"Why do I think some phenomenon of music 'has a structure:' because I can attribute certain metricized properties to its denotable tokens, symbolize these parameters, attribute certain relative quantities to them, assert certain connecting relational logics among these quantities, claim that these are asserted in at least a potentially perceivable way by the music phenomenon under examination, finally attach all of these to a covering metaphor into whose retro-componentialized parts these property-quantities can be fitted, considering the totality of this process 'the structure of the music?' Because, ideally, filtering the sonic data back through the mental network created by such a mental exercise can seem to produce either a highly intensified form of the raw experience of the music, or a significant transformation of it into a different music of possibly a different degree, or at least kind, of music-being?"
- Benjamin Boretz - "inside in, outside out"
from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020
Texts
From Recent Arrivals
Salute - Whitney Houston [from I Look to You]
genre: the kiss-off song
subset: good riddance
side trope: an ad
for clubbing
Melt My Heart to Stone - Adele [from 19]
This is, to the best of my recollection, the first time I have heard Adele. She has an interesting voice with edges of what I would call a country twang (but Karen tells me she's British, so it's probably something else) - but a country twang only in the same sense that Courtney Marie Andrews has one.
See Saw - Aretha Franklin [from Aretha Now]
J'accuse song
with a clever gimmick:
run clever metaphor into the
ground
as a hook
so as to sell records
(but not to
strengthen the song)
(of course Aretha herself is fabulous, as she
always seems to be)
Streaming
December 27, 2021
Peter Nelson-King
Songs of Christmas and More by Eric Thiman
These songs are all composed with a style of accompaniment that has, in its general texture and approach to shadowing the sung melody, a lot in common with the decorative features of lounge-piano. Not a good or bad thing either way, but interesting that any differences between the two styles are largely due to what might be thought of as analogous to regional or social dialect differences.
December 27, 2021
Recorded
Sleigh Ride - London Symphony Orchestra [from Songs for the Holidays]
honestly
this came up entirely of its own accord
on the snowy day
after Christmas
Banned Rehearsal 303 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 28, 1992]
what is nonconversational speech for?
what is nonconversational music for?
if not what then whom?
Anna grabs some words on the fly
and improvises with them
(a
compositional idea)
any composition has aspects
of which we might speak
an imported
text
as a carrier wave
for a desire to declaim
it isn't
I suppose
about what the text is
rather
it is
about its ability
to facilitate the accomplishment of desire
language is music's loud uncle
an imported text
can be an
escape hatch
fingers in ears
who is it
we think
we're
talking to?
filling up emptiness
I am ever
and mostly
relieved
when talking stops
there is a genre of music
recognizable and acceptable as worthy
by
professional musicians
(it changes over the decades)
shaped like
pieces
the social roles of the instrumentalists
are recognized
familiar
the question of commissioning
redefined as
do you
the composer
have anything you wish to say
through me
as the performer
if you do
I would be happy to say it
[my journal entry of March 4, 2004:
1
motoric rhythm
generated by variously numbered iterations
modified by articulation/accent
similar note-values
exploring the rhythmic relation
between tongue and finger
arm and
diaphragm
2
pretty
generating a more varied rhythmic surface
more
note-values
being variations
it covers more ground
even
something like 1
briefly
3
answers
call and response
one note at a time
fast
4
slow
"nightmusic"
extremely careful
lovely!!
5
more like 1
but lots of repeated notes in pic[colo?]}
Banned Rehearsal 631 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [February 15, 2002]
something is beginning to feedback a little
we chatter at each other
in chipmunk tempo
now we cluck like a sleepy barnyard
the temple's bells are rung
a pause
we play slow motion pitch games
we make an effort
to revive ourselves
but
it simply is
a subdued evening
Blue Kentucky Girl - Back Burner [from Simmer On]
rural comfort music
The Day That You Deleted Me - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at The High Dive, Seattle, on April 6, 2012]
with Mike Gervais no less
why tell a story then cover it up?
is the song an excuse
a shill?
for the theater of covering it
up
tuning and talking
Track 1 - Strange Like Us [recorded live at The Sunset Tavern, Seattle, on April 18, 2017]
a two-piece band,
drum and guitar
maybe three
[NB confirmed
- three!]
but two singers
guitar drums and a synth
December 28, 2021
The Woods So Wilde, Fvb 67 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
a demonstration
of some many of the manners
by which
what is
the same
is changed
to be
the same
changed
Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1, Prelude and Fugue in E-flat minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet
the prelude's bursts of melody
join oddly upon the meter
the fugue
stumbles through difficult times
the strettos gang up
to get past
the stickiest
molasses
morasses
a perky 3-note figure
pops up everywhere
in identity
and
transformation
repetition is never what it seems from above
it ignores the role memory
plays
within the experience of experience
right hand exhibits
left hand points and comments
was Scarlatti a south paw?
Sonata in F Major, Wq. 55/5 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi
where Couperin inhabits
CPEB analyzes
observes
the world
is changing
there are still delights
but there are troubles
also
seen with a sympathetic eye
Symphony in A, Op. 92 (#7) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Wilhelm Furtwängler
1
the path is rough
from A to B
expect sudden jolts
from every A
to every B
jolts aplenty
2
however
there's this thing we need to do
such a
constrained stepwise melody
broadform repetition
an inhabitation
a place we are
we mull it over
3
but for now
live
stay awake now old man
it's so nice
here by the fire
4
it arises in every corner of the land
irrepressibly
Mazurka in D-flat Major, Op. 30 #3 - Frédéric Chopin - Vladimir Ashkenazy
and its shadows
furtive and devious
no nonsense
end marker
it's a chord
Intermezzo in E-flat Major, Op. 116 #6 - Johannes Brahms - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded December 24, 2021]
a couple of notes didn't speak
but elsewise
this was pretty much
how I hear it going
an 1892 piece on an 1890 piano
stoop . . .
this claybook
a rush out of his navel
two
infinities
the park so dark in kindlelight
you can ask your ass if
he believe it
the larp notes
prittle lace at night
drowned
in his cellar malt
but that was how the skirtmishes endupped
and
they all drank free
drop in your tracks
be not unrested
steep walled
barley's up again
be grained to it
in and
out of the serial story
but that's a world of ways away
very much
so
the hubbub
caused
in Eden Borough
When The Sun Goes Down Again - Carson Robison, Vernon Dalhart [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
a trope of country music
I'm tired of the road
and want to go back
home
Good Enough For Me - Ramblin' Red Foley [from Evans 78s]
yodeling
combined with voiced bilabial trills
there may be some
tonguing in that trill as well
You Got To Take Sick and Die Some of These Days - Muddy Waters [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
memento mori
take sick
take medicine
Too Many Blues - Bill Nettles [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
the fiddle and the guitar
are having fun
are making fun
of
the whole enterprise
a layer of flatfooted irony
The Blood That Stained The Old Rugged Cross - Carl Smith with The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle [from Goodbye, Babylon]
sentimentalized
so nostalgic
is this about the Civil War?
all the bloody shirts
and bloody founts
I Love You - Bill Evans [from New Jazz Conceptions]
miles ahead of itself
from the start
buckle up
for beatnik
nerves
freneticizing spontaneously
the signal
that the
piece is done
isn't the classical
ta da!
applaud now please
more like
a stunned flabbergast
not yet seeing
the
mess that will need to be picked up
Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow - The Rivingtons [collected from Allen Lowe's the Heart of Rock & Soul]
when R&R was still capable of unashamed silliness
before its fans
got sent off to kill the Vietcong
Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
their love
is as urgent
as the postal service
used to brag
about
these songs are so short in their recorded incarnations
still geared to the 45 rpm single size
and rarely filling even
that
Trying To Live My Life Without You - Otis Clay [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
the band is echt professional
with style
but no expression
all that
is left to the solo vocalist
the band is nothing
but spotlights
similar type of showcase
but also on the arrangement itself
which
flows like a snake
Bach-Praeludium - Johann Sebastian Bach/Christopher Parkening - Christopher Parkening [from Simple Gifts]
guitar is more true to the size of the expression of this Bach piece than the
piano is
much more like a harpsichord or virginal
Cantus - Keith Eisenbrey - The Fehrwood Ensemble [recorded in rehearsal on February 1, 1987]
another rehearsal of my 1987 composition,
before I added clicking sticks
to hold it together more comfortably
I had this idea
that one could compose
so that intonation was nigh
impossible
partly to subvert the professionalism impulse
but it
was a too quick technical fix of a social issue
and thus failed at that
purpose
the ensemble was game
but the idea was half-baked
Return of the Mecca - Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth [from Mecca and the Soul Brother]
the backing sounds
for want of a better term
provide a reliable
bounce for the vocal
but the rhythm and words of the vocal
also
leak back into those backing sounds
especially where the hook might go
in a more traditionally song-written song
interesting use of
whisper
December 30, 2021
this is a dub of Pete Comley's recording.
a dense forest
the drum muck weeds
and trombone thickets
impede long sight lines
the door
is at some
no little
distance
Wurlitzer mist
a piano moves carefully
testing the footing
somebody brought a synthesizer
Isaac
fusses
a quiet day on the ravine floor
sound forest bathing
Karen's drums sound fabulous
a voice is lifted
we have
become comfortable here
and we can celebrate
with quiet dancing
tales are told in brief banters
music played
is a psychic readout
into an acoustic space
held in common
with other psychic readouts
they join
in that common acoustic space
and we are privy
thereby
to their counsels
a readout
as it were
of a psychic
community
the space is occupied
by a communal psychic readout
we may be drifting
into communal psychic slumber
as the embers dim
watching for stars
to scoot the sky
the Wurlitzer moonlight
glows quietly
echoes of shadows
the mice nibble
last
awake
a study in rhythm
and bass scales
a steady state
fade in
fade out
Consider the Birds Mix 06 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]
this whole project was a test of concept
playing with easy (for me) to
manipulate digital editing and effects
February 3, 2007 was a productive
day
this is one of the final results
applying an effect
that
presumably echoes what it would be like
recorded on a "tube"
microphone
composing the greater calliope
five pieces for double bass - John Teske - John Teske [from Wheel]
all it asks
is that we listen
as closely
as he is
a big ask
shapely thinking
Tear Shaped Bruise - Your Mother Should Know [a demo recorded February 23, 2017]
with guitar and shaker
subdued and lovely
Walsingham, Fvb 68 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
articulated at every possible join
then he puts it back together
it would seem
Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1, Prelude and Fugue in B Major - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet
rocking chair quarters
supersediary motions
join the fugue
voices
pass through them
without hindrance
or boundary
checkpoints
Sonata in B-flat Major, Kk. 155 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
two hands can elicit two musics
easily
they can talk to each other
as puppets do
here the soloist plays a role
supporting the orchestra
the first
tutti segment
is a mini concerto
among
the orchestra with
and the orchestra without
harpsichord
then
the solo
plays off
against each of those
it wanders into a puzzling chamber
in the 2nd movement
the harpsichord plays an accompanying role
both for the orchestra
and for itself
In Session at the Tintinabulary
December 31, 2021
Anybody's Fingerbook, 2x2 (transpositional) A (A) B - Keith Eisenbrey
It was just too cold to turn off the heatpump
so that I could record
clavichord
or even really to play much
but I did manage to record
the next item in
Anybody's Fingerbook, finishing up the 2x2
(transpositional) series.
Next week it is on to the 2x2 (augmentational)s.
Sinfonia 1 - Keith Eisenbrey
I finished the first installment of a possible 16 in my newest composition project.
At the furthest remove from the surface
this is
and these are all
planned to be
derived from the (0 4 7 11 2) pentachord
but
interpreted in mod-17
as (0 4 7 11 14)
I developed a nonrepeating ordering
of these pitch classes
in
which no sequence of four of them
would duplicate a pitch class.
I then derived
six unique sets
of 3 transpositions (mod-17)
of the root pentachord
which sets contain no duplicate pitch
classes.
I then composed an array
from the orderings of those transposition sets
as so ordered
so that
no frame
within that array
would be a duplicate
of any other frame
in that array
and
distributed them
among three mod-17 registers.
Re-interpreting these mod-17 arrays
in their mod-17 registers
as
their mod-12 pitch classes
I then used a software tool
created by Jennifer Chung
(THANK YOU!!!!)
to analyze each
frame's mod-12 trichord content.
I used this analysis
to compose
as I saw fit
at the
time.
To me
they sound like the contents of six boxes
that might have
been found
in a cluttered attic.
Postscripts
Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery
The following are various doodles from 1986, the first year of my listening journal.
