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

Playlist

Recorded

September 1, 2019
Peter Piper - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, director [April 1966]

an adorable plush toy of a piece

Big Sister's Clothes - Elvis Costello [from Trust]

His song smithery is respectable
though I'm not sure those weird sound intro-outro bits do it any favors

The Turning - Screaming Trees [from Clairvoyance]

Syd Barrett in the new world

Jeremy - Pearl Jam [from Rearviewmirror]

this song doesn't need its presented size in sound, this need to fill a large space, inflated into stadium architecture. It belongs in a cosmically smaller sort of infinite space. There is no room, no crevice, withintowhich we might slip secure.

Ave verum corpus - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Atlanta Symphony and Chorus, Robert Shaw [from Robert Shaw Master of the First Art]

that moving inner voice on the im of immolatum
a spark to die for

Carnival Overture - Antonín Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvořák]

barker, more like
Come on in! Thrills Chills Romance and Joy!
Illuminations!
Fireworks!
Skyrockets!

wonder magic

Gradus 195 - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 2011]

3 rungs in memory of John Cage the rehearsal
measuring out a long space circling past fixtures
then relativistically from the other side having been passed over after passing over the threshold to an otherly measured time

another thing Gradus is:
as the whole of Gradus is:
a piece about thinking about pitch space that acts like a micro-neural network brain flash

a crawler arising from within its own context
alarm will sound
distant accordions on the echo walls

Ocean Ambience Rocky Coastline Vol. 1 Part 1 - Pete Comley

the sea snores by the sea shells
and we have heard her
the sea caressing smooth her pebbles
for how long has the sea been making sand

the hands of the sea beat the drums of land

the lands are plate drums
the sea drums

shakes us through our soles

September 2, 2019
Sonata in C minor, K. 40 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

in imitation of another's manners
theater of being
mimics and coerces

Symphony in D Major (#2) - Jean Sibelius - London Symphony Orchestra, Colin Davis

his ways
to count 3
to meter 3

That tune is such a diva!

If there are scenes they move.

not scenery, but that too
and all within the path of the melody wheresountowhere'ere it goes
(nice job on the timps back there!)

heroic postures
somewhere between Duck Dodgers and Alberich

a composer who, as a theater manager keeps intricate track of his props

entry through the gates triumphal and pomp and there are the crowds and there the streamers
Daddy's home.

granular melodic synthesis
(one of the great tuba parts of all time)
nationalistical, natürlich

September 3, 2019
Where Are The Snows? - Harvey Schmidt - Mary Martin, Robert Preston [from I Do! I Do!]

is an interesting question, considering they wonder nightly and twice if there's a matinee

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

2-bit even among the sophomorics

Assembly Rechoired 7 - Karen (Meyer) Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [September 1986]



We had some technical issues, but this is the first tape we made in the big Greenwood House whereintowhich Karen and I moved just before we got married.

mountain dulcimer and penny whistle
(there, I fixed the missing channel)

on my part mostly obsessively noodling on small instruments - penny whistle & monochord - perhaps in an attempt to feel comfortable with them

funmaker in a new space

the phone rings
domestic: music made within house life

September 4, 2019
Once - Pearl Jam [from Rearviewmirror]

too much Bono in this one for my taste
the song is packed to the point of homogeneity

Dona nobis pacem - Johann Sebastian Bach- Atlanta Symphony and Chorus, Robert Shaw [from Robert Shaw Master of the First Art]

slow tempo nearly inert fiddly bits clarify their function without giving away their destination, which simply arrives because there it is

Banned Rehearsal 709 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 2006]

if:
one is not articulate upon a device
it doesn't pay to pretend to be

and if:
one is articulate, in some or any sense, upon a device
it does not pay to pretend not to be

however:
it is not a simple nor quick task
to discern which you may be upon any given device

so:
one makes the attempt in good faith
with ears open

so that:
the benefits of sticking with it long enough to discover something
emerge resplendent

The Memory of All That - Benjamin Boretz - Megan Berti, mezzo-soprano; Zuzanna Szewczyk Kwon, piano [from Open Space 31]



the doubled struggle of
finishing a word
and sounding an interval

the tempo of the argument
as it destroys
its erstwhile subject

the piano sounds are a posture
within the stating voice

Half a Bus Closer to Home - St. Rage [at the Common Good Cafe August 2016]

"Carol Anne would have been ready to go." (Karen to Neal, who was tuning the guitar again)

In Session at the Tintinabulary

September 2, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 988 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer



On the porch as the September evening darkens and quiets
Aaron warblers his warbler

Postscripts

australian the years buried beneath that

black cloud the cultural I told him it

was supposed to my primary task to

through matrix
trace result
sand paper

Playlist

Recorded

June 29, 2019
Sonata in A Major, K. 24 - Domenica Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

climb the ladder
tumble down
oscillate down
rocking yaw

it need not be a big change to be a telling change

Love Isn't Everything - Harvey Schmidt - Mary Martin, Robert Preston [from I Do! I Do!]

Karen (Meyer) Eisenbrey near the Blowout, WA

the beginning of chaos
goes by so quickly here
gives you the money blues

Shot With His Own Gun - Elvis Costello [from Trust]

going a bit artsy, presenting sophistication and song smithery

People Like Us - Talking Heads [from True Stories]

In this poetics the text only needs to hang together enough to support a plausible reading, or to seem like it might.

Another N----- In The Morgue - Geto Boys [from We Can't Be Stopped]

big talking might get you through
the thrill of action, the thrill of fear

(Clearly I altered the title. You know what it is and don't need me to tell you.)

You've Got A Lot Of Nerve [?] - Bob Dylan [Key Arena, October 13, 2006]

Chaotic Heart - Your Mother Should Know [Live at the Funhouse, July 18, 2011]

end rhyme: its power
its hold
once grabbed

is a sticky adhesive, it will not willingly release

Shut It - Three Fingers [from Go Deep]



threats
demands
hip hop aestheticizes braggadocio (fear)
punk poeticizes anger
(provisional theories)

Later that same day

June 30, 2019

Sonata in F-sharp minor, K. 25 - Domenica Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

artifice laid bare
even laid bare
difficult to hold
much like a greased pig

Heatwave - The Who [from A Quick One]

surfing on it
Entwhistle eats this for breakfast
thank you Martha and thank you the Vendellas

Bleed For - Dead Kennedys [from Plastic Surgery Disasters / In God We Trust]

These guys would be great if the front man would just shut up.

Assembly Rechoired 3 - Karen (Meyer) Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [July 1986]



tambourine or jangly bells and harmonica and the sound of the walls subduing into ambiance land jangly bells set aside bug guitar taken up or the monochord the one that didn't last yes my guess: karen on harmonica, me on jangly bells and monochord.

your blogger in situ

Jangly bells make big slashing arm arc marks across the page
elbow grease in the ear canals
braked it

softball ocarina
we readjust

long long breaths out strolling || so quickly Karen and I were on the same page, she entered the perimeter of improv wisdom almost, if not, immediately.

the joy of a closely tuned ukulele
one saying a thing and one saying a thing
one commenting upon a thing one saying a thing is saying

and one

saying: commenting and saying
cooperatively simultaneous

Minds don't read each other, but they can converse.

Chuckie - Geto Boys [from We Can't Be Stopped]

practicing their tough guy Cagney movie line skills

Just The Start - Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 2006]

Neal's song about his folks and their adventures in the old America
migrants to the wild west
went back East to find a bride
as told in the American Folk Vernacular
as she is spoke

Spangles - James Harley [from Hendrix Uncovered]

this must be done with loops
fruity loops or of that ilk
tightly packed layers
it's kind of fun
happy noise! O happy noise!

at the Blowout, near Bickleton, WA

Gradus 295 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 2016]

Karen cooperates: !! I may have been elsewhere.

hear it as a prolonged penultimism
and so longingly prolonging that the penultimicism begins to be where we are here
oh how it penultimiscisizes until penultimiscicism is the eternal now
how much of now?
how much of almost? of next most near?

July 2, 2019
Sonata in A Major, K. 26 - Domenica Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

sizes of bits in disbalance angry bends minorward
how meter skews size or size meter
the perfect flaw
accelerating trill from the fundament with turn to end it

Mother Mother - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, director [April 1966]

implicating a surrounding tale to be filled in later

When Our Love Passed Out On The Couch - X [from Wild Gift]

misjudged dosage? same trick as Mother Mother, just enough text to implicate a clue

Strange Out Here - Screaming Trees [from Clairvoyance]

through many distant doors and takes a train

Sometimes It's A Bitch - Stevie Nicks [from Timespace]

what might it be?
Life Advice big sister greeting card
sometimes it runs out of its size
a 2 minute song turned 4 plus

July 3, 2019
It's All Right, Ma! [?] - Bob Dylan [Key Arena, October 13, 2006]

a very particular grouty accent of blue
which is to say: the rhyme of how a line sews through the matrix of rhythm
that was some sweet blues singin' Bob

Ask Your Question - Your Mother Should Know [Live at the Funhouse, July 18, 2011]

Fun Facts! :: 1. eventually this was the first song I would record for them. 2. they are rehearsing right now out in the garage. the snark! I am sorely tempted. do it, Neal!

Only Friends - Dræmhouse [from Only Friends]


using finely drawn lines to circumscribble the deep particulars of feeling

aestheticized sensibilities of sorrow that isn't sorry
(Emma Danner kills on backing vocal.)

Sonata in B minor, K. 27 - Domenica Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

deflection
surface
smooth

start the second with
play it back
statement startling

phraseology forever
pulling back into its back story

lessons
serious lessons
composer types, listen up

The Best of Luck to You - Earl Gaines [a Rescued Record]

serious fancy singing there Earl
zero sum game
proverbs from maternalism
maverbs

What A Day - Throbbing Gristle [from Greatest Hits]

see Dræmhouse above but not sorrow but excretion of testes' brutal cruelty
four vowel sounds in two vowels three for one vowel one for one vowel:

whAt A dAy O

July 4, 2019
Assembly Rechoired 4 - Karen (Meyer) Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [July 1986]


We are just back from Toy Story 4!

pitch in a rock pile

Assembly Rechoired on patrol at the Blowout (from whence the rock) on the edge of the Yakima Indian Reservation north of Bickleton, WA, where Karen grew up. From the pictures it looks like we were recording on a boom box, which might explain better the ghost sound low in the mix. boatswain's whistle, harmonica, rocks and ubiquitous low running water engine room roar. Occasionally a buzzing flies by.

The rock's voice hovers between ceramic and metallic
yelling and whooping
talking in rocks tick talk
more an inflection like vowel production than pitch

taking measure of the sound of the rocks in terms of whether or of how present the pitch of that sound is within the sound of the resonance of the body of the rock

[N.B. The Blowout is a volcanic feature, something like a burst gas bubble.]

Mind Playing Tricks On Me - Geto Boys [from We Can't Be Stopped]

anxiety
paranoia
fear
regret

a set of stories

Gradus 103 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 2006]

only the toe tips ever always touch
weightless on ripples
send other ripples to touch the ripples
even the toe tips of ripples

the audible world is dark and very like plunking rocks for tunes

The Memory of All That - Benjamin Boretz - Megan Berti, mezzo-soprano; Zuzanna Szewczyk Kwon, piano [on Milton Babbitt: A Composers' Memorial]

supercharged as to the interval in the mind between the experience of pitch
and the experience of pitch class. They are clearly not the same thing at all, barely containable in the same mind's experience.

Tree Stone Session - S. Eric Scribner - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey Bruce Greeley, Aaron Keyt, S. Eric Scribner [August 2016]

Volunteer Park, Seattle

warm summer day under the trees in a park
all the sounds we brought with us
nice little drum!
and a ghostish sound like an ice cream truck jingle

Entering the world with a unique intent turns it quite suddenly strange.

we upload it to the void while discussing the fuzzy rug of the device

indeterminate pitch is my favorite kind

we arrange ourselves for the piece in which we did little more than shake the leafy tree branches
no telling if any of it would be audible
and tapping rocks
as next to nothing going on as can be got
we play the breezes in the trees

In Session at the Tintinabulary

July 1, 2019
Gradus 350 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

Postscripts

else which bears to his mind an official

way to breakfast in the sanatorium

character inmate being owner of

it's not a door, she says
it's a false assumption, she says
an impulse of the tree

Playlist

Preface

"Stimulating Speculation no. 1: What something Is is merely our way of indexing the context to which we ascribe it."
J. K. Randall "Compose Yourself: A Manual for the Young" 1970

Texts

Live

June 1, 2019

Sunnyside, Washington

Sandel & Karrick
Robin Jackson and the Caravan
Wilsonville Festival of the Arts
Wilsonville, Oregon

And this is why I didn't blog last week. I spent the blogging time driving to and from Wilsonville (3+ hours each way).

Sandel & Karrick and two others were a light swing jazz band that gained my trust with some fine playing and by the covering of an obscurish song I actually knew! "The Frim Fram Sauce." Delish.

Robin Jackson and the Caravan had some more fine fiddle playing and a woman that switched between accordion and trumpet. Robin sang a fine original song about the best way to find the one of your dreams: on the dance floor. Get out there dudes! Shake that thing!

June 7, 2019
Lori Goldston: Rivulet
Chapel Performance Space
Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Dave Abramson, drums & percussion
Haley Freedlund, trombone
Kole Galbraith, bass guitar
Lori Goldston, cello
Greg Kelley, trumpet
Austin Larkin Violin

Pre-auditory sentences:

The drum set sports a large square cymbal. Trombones, as a whole, are not built straight up and down. There is a warp. Microphones are discretely obvious spies. As are many ears. The large square cymbal is holy.

sound:

ultra slow
rococo chorales
rochocho corals (e)

Ben said of Bruckner "I'm in favor of anything that goes that slow." This is Bruckner in a cold dark land. Muffled blows on the bass drum.

Superb stuff Lori! I'm glad we got out to hear it. And then the next morning we had your strawberry jam on sourdough waffles. Equally intense.

Recorded

Sunnyside, Washington

May 25, 2019
Sonata in G minor, K. 12 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

no slack, taut
a discourse of taut pushing form to the front

Upon a . . . - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, director [April 1966]

as the aperture closes gently
the silent movie kiss on the sward

Beyond and Back - X [from Wild Gift]

shit-kicker punk
bouncy battle verbal
shuffle

Lonely Girl - Screaming Trees [from Clairvoyance]

instrumental solo
or simply band without voice
impression live is different in kind from impression on recording:
live: a flow of focus among visual and audio
recorded: no "and"

Symphony in A, op. 141 (#15) - Dmitri Shostakovich - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy

the parts don't hang together
they combine and cross combine
attempt a consensus among a ghostly hall of shape-shifting changelings

1. emptiness (silliness) of the powered

2. weary suffering anger seething repressed, ignored, banished with the old faith lava monster doing biding time :: frivolous chains, but chains at that :: breaking point

3. meanwhile in plain day / gradations very fine indeed / between bureaucratical webs, secret handshakes, (the High Sign) /?/

Plato's shadow and aesthete's image in counterpoise

4. now is fate's time (it's a bitter comment upon two fellow political-minded composers: Rossini and Wagner)

under night's secrecy
it will come to it
(here be the stakes)

:skeleton key ↑↑↑↑↑↑

"...woe my road is spoken..." draft 5.4 Final - Keith Eisenbrey [July 2006]



If, in 21st Century contrapuntal practice, we have moved our focus along the axis toward individuation of voice and from the harmony of the whole it is because we understand that a new axis has arisen.

In the deep background this is a late generation riff on the good old 4-3 suspension chain.

May 27, 2019
Whiskey In The Jar (mix B) - Train Case [July 2011]

I adjusted the balance in the vocals and brought guitar in on verse 2, or rather suppressed the guitar track until then.

Intro - Ease [from Roots]

Sunnyside, Washington

working on precise sound
listen to the guitar how it pulls the cymbal sound tight
multi tempo
sequentially
big pretense of Manly Sound

Sonata in G Major, K. 13 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

loops and gates
proceeds like an algorithm: counters, stepping
music for the age of thinking clearly

Red River Blues - J. T. Adams [from The Art of Field Recording Vol. 1]

blue river reds
with some talk beforehand

Winnebago Warrior - Dead Kennedys [from Plastic Surgery Disasters/In God We Trust]

cheap laugh and not all that funny

Banned Telepath 6 Berkeley - Aaron Keyt [June 1986]

some other session (#65) plays off to the left
a bit of close sound hints that Aaron may be in the room
an abwords list: abandonment abatement abduction abeyance
Dong!! a potlid perhaps, cookware
we call Aaron. It's OK.
We hear a session stop during a session
Australian clicking sticks (see 982 below) in Seattle are recorded in Berkeley and sent back to Seattle
an audio-only skype session to be assembled as a whole only later but lined up ill so you'll have to put it together in your head on your own
our rows are not the same
NEWS! 2nd Bannediversary (the 35th will be 983 or 984 I think) Amontillado
a dial-up phone
where are Neal and Anna?
Oh. No.
paperformants by Neal Meyer
a problem with numbers
(there's that royalties tax spiel)

Trailer - Ashtray [a Rescued Record]

the dramatic appearance rising through the smoke effect from beneath the stage
one wonders: a collection of things she has heard guys say (or others) as political commentary.

Gradus 101 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 2006]

outside a distant plane makes mealy-mouth flange of the A naturals vibrating free
producing tones

a moment of silence
a time for prayer

On Ear and Ear - Hilary Tan [from Milton Babbitt: A Composers' Memorial]

Debussy smiles
restless motion
not afraid to end it twice

Shine Rock - Low Hums [from Shine Rock]

Lots of guitar and some vocalism making sounds that are like the shape of storytelling.

May 28, 2019
Gradus 294 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 2016]

being peaceful and dyadic
enjoying those low notes played quietly

Sonata in G Major, K. 14 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

the floor is slick
take care

Rock and Roll Music (live) - The Beatles [from Anthology Volume 2]

Not even The Beatles could compete with that screaming shrill.

Tiag Guls - Throbbing Gristle [from Greatest Hits]

disconnect as to how they arose through the visual arts and how they found me as sound, as a band, which isn't what they ever were either way.

Good Christian Men Rejoice - London Symphony Orchestra [from Listen to the Joy]

makes a halfhearted feint at development

You Speak Jealousy - Unwound [from Kill Rock Stars]

to imagine as the voice of one articulating something
the feeling of it?
sung as a box to put a thought in
this one is not a nice thought

Take Me To The Water - Rollo Dilworth - University Temple Chancel Choir; Chris Vincent, director; Howard Wolvington, piano]

(my church's choir, in which I sing tenor, performed just the Sunday before, disclosure done)

from an arrangement tradition (still trying to figure out what I mean by that, more later perhaps)
riffing on an older tradition

to what extent is it exacerbated rather than assisted by the music publishing industry

Whiskey In the Jar (Mix B Reverb) - Train Case [July 2011]


add light reverb
all it needed

Ko - 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]

recorded right up in their faces
pitches within tones
embodied boulders
it might take a river to move

May 29, 2019
Sonata in E minor, K. 15 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

the power of contrary motion
or of motion at all
sparingly applied

the bewilderment momentaire
when suddenly we know we have moved on
but know not whither

It's Worth Anything - Earl Gains [a Rescued Record]

this bounce bed is not smooth
is not without underlying peas of anxiety
but it is for real
and to be sure it do bounce

Think About It - Stevie Nix [from Bella Donna]

encapsulated message
take a pill
a capsule
mantra suggestion
advice
to be taken aurally
before leaving

May 30, 2019
Banned Telepath 6 Greenwood - Karen (Meyer) Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [June 1986]

we each seem to be handling our microphones
or (ah ha!)
we are recording the taping of the microphones to the wall
it will all be on 101, stay tuned
and of course the Amontillado (see Berkeley above)
and cookies too
tweety birds are heard but they are the loud ones outside now not anything on the tape
I poked my self outside to be sure

We speak to Aaron at the same time, but offset, perforce

clicking sticks (see below and above) twice

discussion of the trip to Downunderland
the smell of Amontillado on tape

2 years in, establishing tradition out of teacups

this is it folks
this is how Banned Rehearsal began
this is the first sound
oh no uh oh oh dear oh heck
twice as many couches
cranberry satin and pink lace
I got a bug in my amontillado
other than that
it's dead
everybody knows the chorus more or less

uh oh the bug's gone

the ukulele stays in tune for one year

June 4, 2019
Goin' Cali - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]

The West: toward death, the promised land
Bruce does Independent
a musician can do something like this when they's got nothing to lose by it or when they are so big no one will remember that they did it anyway

Banned Rehearsal 705 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [July 2006]



im-Vögel-ating geese and ducks
shadow play on a hot day
drums sneak in among the toots and hoots
goose keeps it real

June 5, 2019
So Cool - Choke The Pope [from Emotional Material]

even the guitar sound hangs up toward the sinusoidal
hard to belong when everyone is title of track, it is
(attack on disaffectitude by out-cooling the so cool

Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 16 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

The science of oblique sequitur (neither non nor non-non)

June 6, 2019
Pitches Low and Inside - Stuart Dempster - Marzena Music Ensemble [from Hendrix Uncovered]

Dempster Stu
Dijeri  Du

Cistern
blothern

bone
tone

gone
too soon

Every Day I Have The Blues - Billy Stewart [from The Best of Billy Stewart]

He allows the pitchiness of the drum kit to build into a rhythmonic groove.
Who was his drummer? Was that him himself? Damn!

set back
do it again
done

Is That All? - U2 [from October]

A song is buried in there among the guitar (nice job Edge) and hook (good enough). Probably not enough song to bother much with.

I Believe - REM [from Life's Ritch Pageant]

Hey, don't stop, I was digging that finger pickin'!

phrases on stickies posted on a revolving lyricbelt squeezbox.

there is something almost Renaissance-harmony-ish about how it hangs in counterpoint space.

UCLA Experimental Workshop Ensemble - Elaine Barkin, Benjamin Boretz, Lindsay Clare, David Open Space 12]

Jones, Jay Keister, Grace M, Ben Thigpen [from Open Space 12]

the room is made small with close sounds
close sounds can be heard moving
percussion and variously excited strings
punctuated by sax and crumar(?) ((synth of choice)) (((NB we prefer Wurlitzer)))
neither passage episode nor selection
an hollow
a grove
or a thicket

In Session at the Tintinabulary

May 27, 2019
Gradus 349 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

all
all this and
all this

7th chords arose as a means of mediating between the cognitive demands of pitch class and just intonation.

Does astonishment come to the roses, or do the roses come to astonishment?
How does one come to the astonishment of roses? ↔ ↔ establish the environment within which sufficient complexity exists so that astonishment will arise as summoned. The voice-leading trick there is there but sounds like something else cognized.

June 3, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 982 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt



I was intent on scraping and clicking with wood sounds

Postscripts

longings 1 of dark night and its traits it
will be a good thing to leave sad the fruit
of and the happy traits about which it

the wanderer

in the house of fire

soon

Playlist

Preface

"But, what time are we discussing? That is, whose time? I ask because if it's a matter between my descriptive time and the piece's time, then the issue is not time and temporality but rather the spacing between the two times and someone's (my) desire to minimize that spacing, or redescribed, to align or otherwise match the times, with the assumption that a closeness of fit in some sense matches or otherwise accords with human closeness, that is, that pieces and people can communicate as people and people communicate, and that communication is the utopian moment in these texts."
- Scott Gleason "A Group of Listenings" Open Space Magazine issue 19/20 fall 2015/spring 2016

Texts

Recorded

Philipsburg, Montana fixture part

April 7, 2019
Eleanor Rigby (strings only) - The Beatles [from Anthology Volume 2]

like finding someone's old shoe

Something In Blue - Thelonious Monk [from The London Collection]

as voice leading, treats small alterations in the interval of parallelism as a change in motion type, a juncture

Kind of Woman (remastered) - Stevie Nix [from Bella Donna]

song as greeting card
proxy serenader
surrender serenader
what might want being said but better by the avatar
mix tape inclusion possibility

I See Stars - Screaming Trees [from Clairvoyance]

high energy pressure applied at certain wavelengths like a mouth shape or accent shape

N.O.U. Cooking With Gas! - The Nation of Ulysses [from Kill Rock Stars]

in glorious demo quality
an instrumental with weird echo balance
bass! drums sax vibraphone
a near jazz experience

"Mrs. Ramsay rose. Lily rose." - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [composed 2001, recorded March 2019]

bits share gestures or echoes of gestures
but not shapes, except, perhaps, the shape of dissipation
Ken & I: that the notes go away is the piano's true strength, an automatic theme
very much a thinking like Ken Benshoof sort of piece
in this sense: Ken is sensitive to the sizes of and trajectories of affect/figuration time spans
i.e. musical material hunks
it was a regular theme of our lessons lo these many decades past
my sensitivity to them doesn't have the same flavor as Ken's
but how could it?
but it is indisputably there

Philipsburg, Montana fixture art

Cowboy Waltz - Earl Murphey, Bill Ashley [from Art of Field Recording Volume 1]

guitar and fiddle
plucker and scraper
played so as not to allow the bodies playing to be lost in the played out to us body song

Sow Took the Measles All Tracks - Train Case [June 2011]

each track in a row
yup, internet
he says
first everybody guide track
then just guitar
as chords change tones are reborn
then after pause
the guitar again
another pause
before Karen sings
and nicely too
then Neal sings his harmony as a kind of psalmtone song
he wants to do it one more time
always the intro wait wait wait space
but is a better take at that
then another guitar track

Battle Cry - Crystal Beth & the Boom Boom Band [from Yugen 3]

cinematic Valkyrie schrei

(if you escape
with our bones
all in your bag
you will be fortunate)

harpies
the scary kind
root magic

April 9, 2019

Hallelujah - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey [April 1966]

not that one
but another
trumpety

Santa Claus and His Old Lady - Cheech & Chong [a Rescued Record]

knowledge and remembering
kicked out of the projects

connection with other persons requires connection with personal history
you need, if not to speak their language, to hear it

Stranger In a Strange Land - U2 [from October]

moves indoors to big room sound to a smaller room sound
the space around us, joining us, shifts volumetrically

April 11,2019
Banned Rehearsal 100 Side A - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [June 1986]

Karen at the Blowout, near Bickleton, WA, in the past

we have done it
but first the patriotistical hymn

whew that's over
we have in deed be gun
the apple is criticised
a few toys and Karen's drums chime to begin be gin
what did we do with the pow'r chord?
Outpost Bickleton Manse (the one Karen moved into after growing up in the first one)
easily we enter into session sessile mode (we sit) and or metaphorically

at drums me
at piano Neal
at harmonica Karen?

difficult to rememorize at this rememove
when it becomes so focused of a sudden falling into

Karen reads the paper

food registration due Friday
guitar and drums left off the little half guitar
they went into classrooms ate hot lunch and came home
Grandview School District is currently accepting applications
for one half Kinder Garten teacher
ukulele?
lunch menus
Mabton School District and milk

last day
Sunnyside School District
hey hey hey

sudden song

Philipsburg, Montana just for nice

when the time comes where you gonna be who'll be right who'll be left when a strummy breathy breathing strumming poem
the Sudden Song project persisted throughout 1985-86
quiets down fierce

In Session at the Tintinabulary

April 8, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 979 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Postscripts

here is polenka tell in french well brought-up

punch yes sing you keep standing get money

that will be much for that's quite a lullaby

would draw thunder
the lion in my wall
unravel

Playlist

Preface

"The words we choose to address our musical thoughts and concerns are moral actions. It's not that, by choosing, we have acted in a moral way; nor is it that, by choosing, we act in a way that is good or bad. It is, words are actions, actions that are subject, subject-able, to moral considerations. By choosing words to address our musical thoughts and concerns, we choose verbal language; by choosing verbal language, we choose, willingly or un-willingly, wittingly or un-wittingly, many words, many actions, many moral acts."
Jon Forshee "If Music, as a Music: Three Notions Around the Thoughts of Benjamin Boretz" Open Space Magazine issue 21 spring 2018

Texts

Recorded

September 16, 2018
Forever - Screaming Trees [from Clairvoyance]

twice the tune
twists away from its starting
neenerneenerness
instrumental bit

then twists away again
just to the point of losing
grip

Banned Rehearsal 271 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [October 1991]

old ice cream
at Toad Hall
advice for adult living
baby talk
inane conversation with sound effects
distraction of infant in the room

lots of pistons

Aaron proclaims that when J became 27 years of age Bruce Springsteen would be president.
that would be strange
opined Karen
not as strange as who is president
now that J is 27 years of age

Sonata in D minor - Jean-Marie Leclair - Philharmonia Virtuosi [from Evenings With The Captain Vol. 1]

contrapuntal weaves were all the rage still
so everything copied it as a model
as later the operatic scene

civilized grace (what else would one expect from a Jean-Marie?)
some instrumental showing off

September 18, 2018
Drifting - Wes Weddell [from My Northwest Home]

free reed harp as one-man horn section
shukashukashukashukashukashu
song of where we landed

Making Hey - Eve Beglarian - Eve Beglarian, Matt Fieldes, Damien Bassman [from Open Space 21]

or was
as in
at as
an or
even was
when that
as in

Night Signals Journey To The Sea - S. Eric Scribner [from Stormsound Cycle, May 2011, private recording]

doing next to nothing for a stretch inflates doing anything from both sides of the performance doing divide
turning in sleep

. . . crickets . . .

woke up the birds

abide next to nothing
doing

abstract literal
(fact as though image)

September 20, 2018
Finnegans Wake Chapter 8 - James Joyce - Mary Lorson and Brian Hall [from Waywords and Meansigns]

on a bed of tones and crickets ALP told all about as a comic dialogue
from the Ginsbergian Beat Voice Sound notion
i.e. music sound upon which to sit
to lie
8 bit hip hop

what men say about women
never the other way

witness we are to conversants' conversant converse

a pause as to shift
point of view

done

In Session at the Tintinabulary

September 17, 2018
Gradus 339 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

6th B up then a 4th above

Playlist

Recorded

April 7, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 439 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 1996]

a whisper of white noise cushions immediate immersion
nothing is far away
there is no such far away

soft roof

not playful but earnestly filling
that is
there is no mistaking the intent to be making music

though without sense of curatorial anything
sounds meant to mean, not to exhibit
(it presumes presentability)

(in the last days of our analog recording)

pressure applied firmly with vigor and force

ice hanging high in the cavern ceiling

a resonant wooden chamber, or any other, can be struck to sound in a wide range of manners
and through a full spectrum of vibrational nodes within the resonant chamber's prior soundings
each of which is like a mouth's vowel shape
specific to the household (domiolect)
which is how me make them, the chambers, speak for us
as us

language exploded view
press out upon the shell of our medium
ear scrubbing high power mass build up
Petrushka carnival soup

bang the chimney bang (really go bang at it) slappy whap WHAAM whop
the chimney's fundamental, though low in the mix, is a lovely rich warm hum

Minmax Dub 13 - Carl Juarez [from Sonicabal 2001]

wacked out polymeters in large scale poly beats
then it drives off the beach side

Dad's Cars - Carl R. "Dick" Eisenbrey, interviewed by Keith Eisenbrey on April 16, 2006

my fave: the putt putt car (a Nash Metropolitan convertible). Cows would look over the top at us.

April 8, 2018
Waiting - Shaprece [from Scatterbrain]

parts of the same voice strand of monologue thought layers as they construct themselves into selfconsciousness and lust driven volition

Banned Telepath 46 Somerville - Aaron Keyt [March 2016]

a gentle harmonica spinet duet, and all I need from one and more, with space heater grounding sound grounding the sound. This became part of Banned Rehearsal 907.

Have With Yow to Walsingame - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

How large is this tune as it hangs in the room? Upon the answer hangs the ability of the ornamentation to extend into accumulating dimensions
gone like smoke in lights and stances

same melody in a different chair

White House Blues - Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers [from Anthology of American Folk Music]

a going down the road feeling bad type tune

Red Headed Woman - Sonny Burgess [from Sun Records The Definitive Hits]

too much fun to fit in that tiny studio of legend

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

rhythm schemes falling in from elsewheres (spilled out of Byrd, perhaps?)

Patterns - Simon & Garfunkle [from Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme]

a screenplay in stanzas
rather grim if you could believe him

Unnamed Track 8 - Tillicum Junior High School Band [concert of March 3, 1971, from my mom's

tape]

leering stripper swing

Dove - Walt Wagner [from Caprice]

scenery and stage arrangement filler soundtrack style
expansive enough for a dance number to close out the reel
never not nice

Seventeen Prepuntal Contraludes - Keith Eisenbrey [at the Seattle Concert Theater, July 1981]

I may be the only one hearing this inside of these pieces, but I always did have a knack for hymnodic melody.

Standing On the Edge - Screaming Trees [from Clairvoyance]

the panels are large
it's time for a light show

April 10, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 262 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Holden K, Neal Kosály-Meyer, Marilyn Meyer, William Meyer [July 1991]

a gathering as the Kosály-Meyers visit from Outpost San Diego so that the cousins can be introduced.
yellow tape folk song soundtrack oh dear what can the matter be as the age of chaos sets in the full scale invasion in the deep background Pastorale our improv becomes a confusion wafting through
a tunin'!

my chart drifts past Marilyn Poppins

now it is just the three of us
and the two dinosaurs
ought eight four (it weren't neither that which hadn't been yet anyway)

a roaring distant din at the back
you say 'Banned' (two syllables, see British Highway Code below)

X-2 - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

fan fiction, as though constructing loopables

Morningspeak - Ffej [from Sonicabal 2001]

neon sign for a parts factory add this for Ffej! parts for the man

My Oklahoma Home - Bruce Springsteen [from The Seeger Sessions]

old timey disaster blowed away
a great song, I wish he hadn't treated it so like an artifact
tried so hard to mimic a character he forgot to sing the song

Banned Rehearsal 791 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [April 2011]

Yamaha chameleon (not new to the family, but new to the Tintinabulary)

dayglo camoflage
spoons: an eloquent dispensation
player enter tainer
do not mistake this for lame
the discard pile as poetry
table tennis orbs tossed about

The Breakup Song - Pritam [from Bollygood Volume 2]

an "ah" vowel pushes its rhyme forward through a thicket with dropped in English words like "breakup" and "relationship".

April 12, 2018
All In a Garden Grine - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

drapery tumbles in enrapturing simultaneities sliced thin to view at subsequential angles

Dead Man Blues - Jelly Roll Morton [from The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz]

Vienna and New Orleans - cities famous for sloppiness as a front for something else

Right Behind You Baby - Ray Smith [from Sun Records The Definitive Hits]

another stalker anthem
ick

Detour Ahead (take 2) - Bill Evans Trio [from Waltz for Debby]

miles to go before we land on both feet together

British Highway Code - The Master Singers

proscripted pedestrianation with maximal syllabification

funny the first time for about 30 seconds

Untitled Cut 9 - Tillicum Junior High School Band [concert of March 3, 1971, from my mom's tape]

all roar no Charleston
New Orleans party town

Wedding - Walt Wagner [from Caprice]

prog-lounge (ticking clocks)

Rejoice - U2 [from October]

playing to the arena from the get go, at least that's how it seems from this distance

Karen's First Solo Tape - Karen Eisenbrey [April 1986]

While I was in Australia to glimpse Halley's Comet, Karen made this tape.
awesome dulcimer tuning! hand made mountain lap roots
ukulele - first person field recording of Dominos, and Mr. Abstractor (twice)
Hum, hum de hum, hum de hum

the clock is broken - Infamous Menagerie

inverted balance leaving space for vocals to space out on the verge of, but never beyond

Solos - Banned Rehearsal - Karen Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 1996]

Ten years after KFST, in preparation for our last Brechemin show ever, which would be in January of 1997, a session of four back-to-back solos to be used as part of the background mash of noise coming from multiple cassette tape play backs to play at our backs as we played. Neal finds a stupendous distortion on cornet.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

April 9, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 956 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt