"So what happens when the music's story is about its reflection of some other music? On purpose or not, as commentary or resemblance? Music qualities identified genetically, nominally, authorially, mimetically, ideologically, culturally, socially, ethnically, historically - how does any of that go into what is heard? Hearing something in something else, hearing something as something else, hearing something as it manifests being in some other universe, sustaining the doubleness or n-multiplicitiness as a simultaneity of reception. But also entails the simultaneity of consciousness, simultaneously holding within consciousness, all the defining referential metatexts - so there are at least two metatexts, in at least two distinct metalangauges, running in the listening psyche simultaneous with the supposed music-being-listened-to text. Sounds absurd, but I (we?) do it all the time. Knowing 'what' I am listening to seems indispensable to having a psychic node through which it can enter and put itself together as a specific-experienced-music phenomenon."
- Benjamin Boretz - "inside in, outside out"
from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020
Texts
From Recent Arrivals
January 21, 2022
No Easy Way Down - Carole King [from Writer]
a song can be considered a synthesis
from a certain (analytical)
standpoint
words / music / person(s) of the singer(s) / person(s) of the
instrumentalist(s)
in any number of weights and balances
style and genre are just attitudes about the mix
Sleeping Fish - CEP (Caroline Polachek) [from Drawing the Target Around the Arrow]
circling bubble tones
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Christina Aguilera [from My Kind of Christmas]
I'm sure glad that first (way up there!) note she hit
wasn't the start
of the songbook tune!
Whew! it wasn't.
Add to the list of synthesis ingredients:
all the other ways it has been
sung
(a song includes its history.)
Ms Aguilera takes over the top over the top.
January 15, 2022
Sidewalk Blues (take 2) - Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers [from Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers - Chicago Days]
the big holes are filled
(or not)
(often not)
calculated
play
(they're calculating, so you folks can enjoy yourselves)
They're Red Hot - Robert Johnson [from The Complete Recordings]
for all intents and purposes, a rock and roll song
I Be Bound to Write To You - Muddy Waters [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
a complete absence of any pretended stage
he's in the room he's in
(if it's a room)
and nowhere else
singing for himself
and whoever else is there
and none else
Thrivin' from a Riff - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy and Dial Master Takes]
quick internal bounces
ricochet
Crying - Blue Smitty and his String Men [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
his guitar talks faster than the rest of the band put together
thin line
between blues weariness and sultry
Mona - Bo Diddley [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo's Milieu]
huge sound for just a voice a guitar and a shaker
Village of Love - Nathaniel Mayer and the Fabulous Twilights [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
old school engineering
everybody is playing together
no overdubs
no separation of tracks
a very large cat howling in the keys
it aims at
what would
function as the hook at the end of the chorus
"that cat's something I
can't explain"
but here it's only its function within the song
not
a device to sell records
by being certain
everybody knows the
title of the song
when they go to the store
Song Seller - Paul Revere and the Raiders [from The Legend of Paul Revere]
now with a synthesizer
but it so could have been kazoos
Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me - The Rumour [from Max]
epistolary
or straight up personal plea
the brass are in the next
studio over
(movements in 3) - Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [from A Cassette Player]
inside one piano
outside the other
now outside both
back
when minimalism and its repetitions
were being ruthlessly parodied
in practice rooms across the land
Young Fresh Fellows Theme - The Young Fresh Fellows [from Refreshments]
a turntable belt must have been loose
but only for a short time
January 16, 2022
Banned Rehearsal 306 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [September 25, 1992]
at the Tintinabulary pre-garage
alarms and fences
doings that do
the doings of their doings
no entry bidden
denizens on edge
strings help
something to pluck and strum
flutes and
ocarinas vie
"I think of gangrene"
anti-pro-life spots
perhaps they arrived in the mail
ACLU Radio Network
A
Chorale is played
upon the Wurlitzer Funmaker Sprite
upon the
death of Socrates
after the lecture some activity is called forth
where music rubs its face in life as lived
Ional
Words
InRegard
ToTruth
table of unique letters in the foregoing: C L W EG H
ORT
HUTT
Socrates is dead. Where is he dead?
Ashes! Ashes!
it must not be permitted
that every statement
that wants to be
true
become true
is
to have become true
false?
a tattoo upon the snare drum is tapped
{from my journal entry of April 17, 1995:
sounds like the warmup to a noisy session
LOGIC LESSON
- a near
truth is not a kind of truth, but rather a kind of falsehood
pushing the
envelope toward abusive noise
simplistic
rather violent explosive
space
shoving
in what shapes do these sounds expand
there's
that drumming}
Honey - Mariah Carey [from Butterfly]
built to sound like all of these vocals
are whispering their sweet
nothings
in yours
a bit suffocating though
like heavy perfume
Untitled (Slow Waltz) - Gavin Borchert - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church, on February 23, 2002]
melody slips easily off its Gymnopodie-metrical pedestal
then dances
around it sadly
(this piece holds up real well.
It lives where pitchwork meets touchwork
deeply pianistic)
We Take Care of Our Own - Bruce Springsteen [from Wrecking Ball]
the orchestra is everpresent
everhuge
and has a great deal of
detailed sound in it
all of it
insistingly
the same as
every other sound in it
stadiums have got to be filled
you've got to fill stadiums
Chaotic Heart / Forest of Thorns - Your Mother Should Know [recorded live at the High Dive, Seattle, on April 6, 2012]
bass drum throbs its beat
in Chaotic Heart
deliciously cruddy sound throughout
altar call songs
are all too long
they presume
a long line
or indecision of the called
Song 1 - Sun Dummy [recorded live at Victory Lounge, Seattle, on April 27, 2017]
confessional
in a thoughtroom with Waxahatchie or Courtney Marie Andrews
Galiarda, Fvb 75 - Peter Philips - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
motion holding still
overlay of now
on a briefly memorized frame
of timespans
in pitch
gentility
Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Prelude and Fugue in G-sharp minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet
overlay upon overlay
sudden offsets direct the flow of attention
shingles and rain
we are being led away
without our seeing it
Sonata in D Major, Kk. 160 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
two big pauses in part one
harmonically chromatic articulation points
setting off the area of minor-mode inflection
which is picked up
at the start of part two
Keyboard Fantasia in E-flat Major, H. 348 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi
fortepiano
fun with the damper pedal
music on a stage
declaiming
an extended introduction to a cadence
Symphony in A Major, Op. 92 (#7) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood
tiny internal details develop into the next new thing
the 4th beat is
crucial
mind how it grows
great timpani part throughout
quick tempo for 3 does some strangeness to the meter in the trio
pumping up the bellows
attention perpetually drawn forward
pulled like a river current
Ballade in F minor, Op. 52 - Frédéric Chopin - Vladimir Ashkenazy
floats in
almost floats off
accumulates presence in its re-telling
lost in thought
it recalls retelling
fragile remnants of
retelling
trapped in amber
dissolving
a decision is made
about it
the bureaucracy is abuzz
till safely hid
{from my journal entry of March 20, 1995:
Mozartean simplicity
restraint?
passion
complex relations of
contrasting texture
contrasting gesture complexes}
Stackalee - Frank Hutchison [from The Anthology of American Folk Music]
rubber tired hack
more than that
and murder
in common with
Frankie and Johnnie
also
an irregular pattern of verse size to
chorus size
Hobo's Last Ride - Buell Kazee [from Evans 78s]
not much left to hear but the strum
somebody's singing back there
but the sound can't get over the guitar (and banjo?)
there may
even be another singer
who knows!
Heavenly Vision - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers [from Goodbye, Babylon]
more story telling
strophes organize the story
into relatable
chunks
Bring a Little Water Sylvie - Lead Belly [from Where Did You Sleep Last Night - Lead Belly Legacy Volume 1]
work song? instructions? plea?
a fragment
Body and Soul - Eddie Jefferson [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
comes on like a supersophisticated jazz number
but he crams more words
in than he possibly ought to have tried
a regular litany of ways to say
I love you
just goes on and on
then goes on and on
somewhere
some more
talking oneself into courage
ends with a showbiz kickerhit
!chunk!
Alleluia - Emma Lou Diemer - University of Puget Sound Women's Chorus
is the composition of music for various ensembles
such as brass
ensembles,
various vocal groups etc.
a kind of an equivalent
to genre writing in fiction?
the practice
certainly attracts
certain composers
and has its
own stylistic trajectories
often disregarding
on the surface
what's going on in more self-consciously rarified realms
(You're Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher - Jackie Wilson [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
words voice music
which is vehicle for which
Cut One - Anthony Braxton - Anthony Braxton [from Saxophone Improvisations/Series F]
a difficult land to traverse
each step is an obstacle
valiantly
an effort is made
Something Better Change - The Stranglers [collected from Nancy's Mix]
for a guy telling me that something better change
this stays utterly the
same
start to finish
music words attitude
Mile High Club - Bow Wow Wow
no surprises none
Assembly Rechoired 16 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Paul Eisenbrey [February 21, 1987]
I think we were trying to do some sort of tape loop?
[NB: nope]
used to have Air Supply on it
we were actually
I think
trying to get it to play our greetings back at another speed
we
were fiddling
somebody has a kazoo
big and slow happy birthday
playing with tape speeds
Karen is amused
as are we all
especially by our laughs
we discover some new ways to put more
signal on magnetic tape
than it was designed to hold
realtime demonstration of our low fidelity means
in the end stymied by a
mechanical device
alas
we were having fun
then we broke it
January 19, 2022
Chorus of the Cigarette Girls - Georges Bizet [from The World's Greatest Choruses]
where greatest stands for most popular
among a certain segment of the
music purchasing public
this probably works better in the show
Banned Rehearsal 462 (analog) - Pete C, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer
pin those VU needles!
That's what they're for.
In your face.
limited space
definitely a synth involved
or a more adept guitar player than I
perhaps Pete
we were digitally subdued
but are analogically pretty darned noisy
immediate response is that I like the sound of this one better
as harsh
and distorted as it is it fills the space
might be partly microphone
placement and/or levels
perhaps the digital version could be squished
somehow
so as to bring up the generality of it
a strong sense that
we are participating in the same sound
even the boneblatt
even
what is marred by the mindless drumming
is saved by some stunning roars
from some unknown instrument
the synthesizer perhaps
and the
generally high level of playing
keyed into sonority
constructing
rhythm from sonority
rather than structure from rhythm
which may
be a way
one of many
to distinguish between the kinds of musical
activities
best
most efficiently
produced by improv
as
opposed to composition
improv can work really well
if the activity
is the end product
rhythm produced by the careful intermanipulation of
sonorities
could be broken up here where things get tiny
1/2 way
in
if it is efficient so to do
a coda
Western movie guitar
with rattlesnakes}
Guitar Concerto - Michael Nicolella - Northwest Symphony Orchestra, Anthony Spain, Michael Nicolella
an aspect of impressionism as it manifests in music:
melody pitchwork
harmony figuration
all become means of texture formation
big tunes
harmonic drama eschewed
in favor of a present sense
a sound that
may have been made up of all those things
but of which those things
aren't what's happening
Consider the Birds 43 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]
as these occasional episodes of quiet sound bursts pass by
it is clear
from the flavor of their rhythmic presentation
that they belong with
each other
they don't surprise
are of a piece with each other
they speak the same rhythmic profile
garage prog?
easy ID with track title
one imagines a documentary
long lovely shots
of our undersea polyarmic neighbors
slowly
hunting their armored prey
seems to be recorded with a microphone rather
than line-in
we hear presumed sounds of the room
crumar-era string
synth?
could also imagine an old electric organ
I keep hearing
what might be evidence of dual manuals and mechanical vibrato
Sixty Eight Chevelle - Your Mother Should Know [from demos recorded on February 23, 2017]
an ad
hope to keep in the family
song:
words / music /
performer's-bodies(presence)
January 20, 2022
Passamezzo Pavan and Galiarda Passamezzo, Fvb. 76 and Fvb. 77 - Peter Philips - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
homogeneity is a tool to focus the ear
hypothesis:
it needn't be an obvious or even derivable homogeneity
any set of rules will do the same thing
each species of homogeneity
allows a focus on a new universe
a homogeneous surface disappears
that's its purposes
when we listen to any rules-based (homogeneous) surface
the point is NOT
to determine the ways in which it is homogeneous
to discover its rules
but
to discover what is revealed by its particular transparency
Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Prelude and Fugue in E minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet
LH doesn't care
what travails RH bewails
they merge in horror
gives himself writer's prompts
an avid user of empty time
space
for all of us to wonder
where it might land
a structure of places
it did land
Fantasy in A Major, Wq. 58.7 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi
a solid base and the space it opens within its confines
(more
fortepiano)
(as opposed to clavichord)
(if you open this door the
basis of geometry shifts)
una corda?
or some other mechanical
device
these Fantasias are much stranger
far less
dramatic/architectural than Mozart's or Beethoven's keyboard Fantasias
far more willing to wander off for days at a time
may not return
as such
Symphony in F Major, Op. 93 (#8) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood
several symphonies attempting to occupy the same timespace
shouldering
each other aside
laying snares
tells us all about it too
like a clown in opera buffa
metrical modulation from one sense of a larger downbeat to another
stretti on the loose!
run for cover!
endings have got to be snuck up upon
Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53 - Frédéric Chopin - Arthur Rubinstein
Forward!
Ever Forward!
Every Soldier a Hero!
Remember Your
Mother and Sisters Back Home!
Valiant Be!
Acclamations!
Applause!
In Session at the Tintinabulary
January 16, 2022
Magnuson Park 220116 - Keith Eisenbrey
As Karen and I were walking in Magnuson Park last Sunday afternoon we were regaled by a frog pond. I recorded a minute of it.
Banned Telepath 80 Tintinabury - C, D, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer
Karen and me at the Tintinabulary, with C, D, Anna, and Neal narrowcasting from Outpost Lake City
Banned Telepath 80 Theremud - Steve Kennedy
Steve was at Outpost Theremud
Banned Rehearsal 1043 - C, D, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer
And here we are all together
January 19, 2022
Anybody's Fingerbook 3x3 (transpositional) A B C - Keith Eisenbrey
January 21, 2022
3 Two-Part Inventions in G major - Gavin Borchert
I played these well but there was a technical issue so I'll redo them.
Anybody's Fingerbook 3x3 (transpositional) B C D - Keith Eisenbrey
Joshua Tree Prelude 1 - Aaron Keyt
also a technical issue with this one, so re-do
Prelude in C Major (shiny) - Keith Eisenbrey
this one came out pretty well
 |
| Ibb 2004 - 2022 |
Postscripts
Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery
These are all from my journal entries in 1987:
