from their native country
back out on the open ocean.
But as for me, as I awakened,
I turned it over in my blameless mind,
whether to throw myself from the ship
                      and perish in the sea
or endure it all in silence
and remain among the living.
I remained and endured
and lay back down in the ship, hiding my head.'"

Homer - from "The Odyssey" translated by Charles Stein

Texts

Special

Lockrem Johnson

Lockrem Johnson, March 15, 1924 - March 6, 1977, was a Seattle-based composer, pianist, publisher, one-time Coney Island calliopist, and beloved educator who made something of a splash on the national stage with his 1951 one-act opera A Letter for Emily (based on an episode in the life of Emily Dickinson). He was a pianist for the Seattle Symphony and taught at both The University of Washington and Cornish School of the Arts, where he served as director of the Music Department in the 1960s. In short, he was kind of a big deal in the Seattle classical music world before his untimely death, just shy of his 53rd birthday. I had the good fortune to meet him once a few months before that, in a long and treasured afternoon during which he gave me both a score to his Fifth Sonata and a welcome and timely boost to my teenage self-esteem. Since then I have performed his music on many occasions, especially his 24 Preludes, but also the Fifth Sonata, and the song-cycle Songs in the Wind.

Douglas Rice, the administrator of his estate, has put together a remarkable website (link above) whereat can be found (for free!!) downloadable scores and historic recordings (including my recordings of his Preludes, culled from various recitals over the last 20+ years.) Also available for download is a huge volume of memorabilia, testimonials, and information - in short, a hugely valuable picture of a life in music in the Seattle of the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. Douglas has done a wonderful thing here, a labor of love, well worth a peek or a deep dive.

Recorded

June 3, 2023

Zoo 070903 - Keith Eisenbrey

a visit to the bird house
waves of twitters
with waves of  kid chatters
the door closes
check for clinging birds 

siamangs sing their songs

rooms have sound prints
we are walking or standing
in an environment
with others
so engaged
miniature dramas of conversation fragments
hey
ear of fox
on to the ocelot
then to the hush house
squash blossoms
the confusion with siamangs

Seaside, Oregon

June 4, 2023

Fireflies - Benjamin Boretz, Dorota Czerner [from Open Space 29]

the black river shimmers away from the weary thought
translucent
complete night

Jesu, meine Freude - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded October 18, 2019]

Keith Eisenbrey · Jesu, meine Freude 170806 (191018)

it amazes and amuses me
that the tonal hierarchy implied by the imported melody
remains intact
in spite of the radically other-derived harmony
beneath it

Totem 49 - Sascia Pellegrini [from Totem V]

tones enter and exit
but their enterings and exitings
are merely events
and event
is not the point 

a pond of calling beings
calling beings
wolves and moons

The Flatt Pavan, Fvb. 284 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

I will play this game here
I will play this game there
I will play this game anywhere
I like this game

Musikalischer Opfer - Johann Sebastian Bach - Andràs Schiff

with clavichord
one can articulate
with the speed of a harpsichord
(or better) 

plus
all the dynamic capabilities of the piano
(albeit differently voiced)

plus
the intimate presence of a lute or guitar

Waltz in G-flat Major, Op. 70 #1 - Frédéric Chopin - Garrick Ohlsson

showing off the dress before the dance
in a sense
its subject matter
musically
is vanity and frippery
but so clearly drawn
brought to life

Lied ohne Worte in A minor, Op. 38 #5 - Felix Mendelssohn - Edmund Battersby

concerns itself with virtue and higher things
but is
ne'ertheless
melodramatic yet
withal

Song 6 - Charles Ives - Kia Sams, Russ Warner

concerns itself
with a sentimental version
of a proper life

Cold Morning Shout - South Street Trio [from Turn Me Loose White Man]

man these guys had practiced
some seriously tight ensemble they got going there
the sort of song
I could imagine
one of those mechanical carnival orchestra machines play
or perhaps the Bickleton calliope

Don't Worry About Me (Take A) - Erroll Garner [from Erroll Garner on Dial]

finds a way through the crowd
to this lovely tempo
yes it's a lounge-y tempo
in questionable taste
but he lives here
it is his home

Pennies from Heaven - Sarah Vaughan [from Swingin' Easy]

she sells this song
and then wiggles its little tail

I Love You So Much It Hurts - Ray Charles [from Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music]

he did love to play
that sassing back at the soloist backup singers thing
it isn't
'til we get to their verse
that we realized
just what a corny song this is

Penny Lane - The Beatles [from Magical Mystery Tour]

suburban life
the post war dreamscape

Border Song (Holy Moses) - Aretha Franklin [from Young, Gifted and Black]

the backup singers underline
and articulate
highlight

Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World (Live at the Roxy) - Ramones [from Leave Home]

to scour out the cobwebs
tempo transposition

I Was Just a Stupid Dog To You - Nina Simone [from Fodder On My Wings]

creating self as a character in your story

June 5, 2023

Prenda Del Alma - Los Lobos [from By The Light of the Moon]

an attractively laid back melody
an ensemble of guitars bass and accordion

The Basement - Pete Rock & C. L. Smooth [from Mecca and The Soul Brother]

verbal proficiency
but also
checking in with the greater promulgated culture
free floating

Empty Sky - Bruce Springsteen [from The Rising]

armored in amplification

Robber's Roost - Head For The Hills [from Robber's Roost]

a whiff of Goat Rodeo
competence to no purpose
beyond demonstration
every move practiced
and nailed down
show ethnic

Track 2 - Beast of the Sky [recorded live at Sound Effects Coffee Shop, October 26, 2012]

easing into the song proper
through long electric guitar tunes
vocal
is a forced roar
more an effect than anything further

June 6, 2023

Stack - Ease [from Letters]

sounds like they believe the copy in the Sweetwater catalogue

Waltz - Robin Holcomb [from One Way Or Another]

a song that relies on its poem for meaning
is brave indeed

Pavana, Fvb. 285 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

this melody has a train
like an elegant gown
music's polite place
in this company
is decorative
a fabric art

Jonestown Blues - Gus Cannon (Banjo Jo) [from Turn Me Loose White Man]

open question
is the singer the hero of this blues
or is the banjo

Wait Till You See Him - Blossom Dearie [from Blossom Dearie]

keyboard admirably restrained
doesn't try to be the whole ensemble

Ecars - Ornette Coleman [from Ornette on Tenor]

once through the opening hedgerow
whole lotta cookin' happening
not laid out like a garden
not plotted like a thriller
more of a twisty mountain road
taken fast
at near peril

I'm In No Condition - Dolly Parton [from Hello, I'm Dolly]

a state of being

Sheepshearing in Kingston, New Jersey, also Geese and Ducks - J. K. Randall [from Inter/Play]

sheep observer herding
everybody back
and out of the barn
processed
sheep bleat
with the rhythm
of their bleat need
rooster squawk
we visit the creaky geese
honking among themselves 

so
what might be the point of all this
in regard to music
might be moral
is our expression
rooted as deeply in our selves
as the bleat is
in a sheep
does our expression
if not so rooted
serve to benefit our fellows socially
as
we presume
the bleating of sheep benefits the herd socially
that is
are we even as serious about what we do
musically
as sheep
when they bleat 

some of the geese may have been ducks

Disturbance at the Heron House - REM [from Document]

news item song type
the sense of which
loses itself in rhyme play
but danceable
though that may not be quite right either

99 Girls - The Young Fresh Fellows [from It's Low Beat Time]

a reference (song title)
to a local strip club
they work so hard

Combat Rock - Sleater-Kinney [from One Beat]

selling an attitude
here folks
have it

June 7, 2023

Banned Rehearsal 725 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [September 17, 2007]

so that
what is not speech
might speak for itself
past bellows
an electric guitar duet
undergirded by washtub bass
sparkled by bells
inhabited by marimba

Track 2 - Black Plastic Clouds [recorded live at Sound Effects Coffee Shop, October 26, 2012]

some firm downstrokes
by way of announcement
enter off center
so that
a trajectory forms
toward some end of segment
start over

Gradus 317 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 7, 2017]

a three rung deal
in preparation for a chapel gig
since Neal persists in rehearsing 

the pitch-set of the second rung
is radically different from that of the first
the motion between
is stark and clear
which is generally not the case anymore
with the rungs in the standard sequence 

skipping rungs
is to play freely
upon projected or extended time
reeling the far future
back into the present vessel

and we take another leap
other notes
other figures
disjuncture complete 

a combination of notes
is essentially a cipher
without musical reality
until a path is found through it
the path is the music

Maroon - Taylor Swift [from Midnights]

she's quite fond of the descending tritone

June 8, 2023

Why Aske You, Fvb. 286 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

dissected melody
scalpel of figurations
the flow of its parts

Moses Was Rescued by a Negro Woman - Rev. Webb [from Goodbye, Babylon]

an advertisement
for a book
a list of characters in the bible
and their deeds
and who were used in biblical history
per the book being sold
emphatically delivered

Introduction/Chance It (live) - Miles Davis [from 'Round About Midnight]

the notes go by fast for sure
but there is a clear flow to it 

the squiggles all go places

Relax - The Who [from The Who Sell Out]

they don't seem entirely comfortable in this song
though they try

Like a Rolling Stone (live) - Bob Dylan [from Before The Flood]

and the crowd cheers their memory
I wonder what would happen
if he didn't over-accentuate the lines
more or less the way he did on the record
but
utterly recomposed the feel of his path through the words
in other words
sing it
not like an accusation (his habit)
but
as though he actually cared about the answers
would that be trademark eschewel?

I'm All Behind You Now - George Straight [a Rescued Record]

greeting card sentiment
or epistolary text
printed on a slow dance
with cowboy hats on it

Riding In My Car - Woody Guthrie [from Woody's 20 Grow Big Songs]

adds beats as necessary
or rather
suspends beats out of the tempo

It Was A Good Day - Ice Cube [from The Predator]

in the life
diary entry
written on a beat

After Beethoven - Christopher DeLaurenti [from Famous Intermissions]

those left on stage
extemporise an orchestra
in the face of a customary disregard
the social sounds
of the former audience
provide its cover
nothing to hear here folks
move along

June 9, 2023

Biguine - John Teske - Beth Fleenor, John Teske

dips toe
then leaps

This Time of Night - Chastity Belt [from I Used To Spend So Much Time Alone]

pop music
and its adjacencies
has become
that music
that habitually fills its recorded space
sometimes
under pressure 

melody in notes
that are each indicated
with agogic specificity
a line
between points
and their angles

Ya Llegué - Christina Aguilera [from Aguilera]

glissando tail off
down from last notes
Taylor Swift does a similar thing

In Session at The Tintinabulary

June 5, 2023

Banned Rehearsal 1077 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1077 230605

The last few minutes of our session failed to record
but what is there is quite fine

Postscripts

Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery

some listening journal doodles from 1995

Playlist

Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon

Preface

"The portmanteaus and carpet-bags have been stowed away, and Mr. Weller and the guard are endeavouring to insinuate into the fore-boot a huge codfish several sizes too large for it, which is snugly packed up in a long brown basket with a layer of straw over the top, and which has been left to the last, in order that he may repose in safety on the half-dozen barrels of real native oysters, all the property of Mr. Pickwick, which have been arranged in regular order at the bottom of the receptacle. The interest displayed in Mr. Pickwick's countenance is most intense as Mr. Weller and the guard try to squeeze the codfish into the boot, first, head first, and then tail first, and then top upwards, and then bottom upwards, and then side-ways and then long-ways, all of which artifices the implacable codfish sturdily resists, until the guard accidentally hits him in the very middle of the basket whereupon he suddenly disappears into the boot, and with him the head and shoulders of the guard himself, who, not calculating upon so sudden a cessation of the passive resistance of the codfish, experiences a very unexpected shock, to the unsmotherable delight of all the porters and by-standers."

Charles Dickens - from "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club"

Texts

Recorded

Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon

May 29, 2023

Mal Sims, Fvb. 281 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

nearly direct repetitions
riddled with wit

Capriccio sopra la Lontananza de il fratre dittessimo, BWV. 992 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Andràs Schiff

nothing left behind
no matter how many steps back
it may have been 

the art of implication
demands what is implied
to be immediately plausible

Mazurka in E-flat minor, Op. 6 #4 - Frédéric Chopin - Garrick Ohlsson

implication
a cloud about the key

Lied ohne Worte in A Major, Op. 38 #4 - Felix Mendelssohn - Edmund Battersby

this music knows its station
as a proper accomplishment
for a proper household

Song 5 - Charles Ives - Carol Sams, Russ Warner

a perfect evocation
of turn of the century
(19th to 20th)
civic boostering

Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon

It's Jam Up - Oscar Celestin [from That Devilin' Tune]

slow shuffle parade
being jazz
is a performance

Blues Garni - Erroll Garner [from Erroll Garner on Dial]

it's a game now
beat that square opening
at any game
he plays this
the game
quite well

She's Got It - Little Richard [from Here's Little Richard]

alternating stanzas
verse chorus I suppose
sung at different attitudes
toward the audience/microphone

Half as Much - Ray Charles [from Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music]

Country goes country club
Western goes Las Vegas

The House of the Rising Sun - Nina Simone [from Sings the Blues]

sung at a masterful metrical syncopation
from the rhythm section

Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon

May 30, 2023

Didn't I (Blow Your Mind) - Aretha Franklin [from Young, Gifted and Black]

4 + 4
to 8 + 8
to [chorus]
to [tail of chorus]
to 8 + 8
to [alternately balanced]
a general increase in intensity
up to the fade-out

I Don't Want to Walk Around With You (live at The Roxy) - Ramones [from Leave Home]

flatline intensity
what's left
is a pattern of sizes
measured out by the beat
demarcated by chord changes
a seamless surface

Lion's Den - Bruce Springsteen  [from Tracks]

manfulness brag
perfectly ordinary arrangement

The Vision (Sections 2 and 3) - Richard Karpen

we are offered
an image
of a verbal point of view
spoken
as though announced

tunes full of fluctuating partials
weave about like gulls over a beach
complete with internal bickers and drama
or
have we descended to marsh
swarms of ravenous infant sea monsters 

Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon

back to the wordy bit
to insert the ear
by way of the eye
by way of the word
into
the sun moon earth triad

The Saint's Hallelujah - The Canadian Brass [from The Essential Canadian Brass]

a clever idea for a quod libet
but
so far
done in immaculate alternation
the tunes do not share a bed 

gave up on the Handel I guess
nope comes
in to build up to something
another latter-day New Orleansy chorus

Boundaries 3 - Jarrad Powell [from Natural Selection]

entities flit through
quickly sparking notice

Gradus 125 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 27, 2007]

Gradus 125

Cave Dwellers - Red Ribbon [recorded live at The Blue Moon, Seattle, October 4, 2012]

this was the first time I ever heard the remarkable Emma Danner
looking back
it wasn't so much the particulars of her voice that struck me
but rather
the total investment of the person within it
and the songs made no effort to be songy
they did their thing and stopped

Steam Train Mix (futzed) - Keith Eisenbrey [August 6, 2017]

Keith Eisenbrey · Steam Train Mix 170806 futzed

well this is lively
a chipmunk conversation
as heard by the ceiling fans
I had utterly forgotten about doing this

Meditation 2 - Sascia Pellegrini [from Meditations]

asks questions
and razzes the answers
once we've been softened up
it gives a tour
multi-component entities as notes

Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon

May 31, 2023

Munday's Joy, Fvb 282 - John Mundy - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

one presumes
the pun had a different slant
within
the aristocracy
of pre-industrialized Britain 

a 3-meter in its many guises
generally
the first beat of any bar
will not be more subdivided
than the last two
that is
if it
the first
is subdivided
then
the others are also

A Good Man Is Hard to Find - Frankie Trumbauer [from That Devilin' Tune]

conversation
among thems as is gone fishing
smooth transitions from one stanza to the next
hurry up ending in two installments

No Cover No Minimum (take 2) - Bill Evans [from New Jazz Conceptions]

question
when a segment of jazz
became
vehemently
a thinking man's game
(Charlie Parker started it?)
during the same post-war period
that saw the rise of the Beats and Abstract Expressionism
did it also
become more misogynistic
expelling the chanteuse-artist
toward pop and lounge? 

nice touch there Bill

Eos - Ornette Coleman [from Ornette on Tenor]

the chordal structure must be gleaned
from the conjoined melodic structures
vertical derived from horizontal
it is explicitly absent
as a direct presence
in all the ways
the horizontal is not

Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon

O Come, O Come, Emanuel - The Philadelphia Brass Ensemble [from Festival of Carols in Brass]

hymn book straight

Seattle - Benjamin Boretz, J. K. Randall [from Inter/Play]

start
a C on the Crumar
and a B on the Baldwin
(if this was in Red Hook)
they mix it up
but not much
not an essay on a limited pitch-class set
but a corporate sensibility
emerging from the play of pitches
within that determinate pitch-class set
a slow growing tree

Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon

June 1, 2023

Homily - Milton Babbitt - Peter Jarvis

modes of irregularities
within a tight type
precisely bitten

Old Fox - Mike, Peggy, and Penny Seeger [from Animal Folk Songs for Children]

strophic saga of hunting success
or thievery
or neither

Mr. Clean - The Jam [from The Sound of The Jam]

rehash of Paul McCartney's verse in A Day In The Life to start

Comedienne - The Tripwires [from Makes You Look Around]

compact
dense

Listful Thinking - Ask The Ages [from Ask The Ages]

slow moving
cyclic pitch rhyme
from which base
we accumulate a plod dance
insistent return to ground
new place to begin again
home is never far

Sorry - Ease [from Letters]

the more I push my voice
the more sincere I must be

Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon

Cold Air - Lori Goldston [from High and Low]

circling
open strings
like a fiddler
but thoughtful
and freed of any need
to keep a lick going
to dance to
fiddlo profundo

Rosseter's Galiard, Fvb. 283 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

a sequence of four or five notes
at a particular metrical position
is enough to hold the ear
and remind it

Creole Love Call - Duke Ellington [from Really The Blues]

whoever recorded this
sure knew how to use the space
to balance the group and individual sounds

Blues For Pablo - Miles Davis [from Miles Ahead]

a new class act

Down On Me - Big Brother and The Holding Company [from Big Brother & The Holding Company]

relatively controlled for Janis

Highway 61 Revisited (Live) - Bob Dylan [from Before The Flood]

does any song benefit
from the need to shout it?
more into the rhythmic delivery anyway
shout the hook so everybody knows the name of the song

Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon

June 2, 2023

Silent Night - London Symphony Orchestra [from Songs for the Holidays]

inoffensive
except possibly
to the extent
that the ultra-trained voice puts the listener at a disadvantage

Just a Man - Los Lobos [from Kiko]

beats come in a variety of flavors
this one
a heavy blues
sparely drawn

Track 7 - The Humidiflyers [from Humidiflyers 2002]

a live track with keys drifts
off a bit into jam land

In Session at The Tintinabulary

May 29, 2023

Gradus 382 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

I have been informed by reading
that at the end of many pieces of keyboard music
printed at the time of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book
a block chord
was scribed
following
what would typically be regarded
as "the last note"
there is some disagreement among scholars
as to whether this was intended to be played
or
whether it was merely a typographical flourish
or
whether it served some other arcane or unmentionable use
however
if played
it can be heard
as a sort of summary
of the contents
of what had immediately preceded it
much as Neal's verbal listing of the notes
to be played
serves
as a summary of what is to follow 

Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon

summary
as a structural marker 

thought paths of partial affinity
pause to take bearings
being well out to sea
I guide my attention to interest
what guides interest
whimsy

vis a vis the concert last Thursday
this music (Gradus) just out and out thinks with its own doing
that music (Thursday) went to lengths
to restrict its thinking
to matters of craft
its thinking never turns back
to consider
critically
the doing
of its thinking

June 1, 2023

Corollaries - Keith Eisenbrey

Keith Eisenbrey · Corollaries

I had made a bunch of recordings of these pieces in 2017. Since then I made a few changes. I took the opportunity of a freshly tuned piano to record new versions

Postscripts

Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery

some listening journal doodles from 1994

Playlist

Preface

"Expecting the mind to perform like a trained seal is counterpoetic.
A curved spine self-obsesses.
Sequence is not, not really."

George Quasha - from "Not Even Rabbits Go Down This Hole" 

Texts

Recorded

April 29, 2023

The Blue Danube - Johann Strauss [from 100 Greatest Classics]

multi-part introduction before the dance proper
means and ends perfectly suited
perhaps it goes on longer than it needs to for concert purposes
but for a ball room dance number about right

In This Life - Madonna [from Erotica]

keyboard figures
lifted from one of Gershwin's Preludes
goes all moral

Pallas Athena - David Bowie [from Earthling]

over the beat machine
a sequence of other machines
getting in line
falling in
reporting for duty

8 Miles and Runnin' - Jay-Z & Freeway [from 8 Mile]

keep the beat
full of words saying fluidly

Gradus 122 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 2, 2007]

if two A-natural keys are pressed with sufficient synchronized onsets and releases
and absent any context from which they could be conceived of as separate
then
they are a single object
analyzable as two
but perceived as a singularity

waiting for the next note to occur
in its meteor shower sparsity and scatter

April 30, 2023

For Our Future - Tyrannosauras Grace [recorded live at The Rat and Raven, Seattle, August 9, 2012]

what counts as rock and roll
in relation to what counts as country
can seem
to those growing up in rural and rural adajacent America
to signify rebellion and independence
a musical move toward the urban 

this band was from Ellensburg
a small city in central Washington farm country
that also harbors a state university

Dirtmombs (Hey Myla) - Mud On My Bra [from Demo #1]

this crew was easy to like
nothing fancy
nothing pretentious
good feelings through and through

Town Stoner - Doug Haire [from Western Stoner]

street sounds
some screaming
engine roars
fade toward frogs or crickets
highway constant
humans are the noisiest of critters

A Toye, Fvb, 270 - Giles Farnaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

modes of rocking gently
with pipe
and a nice warm fire

Nocturne in E-flat Major, Op. 9 #2 - Frédéric Chopin - Garrick Ohlsson

the harmony may have a tendency to subside
so tread softly
keyboard singing a poignant dance
something more than decorative

Lied ohne Worte, Op. 38 #1 - Felix Mendelssohn - Edmund Battersby

so prim and correct
the pirouette
to obfuscate the muddle
we were headed for
back to the garden path

O Welt, ich muss dich lassen, Op. 122 #1/B. 50 #6 - Johannes Brahms/Ferruccio Busoni

the famous repeated last phrases
thrice
more quietly each time
also adjust the voice leading
each time

We're Sitting In The Opera House - Charles Ives - Kia Sams, Russ Warner

Gilbert and Sullivan meets an upstart

Light In The Valley - Mrs. L. Reed and Mrs. T. A. Duncans [from Goodbye, Babylon]

but before the song we have to sit through the lesson
strident forthright projection
not about decoration at all

Play Piano Play - Erroll Garner [from Erroll Garner on Dial]

over a rock steady boom chick bass
a music that plays with all shapes of beats
even square ones
but not much

Joy Ride - Ray Charles [from The Great Ray Charles]

cookin'
the mode of syncopation doesn't come across exactly as though the accents were ahead or behind of anything
but
they bend our sense of the beat
activate it
swing is a way of rocking a beat
get up and dance

Cross Breeding - Ornette Coleman [from Ornette on Tenor]

May 1, 2023

no nonsense
this is radically other than business as usual
it is what they need it to be
and only that

Within You Without You - The Beatles [from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]

the wordplay in the title/hook
is right out of Irving Berlin's playbook
enlightenment through cleverisms
enlightenment as a career enhancer

First Snow in Kokomo - Aretha Franklin [from Young, Gifted and Black]

a poem made of stray memories associated with a moment
so that we can all partake of remembering vicariously

Listen To My Heart (live at The Roxy) - Ramones [from Leave Home]

one stanza works with a few notes
another with fewer

Alone Again Naturally - Nina Simone [from Fodder On My Wings]

the little chinoiserie lick that opens is odd
but the whole thing is
even less convinced by the big produced sound that underlines some moments

All My Exes Live In Texas - George Straight [a Rescued Record]

why do we buy records
to keep touch with a moment
this song will remind me of now
or
this is an object worth considering at length
or
this is us and we had best mind ourselves
lest we get up to something
or lie to ourselves about ourselves

Humming Chorus (Madama Butterfly) - Giacomo Puccini [from World's Greatest Choruses]

a breath control challenge
the melody goes back and tries again
then floats into dreamy gauze land

Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 28 - Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns - Itzhak Perlman [from Masters Of the Bow]

from the alternate virtuosic culture
stemming from Paganini
the rondo layout persisted as a form
that was not reputed to require as much intellectual consideration
as a sonata-allegro binary derived form
Couperin would be apalled
in practice it didn't inflate as gracefully into the Romantic space as the binaries did

Innocent Love - Smokestack and The Foothill Fury [from Kitchen Recordings]

music designed to stand out while busking
one-man band contraption
energetic guitar
committed vocal
form a recognizable street style

Hey Yesterday (unnamed) - Your Mother Should Know [December 2, 2012]

as though an orchestra were crammed into the Tintinabulary

Crossing The River In an Elk - Nat Evans [from Coyoteways]

wide horizon
presence
expanse permeates awareness
the river sings with its frogs

Improbable Ensemble 2 - Sascia Pellegrini [from Improbable Ensembles]

instances of notes in profusion
certain pitches hang in the mix across instruments for a time
others for other times
piano xylophone
struck vibraphone
some brass
and bowed vibraphone (I think)

May 2, 2023

The Primerose, Fvb. 271 - Martin Peerson - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

polychoral answerings across like figurations

Hide Away - Oscar Ford [from Turn Me Loose White Man]

now there's a regional accent that we don't hear much around here
he's telling a story full of words
many of which are lost to me
tag ending

It Is No Secret (What God Can Do) - Elvis Presley [from Elvis' Christmas Album]

oozy sincerity

Between The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea - Thelonious Monk [from Standards]

a demonstration
with illustrations
of what this song consists of
I had not heard this when I wrote my Sonata 1980
but
there are aspects of the hesitations in that piece
that are fully formed here
after the demonstration of the workshop
a song is an instrument or vehicle
a standard song
is an opportunity to dig deep into an instrument

Ricky Wants a Man of Her Own - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]

an older guy
in celebration of the sexualization of young women 

When You Awake - The Band [from Before The Flood]

advice across generations
a whole list of them
adding up to very little

Thresholds - Ann McLellan

patient by dead reckoning
a probe pulse
venturing out
checking back
its quiet life

Tuba Tiger Rag - Traditional - The Canadian Brass [from The Essential Canadian Brass]

in the business of imitating other ensembles
in multiple styles
a stage act

Banned Rehearsal 723 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 9, 2007]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 723 070709

scurrying and digging critters
light on their feet
gentle evening song
out of doors
it takes us longer to listen to our doing
it doesn't come back to us so immediately
strangely
the sounds we make
sound more private
more contained within themselves

Tower of Song - Andrew James Robison [recorded live at The Rat and Raven, Seattle, August 9, 2012]

reasons someone might sing someone else's song
to pretend to be them
to treat the song as a vehicle or conduit
with which to sing one's own song
both mostly
always

Remlinger Farms Steam Train Ride - Keith Eisenbrey [July 23, 2017]

at a company picnic
on a narrow gauge steam train ride
the rattle and rumble of the train
and the conversation of the riders
and the sounds of the aural environments through which it passes

Pluto Woodpecker - Tom Varner [from Sound Vespers]

May 3, 2023

these sounds work on their affinities and dispersal patterns
the party has entered a stiller space and peers around
bells are better than incense

The Fall of the Leafe, Fvb. 272 - Martin Peerson - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

square and plain of outline
bold figures

My Mammy's Blues - Reb Spikes [from That Devilin' Tune]

old timey sounds in a brand new package

I Hear Music - Blossom Dearie [from Blossom Dearie]

music gets made to satisfy itches both personal and social
music finds us on the receiving end
as a result of needs and influences both personal and social
music forms itself as it does
as both a personal and a social act at once
as social needs change the forms of music change
and the forms of its propagation change also
::(freefloating conjecture)

The Commandments of Love - Little Richard [from The Explosive Little Richard]

the ultrasmooth regularity of the band's sound
gives room for the star to go all over the place
one imagines that these songs went on longer when they were staged
the album ends up sounding like an incipit catalogue

Seven Strays - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded February 10 and 11, 2010]

Keith Eisenbrey · Seven Strays (100210 & 11) 1983

these were piano studies I made after graduation from the University of Washington
and before I headed off to Bard
part of the itch was to reassure myself that
after all that education
I knew how to write music straight
the first three or four fall comfortably into the neo-Romantic
almost neo-Mendelssohnian camp
I played some of them for Ken at the time
who expressed some bemused astonishment that I could be so poetic
the fifth and sixth are barely finished
the seventh is a transcription of an improvisation 

I Know You Got Soul - Eric B. & Rakim [from Paid In Full]

hip hop as insurrectionary procedure
attempting a revolution upon the recording industry
using its own tools and product against it
without that industry
it would be nearly pointless
or at least defanged
::(proposition for further scrutiny)

Oh, Blue - Mike, Peggy, and Penny Seeger [from Animal Folk Songs for Children]

preservation and propagation of a music long since vanished as a living force

Track 6 - The Humidiflyers [from Late Fall Unfinished Sketches]

vocal ensemble figure

Futurebright - Peter Fedofsky [from The City of Good Neighbors]

suburban pop
good vibes only

Banned Rehearsal 826 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 3, 2012]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 826 121203

a crowd is gathered around the radio
which summarily dismisses itself
to reemerge before fading out
percussion
piano
and brass of some ilk
a cluttered march in tough terrain
our viewpoint moves to a distance

Song 3 - Sarah Pasillas [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, April 27, 2017]

singing to herself and whoever happens to be listening
comfortable with being background 
coffee shop vibe

Hölluþula - Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir - Halla Lovísa Loftsdóttir [from Strengur]

our ears are right up to everything
allows or demands detailed listening
but leaves little space for reflection

May 4, 2023

Farnabye's Conceit, Fvb. 273 - Giles Farnaaby - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

take a step
stop to consider the consequences of the achievement
very short
but could be an interesting close study
of what might be meant by thematic development

Ommie Wise - G. B. Grayson [from The Anthology of American Folk Music]

a tale to warn young women
about the wiles of attractively palavering scoundrels

'Round Midnight (live) - Miles Davis [from 'Round About Midnight]

the harmonies slip sideways
peek through doors
feint at twists

Don't You Try Me Now - Bob Dylan [from A Tree With Roots]

workshop document
aiming at familiarity with each other
rather than projection of anything in particular about a song

No Thugs In Our House - XTC [from Fossilfuel]

1980s camp irony
industry goes to college

Dreamed of a City Called Heaven - Total Experience Gospel Choir, Pat Wright [from Bits and Pieces]

di-archic music

soloist (preacher)
::
choir (response/support/congregation)

Whiskey Trail - Los Lobos [from Kiko]

bands play in bars
bars sell booze

The Way We Were - Glenn Tate [from Some of My Favorite Love Songs]

lounge pianists play in piano lounges
piano lounges sell nostalgia with their booze

Gradus 123 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 16, 2007]

get situated
apply force to each
brush them lightly
the seventh A in this recording travels to the left as it is struck more strongly
check in
still here
this music doesn't go like music
this music doesn't go at all

Variations on "La Folio" for violin duet - Matthew Weiss

not far removed from galant style
if at all
until this one
which nevertheless sticks pretty close to the phraseology of the source
wandering Paganini-ward
then a set for violins set at different distances
one near one far
and echo-ey-er
or
is it the same set
but offset
curious
3rd set
with the other violin away
and the far away one near
yep
there's the weirdish one

May 5, 2023

Remlinger Farms Steam Train Ride - Karen Eisenbrey

Karen recorded a bit of this also
got the toot toot on it

In Session at The Tintinabulary

May 1, 2023

Gradus 380 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

filtration after assertion
it is as though each assertion posits a different part of what that note potentiates
striking its acoustic at a new angle and velocity

in the 1850s
when the United States Government sent surveyors out west to lay the township grid across the western states
they would number the 36 Sections
each a square mile
within a Township
starting in the Northwest corner with Section 1
then proceed east to Section 6
they would then drop south one mile and proceed west from 7 to 12
then east from 13 to 18 etc.
until they had platted all 36 

Neal began counting A-naturals from the bottom of the keyboard
then the E-naturals from the top
C-sharps from the bottom
G-naturals from the top
B-naturals from the bottom
and finally D-naturals from the top  

today we have the last and lowest D-natural
(in the second rung of the evening even just now beginning
it is paired with the highest A-natural)
marking
in some sense
the half-way point
all instances of the first six pitch classes are now in play
the high note carries an aural whisper with it
especially if the dampers have been lifted
but there regardless
this sound is where the harmonics would be
if you could perceive them as such

Postscripts

Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery

some listening journal doodles from 1993