Playlist

Preface

"Everyone really knows that objectivity in the descriptive criticism of musical experience isn't even really a coherent idea, let alone a real possibility. So it's too bad that so much writing lusts strenuously to assert that kind of authority, so that it misses the real, available, and far superior opportunity to share creative images of those unique (and literally, but not metaphorically, unsharable) episodes of "secondary consciousness" (as Elliot Handleman calls it) we encounter in any immersed listening."

- Benjamin Boretz - "The Universe of One, And the Music of the Other"  

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

Texts

Live

December 18, 2021

Neal Kosály-Meyer

Finnegans Wake, Chapter 8 - James Joyce

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

This was the first live public event I have attended since February of 2020, and it looks like it may be the last for some time to come yet. 

I'm glad we went and I got a good recording, but I didn't take try to take notes in the dark. 

The river chapter.

From Recent Arrivals

December 24, 2021

Sans Souci - Peggy Lee [from Lover]

travelogue fantasy song with good enough Latinish feel
would work well in a Bond film cabaret scene

Am I Blue - Ray Charles [from The Genius of Ray Charles]

with studio big band strings and Hollywood style backup singers
going full crooner

Discipline - Sun Ra [from Space is the Place]

it moves as though there were chord changes underneath
but I suspect some larger scale ingredients are thrown in the pot as it simmers

Recorded

December 19, 2021

String Quartet #3, Op. 30 - Arnold Schoenberg - LaSalle Quartet

1
the slower moving lines try to edge into the crowd in the street
we're all waiting now
the light has changed
we move with the crowd
as like a crowd we move
with our crowd
in our bones

2
in our homes
a quiet scene
so as not to be overheard
the crowd is all around

3
gossip spreads into the chattering crowd
the machines have driven us indoors
a city music
a city of small rooms

4
a danse macabre
crowd of bones
nobody can be comfortable

Liza (Take A) - Art Tatum [from Classic Early Solos]

the tune
under stress
has been taken apart and reassembled
slashed with notes
plastered with other tunes' bits
cranked really fast
16 fps at 24 fps

I'm a Soldier in the Army of the Lord - Rev. McGhee [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

the question arises
how is a white boy to understand this?

Warmin' Up a Riff - Charlie Parker [from The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes]

this is understood as straight-up intellectual
the parts that songs were made of
atomized further

Take a Little Walk With Me - Boyd Gilmore [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

no blues is or can be self-contained
they are social to their own kind

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

he sounds so young!

Spudnik (Surf Rider) - The Ventures [from Walk Don't Run]

cool spy rhythm
dresses well

Soul Man - Sam and Dave [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

great attention is paid to outward appearance
armor

Rock and Roll - Led Zeppelin [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

is he gonna get to the mashed potato
the 70s hearkening back to the 50s
Happy Days Crocodile Rock and all that
I was in middle and high school in the 70s
and suffered through several 50s Days
we were encouraged to dress up in 50s costume
thereby encouraging fashion sense
I resisted

December 20, 2021

Symphony #7 "A Sea Symphony" - Howard Hanson - Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz

snide preamble: he missed an opportunity to call it "A Symphony at Sea" 

La Mer it ain't
from a spot firmly on shore
a dreary affair
obligatory storm scene in the 3rd act
Symphony at Sea
Snore on Shore

Ever - Flipper [from Generic]

laid out like an ad for a patent medicine
existential self-disgust played for a lark

December 21, 2021

Assembly Rechoired 14 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [January 31, 1987]

Keith Eisenbrey · Assembly Rechoired 14 870131

I read from Kierkegaard
Karen plucks a kalimba
and discusses descants in the United Methodist Hymnal
it might be me plucking the kalimba 

the self is a relation which relates itself to it's own self
Karen sings some hymns
a derived constituted relation
if the human self had constituted itself
a question could have arisen
nervous self-deception laboring into a deeper despair

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

a trumpet plays a few notes
after a shaker and a bell then a trombone
lasts all of a few seconds
never the same twice

Banned Rehearsal 460 "Analog" - Pete Comley, Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 2, 1997]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 460 970802

Pete was recording us on DAT (digital audio tape)
but this is my version
analog signal direct to magnetic tape cassette
we'll catch Pete's version soon 

Isaac fusses
almost a year old
we provide a constant low-level micro din
a guitar sneaks in under a softly blubbering brass
probably trombone
also sax 

to some extent we're on our best behavior
being digitally captured and all
on edge
held back
making sound
for the purpose of having that sound recorded
starts to get somewhere in the last 10 minutes or so
as we diminish into somnolential putters
finally able to focus
we scratch

{from my journal entry of March 28, 2005:

attempts made to emerge from a trombone
the audio equivalent
to the visuals
of the play
in which all are verbally polite
but expressive of the unbounded hostility
on a visual cue level
a gentle fast funmaker rhythm
quiets things down
trombone
low ominous
of what grew before
yet again
contextually now 

squalls explode
sharp attack entrances
quick to take offence
a recurring thematic low drone
from which emerges}

One Beat - Sleater-Kinney [from One Beat]

having fun
with the ah-ee
diphthong
and
the oh-öö töö 

not sure what the words are
the diphthong rhythm drowns them out

Consider the Birds 36 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]

this one is shy
its regularity is difficult to grasp

Tune for Bobbie - Elaine Barkin [from Open Space 46]

a tune of violin sounds
descends into our room of drums
achingly brief

I'll Shed A Tear Every Day - Your Mother Should Know [from Demos February 23, 2017]

I love the misbalance 

too much snare
not enough back up vocal
every part of the drums
is on a different plane
the guitar is tiny

December 22, 2021

O Mistris Myne, Fvb. 66 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

the sense of what counts as metrical balance
is significantly other
than in the 18th Century practice
our ears have become so accustomed to
and certainly
different than modern industrial practice
the whole phrase is full of significance
its parts are proportioned
rather than balanced as such

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band I, Prelude and Fugue in G minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Sviatoslav Richter

it floats
it is rooted

Sonata in G Major, Kk. 153 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

open ended balancing act
as soon as phrase balance was invented
it was subverted
it may have been devised as a tool for subversion

Concerto in D Major, Wq. 43/5 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi

hot take
the orchestra intro and the first solo
do not need to be in the same affect 

here the orchestra begins with a slow movement from deep inside
the solo is having none of it
2 opens
the solo both shares and redirects the orchestra's trajectory
they turn each other
the movement's flow
a single tonal whole
it ends without a flashing applause sign

Mass in C Major, Op. 86 - Ludwig van Beethoven - London Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Chorus, Colin Davis, Christiane Eda-Pierre, Patricia Payne, Robert Tear, Kurt Moll

Kyrie on a lifting scale
or within a lifting world
pressure is applied from below
a new plane
no matter the struggle 

I'm not overly enamored of the sound on this recording
the orchestra has little definition within its sound
and there is a certain sameness about the choral sounds
it's like the sound of the recording is acting out the Mass in C
it may be partly that the chorus and orchestra and space are too large for the piece
there is a lot of articulative detail that gets lost in there
a shame since this is really an interesting piece
if you could hear it

December 23, 2021

Mazurka in B minor, Op. 30 #2 - Frédéric Chopin - Vladimir Ashkenazy

a key expands its breadth without budging

Finnegans Wake Chapter 1 (start) - James Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer [recorded live at Gallery 1412, Seattle, on November 19, 2016]

this year (2016) he did 1 and 2 on the same evening
sir Tristram must be in the piano
the battle chapter
hurtle turtle
plethora of ululation
the corpse is outlaid
only a fadograph of a yestern sea
good rid hearing
mistletropes
a pretty nice kettle of fruit
make straight for Minos
really royally regally
Dooblong
Echoland
here now they are the fear of them annals of themselves
bloody wares
bloody wars
two sons at an hour were born to a goodman and his hag
blotty words
for Dublin
the copyist must have fled with his scroll
our ears
eyes of the darkness
euphonio saxo
a wrong story shortener
flick as flow flakes
stoop

Boll Weevil - Rabbit's Foot Williams [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

a song for addressing a force of nature
i.e. the Blues as a mode of prayer
this is really intense
as Otto the Repo Man says

Phonograph Blues - Robert Johnson [from The Complete Recordings]

repeatability
what evil have I done
a talk back 

"Beatrice, she got a phonograph / And it won't say a lonesome word"

You Got To Roll - David Honeyboy Edwards

just like a wagon wheel
articulation for us is not crucial
the greater power knows exactly what was said
you've got to get up Baby
by the light of the moon

Take This Hammer - Lead Belly [from Where Did You Sleep Last Night? - Lead Belly Legacy Volume 1]

carry't to the Captain
if he as's you
I'm gone
(cut off)

Begin The Beguine - Charlie Parker [from The Cole Porter Song Book]

improvise upon or around /
re-compose

what's Cole Porter still about it
are the particulars of certain sequences of melodic segments and chord changes

Reet Petite - Jackie Wilson [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

curious
was there a sudden change in the affordability of recording equipment
and of quality
after WWII
corresponding with an increased market
that is
was there an increase in the profitability of recorded songs
corresponding with the economic boom of the 50s
?

Blind Plowman - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [April 12, 1962]

secular (?) anthem
in the vein of mid-century triumphalist church music?
such a strange thing
grim comfort for the cold warriors?

Soul Kitchen - The Doors [from The Doors]

rock organ like
? and his Mysterians
still one place to go
secret alphabet
learn to forget what is said outright
what is sung above the organ's held tone
guitar brings it back down
to what is said
the clock says

Mother and Child Reunion - Paul Simon [from Paul Simon]

I remember early reviews of this
in which was bemoaned the loss of the high voice of Art
replaced by backup singers
But I think he was feeling hampered
by the lack of range afforded by the duet format

Jitterbug Waltz - Woody Shaw, Anthony Braxton, Muhan Richard Abrams, Cecil McBee, Victor Lewis [from The Iron Men]

DIY standard bearer
compose a recompose-able head

Sing Along! - Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [from A Cassette Player]

a short figure
repeated with some percussion
and an occasional low tone
toward the end the figure drops
and elides
successive notes
jingle bells desultory

In Session at the Tintinabulary

December 20, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 1041 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Ahava K, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1041 211220

the last noise session of 2021

December 24, 2021

Two-Part Invention in F minor - Gavin Borchert

This one features a repeated note figure
that wanders around the pitch field
and a slowly orbiting, more melodic line

Intermezzo in E-flat Major, Op. 116 #6 - Johannes Brahms

I could play it better I suppose,
but I think I'm done,
having other fish to fry

Anybody's Fingerbook, 2x2 (transpositional) B A - Keith Eisenbrey

the 3rd of many 

Keith Eisenbrey · 03 Anybody's Fingerbook 2x2 (transpositional) B A

2x2
refers to the size of the seed rotational array
(transpositional)
refers to the type of rotational array,
as opposed to (augmentational),
i.e. using addition as opposed to multiplication
B A
refers to unique paths through the array

Special Mention

My Dinner with Wallace

Much of my musical energy during the first year of the Pandemic went into producing this virtual recital of recent solo piano music by my long-time collaborator, Aaron Keyt, and by me. There are 9 reels total in the playlist, ranging from 10 to 20 minutes or so each, the whole stretching for just under 2 hours. I am quite pleased with the results, especially with how well I manage to illuminate the extraordinary "in-your-presence-alone" intimacy of Aaron's compositional voice.

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

time one has a spoilt I can't understand

it usual breakfast do you think it is

because I had perhaps that is how I

Reality Check::

more than one

monologue in the world

the ground wind sees

Playlist

Preface

"My revelation was: there are things you want to say, anxieties you want to engage, arising from anything in your life, arising in your perception from your perspective as a composer, that are not music itself (because they're explicitly about something(s)) or poetry either (because that's a different perspective of saying),and cannot be discourse (because that's a closed world in which some things are unsayable, or even indiscernible except as composite masks) - but such things may, still, be composable as something - not as music, but as music is composed, as something being what it is about: as languagemusic, composed out of the specific sensibilities which belong to you as composer, listener, reader, writer, player, speaker. "

- Benjamin Boretz - "(Liner notes for) / Language  ,as a music / six marginal pretexts for composition" 
from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020

Texts

From Recent Arrivals

November 5, 2021

October, 1984 - Olivia Block

we are far inside
a place
air is moving somewhere
not near us
then it is
we are near
moving
flowing
substance moves
to inundate
swamp
and scramble
signals arrive
blow past
ashore
we are in a space
emptied
then filled
slow long surf

we have been where before

Ginseng - Laurel Evers - Jim Knodle, Scott Brown, Jack Endino, Matt Cameron, Laurel Evers [from Standing Joys]

syncopatic-metric combo
hectical push groove
raunchuendos
with it pops

It Isn't a Dream - Melissa Dunphy - Cornell University Chorus, Robert Isaacs

SSAA
a story being told
in a space
that echoes certain phrases
back
and back 
flinging the tale
into poemmusicland

Bottomless Hole (Handsome Family) - Star Anna [from Songs to Keep You Up at Night]

a first person folk tale Poe-ism in a way (Karen says like the Boss in Nebraska - sure)

Recorded

October 30, 2021

Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Fvb 51 - John Bull - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

technically brilliant
a master class in composition
is it expressive
yes clearly
though the emotions one might name
are a mix
of calm peace,
placid like a quiet pond at sunrise,
and a frictionless warm glow
each smallest ripple
an elegy
phlegmatic confidence
the daily island life

Symphoniae Sacrae II, Op. 10 #27 "Freuet euch des Herren, ihr Gerechten" - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

metrical design
another master class for composers
but corporately expressive
each musician contributes
to the emotional burden of the whole
from the inside out
the whole
is expressive
because
each individual is
communally
but
so that
the composition
of the whole
bends
the individual expression
into a harmoniousness

social coercion

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1, Prelude and Fugue in G minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jacottet

precise finish to each trill
this expression is made of bricks

Sonata in C minor, Kk. 139 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

the initial figure is lopsided
supple sinews
glistening hide
animal grace

Sonata in C Major, Wq. 63/35 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

domestic life dispensed by paternal beneficence
each petition considered
then decided
a character study
aspirational and instructional
an ordered existence 

oops!
where did that come from
nothing a pleasant game of cards won't cure
private social graces

October 31, 2021

Don Giovanni, Act 2 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, Nicolai Ghiarov, Franz Crass, Claire Watson, Nicolai Gedda, Christa Ludwig, Walter Berry, Mirella Freni, Paolo Montarsolo, New Philharmonia Chorus, Henry Smith

Giovanni and Leporello argue,
then trade places
they conspire
almost literally
in duping Elvira 

G's lutish serenade is truly beguiling
seducing the audience
(Mozart tips his hand and winks)

G scatters the forces arrayed against him
his single successful ploy in the entire story
violence 

Zerlina's song of comfort
matches G's lute tune
in beguilishness
a wonderfully humane moment 

the scattered forces regroup
come to a more resolute agreement
back each other up
realize whom they are dealing with
a darn seriously amazing ensemble piece 

sociopolitically
Leporello
is in a real pickle
perfidy of the servant economy 

Mozartean recitatival nonsequiturs abound

everybody stop now
the MAN is going to speak
Ottavio
the mic is yours 

interesting that he finally comes around
after hearing testimony from the peasant 

Elvira thinks there may be something salvageable out of the Don
even after all that
(must have been quite a night!) 

the switcherudes
meet again
in the graveyard
where all
are equally low 

|||
In some productions Massetto and the Commendatore are played by the same voice.
It could be staged
such that
the Statua Gentilissima
is Massetto
in disguise
he comes to supper
and Don Giovanni
is undone
by his own (unselfacknowledged) terror
and credulity
the most coldest hand 

the demons coming out of the pit
are Ottavio
Anna
and Zerlina
in disguise
they drag him
into the cellar and kill him
emerging then
knives in hands
in bloody costume
for
the bad dude's get what they deserve chorus
at the end
||| 

Anna dispenses high notes with liberality
noblesse oblige
Mozart and duplicity
how about that party scene
not just an orchestral stage multiplicity
but also
a conversation
between Giovanni and Leporello
thick as thieves

Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 7 - Ludwig van Beethoven - HJ Lim

do a thing
vary that thing
but interrupt
halfway through
the varied
thing
with
some other
thing
embed freely

Lim reads this
as music made of figurations
the figures
make the key
the key
is not
something
the figures
are in 

interesting

November 2, 2021

Etude in F minor, Op. 10 #9 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot [1933]

the melody is in no meter known to mankind
the grumbling in the bass
gets angry
when it pulls too hard on its leash

The Christian Warfare -The Original Sacred Harp Choir [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

it's in the book
first
with solfeggio
then
with the verses
just as they sing it
singing is a ritual
and a catechism
teaching the singers
to be cogs
in a machine
an analytic
with a social similarity to bell choir performance
each player gets a selection of notes to play
important to understand
that this is not a music for public performance
it is for participants alone

String Quartet No. 3 - Béla Bartók - Juilliard String Quartet

lab coats
bubbling retorts
plasmodic discharges
angry nationalism
contention and strife
little canons
drift by
out the window
in the storm 

queasy moments

Don't Forget Me, Little Darling - Parker and Dodd [from Evans 78s]

guitar and banjo
two voices
tenor on the tune
female voice (I think)
as an upper harmony
though I would completely believe
a falsetto sort of voice
more likely
the more I hear

If You Build a Better Mousetrap - Peggy Lee [from The Complete Recordings 1941- 1947]

mix a better toddy
sweep a better floor
lying bigger lies
a dilemma
for discussion
amidst the entertainees
at the nightclub tables

Organum - Carl Ruggles - Buffalo Philharmonic, Michael Tilson Thomas

we don't talk about it
we buried it

Walkin' the Boogie (single version) - John Lee Hooker [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Bo's Milieu]

a story teller
telling stories
on top of a rhythm game

Sweet and Easy to Love - Roy Orbison - [from Sun Records Definitive Hits]

bump de wadda wadda waaaa
I think the backup guys
are saying
"sweeter than easy"

Alive - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, Joanne Deacon [April 10, 1962]

a rather severe study in large intervals
in canon
like an ostentatiously chromatic fughetta

Do I Move You - Nina Simone - [from Sings the Blues]

move groove soothe move
an inquisition
quiver liver

Era of Peace - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [from Betty's Picks]

a plea for such
with uncomposed accompaniment
staccato block chords
precursor to #meaningful #sungword #music

Beauty and the Beast - David Bowie [from Heroes]

engineered artificiality
masked multiples
half a song at best

Intermezzo 2 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded February 23, 2010]

Keith Eisenbrey · Intermezzo 2 (100223) 821217

begins with permutations
and a summary
an extrapolation
re-summarize
leap logic
resummarize
repeat 

a tonality that emerges from a seed
(which is a pretty good synopsis of the Intermezzo project as a whole) 

next task
was to dig into what seeds
consist of 

here 3 notes make groups
sometimes 4
there are overlaps of gestures
clearly I was somewhat obsessed
with the Chopin section of
("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...")
still am
to the point of trying to regenerate it
from homegrown principles
didn't manage that of course
but something else for sure

Let Him Go - Bonnie Guitar [from Dark Moon and other Country Favorites]

a letter to the other woman
you won't miss him
hm
you wouldn't even know he's gone 

I hope he didn't read the letter

Banned Rehearsal 299 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [July 31, 1992]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 299 920731

messages
are you there
and you are here
happy birthday
is sung by Aaron
to Karen
Aaron is Sam
He am Sam
reads the tale
house mouse
quiver liver
cumulative verse
words on words
with dulcimer and kalimba
a train a train a train a train
very clever

my journal entry of February 10 1995

train tree car
box fox
mouse house
here there
anywhere
would you oh
could you oh
in an administration
by Ross Perot
goat boat
boat goat
complete with summaries
say yea though I travel
wherever I go
I still shan't eat them
in an administration by Ross Perot 

the whites are not green
eggs don't got hocks
ham hawks
drumming
can you hear the constituent elephants
of the balances of your body

November 3, 2021

Eusebio Consumed - Mary Lee Roberts [from Open Space 9]

inside a metallic tube
it bends around us
semiarticulating chambers
we pass through
de-organizing

{my journal entry of January 4, 2004:

concerned with elemental forces and speaking
- in the time of syllables and seaswells

Banned Rehearsal 629 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 18, 2002]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 629 020118

let us make pretty sounds
at the time
I was not happy
with how the room was miked
I believe
we had a single stereo mic
in the middle
lots of transparence
but not much presence
golly almost 20 years ago
oversells the proximity effect

the little bells sound good
it misrepresents the size of the space
the space is livened
with some partial amplification
and loudspeaker noise
radio static
bird tweet
and rattle
to tambourine
we work the setup
tok!
disintegrated residue
the tide waxes inward
there are strange stations
out there in radioland
a wind that comes and goes
for striving after
the whole becomes dire
and prophetical
portentiosity unleashed
alarum sounds
and crashing waves of tam tam
magnificently weird

November 4, 2021

Hoosier Daddy - Antique Scream [from Sink the Sun]

I barely had time to sit down
a quick come-on
spoken
and some guitar stuff

Banned Rehearsal 810 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [March 26, 2012]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 810 120326

we poke at it
to discover what it might be
a bass guitar is practiced
like an annoying gnat
passive aggressive poison
when it goes away
the sound becomes a sound
an explorable territory
full of unknowns
the bass wanders around
unable to recall its past
we assist in its losing that
the mimicry of walking
is unfortunate
but fairly innocuous 

we don't jam 

stuck again
sort of comes and goes

Choppy - Sky Mackley - Splinter Reeds [from Hypothetical Islands]

works pretty well
with the tall trees
across the street
getting blown around
a steadyish force
some hyper birds
screeching at each other
some wiggly lines
descending
repeatedly
it's a living
a bit of an assault

Fantasia, Fvb. 52 - William Byrd - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

voices in imitation
piled on top of each other
pitches
notes
have multiple cross-indexed contextualities
when the meter shifts
follow the footwork
light as a butterfly
fancy dance

Die Sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz, SWV 478 - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

query
was this a Lutheran thing
to make a setting of these particular texts
{answer:
no there is a Latin setting from ca. 1500, but this is a pretty early one}
or did it predate that schism
birth of the sacred oratorio
a sung passion play

the picardian nature of the cadences
is a punctuation
a marker

surely
as effectively transformative
as Wagner ever dared hope to be

Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1, Prelude and Fugue in F minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jacottet

his hand is everywhere
his face nowhere
these thoughts are complete
they don't turn themselves
in on themselves

Sonata in D Major, Kk. 140 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

we'll have some fanfares and flourishes
the clowns will jape into their beards
no stick up this dude's keester
playing for delight
not instruction

Kurze und Leichten Klavierstücke, Allegro di molto in D minor, Wq. 114/1 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

not even a minute long
it sounds like one of his dad's inventions
turned inside out

Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Capella Istropolitana, Wolfgang Sobotka

a sunny bright night
it was a lovely day
today
was it not

gracious lovely duds
enforce slow movements

November 5, 2021

Sonata in C minor, Op. 5 #1 - Ludwig van Beethoven - HJ Lim

ends for good
right in the middle
then picks up elsewhere
entirely outside the same times
his voice leading
holds characters
much as Mozart's characters do
in his operatic ensembles
everything going on around the melody
is a dialog
third movement:
the figures scurry
to escape the downbeat
which chases them
to pounce
it's an awesome scrap
victory unassured
peace has been restored
or so we say
tee hee

Sonata in F minor, Op. 1 #1 - Friedrich Wilhelm Kalkbrenner - Luigi Gerosa

enters like a barker showman
spins his magic
one-dimensional
but magic
anyway 

strictly melodic 

this music is looking itself
in the mirror

those double trills are a bear
pretty great tunesmith though
a clever padder
a jolly fellow

Etude in F Major, Op. 10 #8 - Frédéric Chopin - Cecile Licad

just strolling down the walkway
in the early AMs
swinging a cane
in playful twirls 

circus peril

In Session at the Tintinabulary

November 1, 2021

Gradus 374 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

a tone alone
makes its own
fellows
from its innards
the place
upon which they expand
is neither vertical
nor horizontal
but internal
and curved
possibly polyplex

the second rung
is the 6th D Down
pretty low
and the 2nd E down
pretty high
the high E and its fellows
have a palpable acoustic effect
on 
the low D and its fellows
oddly
less so
the other way around
fewer audible partials to affect?

Special Mention

My Dinner with Wallace

Much of my musical energy during the first year of the Pandemic went into producing this virtual recital of recent solo piano music by my long-time collaborator, Aaron Keyt, and by me. There are 9 reels total in the playlist, ranging from 10 to 20 minutes or so each, the whole stretching for just under 2 hours. I am quite pleased with the results, especially with how well I manage to illuminate the extraordinary "in-your-presence-alone" intimacy of Aaron's compositional voice.

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

this to thank me for I had to such skill

was no disturbance in her play had that

happened her entire honored so would

Reality Check::

soon

the stone

would draw thunder

Playlist

 Preface

"For this contrivance to be the pillar, the very foundation, of my aesthetics, I have to enter a very strange platonistic world, a world of reified properties. Within such an aesthetic, crucially, metaphors are entirely absent; they are, indeed, categorically nonexistent; their places are occupied by haecceities which do inhabit this world, though in an oddly relativistic way: as abstract entities in one-time-only manifestations: one world-moment, one music-moment, one reception-moment, the entire contents of a momentarily materializing universe instantaneously dissolving into retrievable memory, into past-time, leaving nonetheless a transformative trace on the whole of consciousness: a state of being whose own haecceity is the identity of the conscious whole."

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

Texts

From Recent Arrivals

October 3, 2021

À quelle heure commence le temps - Gilles Tremblay - Aventa Ensemble, Bill Linwood, Vincent Ranallo [from Wanmanshu]

a door opens to a large room
delicately furnished
fully prepared for us
we are greeted formally
with sung text stuttering into chromatic leaps
fading into the door hinge
be wary
we will be shown 

de rigeur modernist gestures
aims for Erwartung
from a position to the side of late 50s Stockhausen
with a pinch or two of Berio's Visage

Composition No. 12 - Guillaume Gargaud [from 17 Compositions]

solo guitar
lyric
dense

Death (XIII) - Julia Shapiro [from Zorked (pre-order)

heavy drama
beast voice
buried in the folds

A Photograph of You - Laurel Evers [from Music from the Left Hand]

early evening with wine
bass
guitar
clarinet
comfortably social
a right pleasant hang

Full Shadow - Neil Welch [from Sonic Tide]

baritone sax
(with electronics?)
((reverb for sure))
mountain grotto

Pushing Back - Steve Layton & Improv Friday [from From the Vault 2011]

a slow parade
with floats and puppets
solemn

If You Wake in the Morning - The Foghorns [from Turn to the Moon]

small town social pressure
conform to an unspecified doom
country feel
with fiddle and acoustic guitar

October 8, 2021

If I Should Lose You - Aretha Franklin [from Unforgettable: a Tribute to Dinah Washington]

an alarming entrance
(for the ages!)
after a gentle piano riff
and a soft as satin string cadence
full out voice
up high in her ping
it transforms the entire rest of the song
walloped with an invisible club

Encore for the Fans "Listen" - Beyoncé [from B'Day]

the role of female hero
for fellow women
I will be
what we can be
you can be
after all
here I am

also demands that old Aretha
R word 

though not in so many words

Recorded

October 3, 2021

Raar - Bruce Hamilton & Friends [from Mash Hits Volume 1]

the barrel
in this gravity
rolls slowly
through a viscous medium
it eases to rest

Ghosting Doubles (Second Sighting) XY - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded with the stage directed microphones at Seattle Composers' Salon on July 7, 2017]

chapel chat before I play
when thoughts collide
they fuse 

it occurs to me
that one could treat any of the three lines
as the primary line
and move through them
with a similar pattern of sharing
(here: 

Middle, 

Middle/Bottom, 

Middle/Top, 

Top/Bottom, 

Top/Middle/Bottom)

October 4, 2021

Salvator Mundi, Fvb 45 - John Bull - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

the undisturbable cantus
wherever it flows
it remains
steadfast
earth is solid
and does not move

Symphoniae Sacrae II, Op. 10 #23 "Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden" - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

3 voices
if I count correctly
TBB
though perhaps ATBB?
voices cycle
and build density
step by step
the reading has lines
and the setting sets those lines
in distinct manners
less about the meaning of the statement
than its structure

focus on the external
structural
aspect
can free the aspect that conveys referential meaning

Prelude and Fugue in B-flat minor (Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1) - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet

separate chapels 

in the same building

Sonata in E Major, Kk. 135 - Domenico Scarlatti [Pieter-Jan Belder]

big sound
full chords
slide down the hill
slog back up
twice

Sonata in C Major, Wq. 53.5 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

transparent
all is laid out in plain sight
nothing is lost

5 Variations in D Major, Hob. XVII:7 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

themes for variation
are valued for their directness
and for a clear establishment of key
best if they don't stray far internally
so that its contours can be recognized
in the variations that follow

October 5, 2021

Don Giovanni, Act I - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, Sherrill Milnes, Walter Berry, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Peter Schreier, Teresa Żylis-Gara, Edith Mathis, Dale Duesing, John Macurdy

the underworld
of the afterworld
sees all
rumors fly
good clean fun
(rape and murder)
(the habitual crime
and the one he gets taken down for)
pacing
(he also stiffs his servant) 

does the music ever settle
or is it always moving forward
in and out of recitative
and full on singing 

Ottavio does try to pull it together
calm things down
just like a man
husband and father in one
creepy as that is now
was
as I understand it
the ethical understanding of the times 

his attempt is only partially successful

two fiancees
hm
the only married man
is murdered in the first scene 

Ottavio
the voice of righteous machismo
his music is utterly static
calm paternalism

the noble dude
comforts the
noble woman
the peasant woman
comforts
the peasant dude
matched moments of musical stillness

Sonata in D Major, Op. 28 "Pastorale" - Ludwig van Beethoven - Claudio Arrau

tune voice
bass voice
but the one in the middle
when it appears
devious
playful 

but there's something sinister about this reading
lurking
dangerous
not so much for the last two movements
nothing to see here
just happy country folk

Etude in C Major, Op. 10 #7 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot [1933]

the voices vie for attention
as they arise from the figures

Selection 15 from Selections from The Nutcracker - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy

and it ends with the sumptuous imperial ball
all sensuality
all the time
nothing to fear here
everybody's rich
and beautiful
complacent triumph

October 6, 2021

Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 - Arnold Schoenberg - Twentieth Century Classics Ensemble, Robert Craft, Anja Silja

does
not begin
does
has begun
the singer
has
a chamber orchestra
of agile hands
to make their meaning clear
gestural participation
they
the chamber orchestra
are also
their
(Pierrot's)
face 

stagy?
hell yes!
you can smell the greasepaint and sweat
small dingy stage required
the setting doesn't paint the text with madrigalisms
it is the embodied character that sings
as in Debussy
and the incarnation of the stage from which they sing
parts flit from instrument to instrument

Ross' Juba - Black Face Eddie Ross [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

see above
music becomes the body

Symphony #1 - Roger Sessions - Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Akeo Watanabe

1
motorized
urban
not deviously friendly
jumpcut
a lonely café
in the wee smalls
fierce

2
American Sehnsucht
gets all twisted
as it festers
remembrance
of those back home

3
new job
fresh resolve
fresh face
go get 'em

Contented - Ponce Sisters [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

so easy and relaxed
open and clear
room to be fancy
without hurry

Ramblin' On My Mind - Robert Johnson [from The Complete Recordings]

this is the second version of the song on the album
seeming easy passage
between the guitar's registers:
bass chunkahunka
treble whine

October 7, 2021

Winter Weather - Peggy Lee [from The Complete Recordings 1941-1947]

case study in
how to underline the structural rhymes
the songwriter wrote
with rhythm and timbre
and Benny's band doesn't have a slouch in it

It's Only a Paper Moon - Ethel Waters [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

a fancy enough tune
on its own
Ethel takes it through several other worlds of levels 

yeah!

Walked All Night - Charlie Booker [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

an urgency to the tempo
as if it is trying to get ahead of itself
solid blues
as fine a record as is

From the Ballet - Berthold Goldschmidt - Kolja Lessing

a 1950s revision of a 1930s piece
and old fashioned at that
nice clean harmonies though
played with sensitivity and clarity
chromatics descending through a key feel

Down in the Forest - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [April 10, 1962]

Hollywood tone-picture
all sheen and costume
from the first phrase
nostalgic
for the prewar paradise
pretend high class

Symphony #6 - Howard Hanson - Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz

opens with a cinematic scene
atmosphere
wherein a drama might be progressing
dire and solemn 

you too can count
how many times
the opening motif is repeated
verbatim 
2nd movement picks it right up
same motif
in new tempo
the journalists
will be amazed
if the program notes writer
writes about it 

one damned thing after another
no fraternization among the parts now
everybody in line

Dance With Me - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [December 1972]

for a small vocal ensemble
I may be mistaken but I believe this was part of an attempt to be inclusive of Hanukah on a winter holiday concert.

October 8, 2021

Missa Hilarious - P.D.Q. Bach - Peter Schickele

the choral clock in the K-k-k-kyrie is pretty nice
truth be told

Intermezzo 1 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [from Songs Concert, University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, November 6, 2004]

Keith Eisenbrey · Intermezzo 1 (041106) 821001

I like this tempo
slow but not protracted
I also like how lyrically I discover each register
I was treating the quarter notes
as just long enough
and the whole notes
longer enough than that
so that
they would clearly
be longer
than the quarter's
just long enough

I Wanna Live - Ramones [from Halfway to Sanity]

rather a sordid tale back there behind the hook

In Session at the Tintinabulary

October 4, 2021

Gradus 372 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

does there come a threshold
in pitch accumulation
at which we seize upon the possibility
of a familiar musical rhetoric
and cling to it?
can we narrow our focus sufficiently
to avoid hearing familiar sonorities
as dredging up their familiar contexts?

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

and loving language God speaks within them

must think account his we life and the

Samaritan the and the water pot

Reality Check::

too) I'm going to eat you

the sound

stopped

Playlist

Preface

"In the moment of each piece I am transported out of the universe of music, to an incommensurable non-relativistic absolute of  'this' - in which 'this' is, at this moment, for this moment only, what music is. 

objective analysis: what's there to strike/affect you however; experiential descriptions: an inner biography of a reception; aesthetic analysis: what's there in the sense of how it ontologizes in consciousness - in whatever terms capture the experiential sense it makes insofar as the person composing the analysis is concerned - and since the units of musical reception are single music-phenomena received by single people at single times, the person-specific mode of description is the musically most accurate, as far as I'm concerned. This sort of explains to me why most generalized descriptions of music, or objectified descriptions of single musics, seem not to be intuitively 'about' anything like music, or like any particular music."

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

Texts

From Recent Arrivals

September 12, 2021

Embraceable You - Judy Garland [from The Complete Decca Masters]

sung with extensive, but perfectly controlled portamento
nothing that gets in the way of putting the song across the decades intact

That's The Way Love Goes - Janet Jackson [from Janet]

[NB This was the fourth track I attempted to random-pick from the album. The first three I chose were little snippets of sound inserted among the longer tracks. I began to wonder if there was anything on the album longer than 10 seconds.]

singing in a bed of rhythm and speech
a crowd of speak-in-turn

I Am Free - Mariah Carey [from Daydreams]

testimony
with gospel pipes
amply elaborated

Shades - Dawn Richard [from Newbreed]

additive rhythms
rooted in the bass
reconfigured with each vocal eruption
quick

September 17, 2021

String Trio, Op. 45 - Arnold Schoenberg - Rolf Schulte, Richard O'Neill, Fred Sherry

sizes of gestures
counterpoint with
number (count) of notes
with articulation echoes
with dynamic gestures 

his thinking is clear
simple to follow
even if it takes some thorny prose
to attempt to describe
some of what it is that is so clear within it

Strike Zones - Joan Tower - Albany Symphony, David Alan Miller, Evelyn Glennie

not as cheerfully playful as its Babbitt-worthy title would suggest
more of a grim nocturnal goblin mist about it 

I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Tower ages ago at Bard.

Recorded

September 11, 2021

Crack Glass Eulogy - Stan Brakhage

dimming lights

Banned Rehearsal 450 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [April 5, 1997]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 450 970405

quieter weather
but incessant
and increasingly so
little moves
hold steady
stay put
fade gently

{{from my journal entry of November 29, 2004}}:

Aaron brings the clarinet again.
We hear lots of rattling around
and the piano
a strummingtheguitar/piano
above this dark warm buttery sound
a sax squawk
whose squawk is echoed
down into the warm buttery
by percussion
guitar
everybody shares it
tethering it to the collective
are those pulling against each other,
or toward each other? 

this mass doesn't move.
It doesn't roll.
perhaps it roils within itself.
But inert is its mass. 

- violin entrance could signal change.
The warm butter sharpens up a bit.
music on the move.
How is its moving?
not like a huge iron wheel.
more like an icebreaker in slow motion.
landed now
in a quieter, colder, emptier space. 

for awhile it hangs midair,
then fills in a space below it.
but not yet on the ground. 

[extremely strong, almost psychedelic ensemble playing throughout, by everybody] 

premium is placed on blend.
the sounds blend with each other
none stick out for long,
or create a line that is stronger as itself
than it is as a part of the whole.
Even Isaac's squalling.
private matters tend to diminuendo into the background. 

We resolve for awhile
into a fabulous scribbleguitar and piano duet
- with organ bass
and occasional outside comments by drums and stuff.
Really a far cry from warm and butter.
Exit to an outerspace virtual image terminal.
distant cold, and eternal. 

|| jangly low piano and drums.
We have come back to earth.
having seen.
Could go weak here, if this drumming drumming continues.
The question - once we have come back to earth
have we anything to say,
or should it just cut out there? 

does come,
briefly,
to a very quiet place.
Isaac is kind of noisy. 

We collectively compose a diminuendo, which isn't quite as interesting as that journey into the stars just completed. 

the apachees are encircling - The Weapon [a Rescued Record]

rhythm section demo
strictly instrumental
not sure what the Apachees have to do with it

Consider the Birds (Raw Footage) - Keith Eisenbrey [February 3, 2007]

As I recall, this is a bit of a then recent Banned Rehearsal that was on my hard drive when I started experimenting. I sliced out 10 minutes to use.
Trombone, or cornet or somebrass perhaps the alto,
xylophone, ocarina.
a light percussion contraption with a spring in it
and some rattling or shaking
a can drum
triangle
gong soft bong
a honk as might be by a duck with a cold in the nose

Nokturno 7 - Aleš Fridel - Lovorka Nemeš Dular [from Open Space 47]

piano figuration anchored to a shifting harmonic center
as might a conversation work itself along

Banned Telepath 54 Anchorage - Aaron Keyt [February 15, 2017]

synthesizer telegraph message

September 12, 2021

Pavana of My Lord Lumley, Fvb 41 - John Bull - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

the meter expands at elaboration's behest they dance genteelly

Symphoniae Sacrae II, Op. 10 #19 "Der Herr ist meien Licht und mein Heil" - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

two male voices push each other into higher steps on the ladder
all quite diatonic until a sudden chromatic twist warps the cadence
the several segments are connected by a similar duet

Prelude and Fugue in B minor (Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1) - Johann Sebastian Bach - Christiane Jaccottet

I'm sorry she didn't take the repeats in the Prelude, they add to the sense that the piece has been about its business before you arrive and will do so after you leave 

the fugue is one of my favorites
how each entrance-sized segment is so clearly figured,
that one might think it's square,
but the sheer quantity of metrical implications at play is bewildering

Sonata in B-flat minor, Kk. 131 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

a stomping kick dance
might the binary schema of these sonatas
serve mostly just to help the sequentiality of it,
as it goes,
seem plausible,
that perhaps its fact
is less crucial to the form
as experience
than its effect is

La Xenophon and La Sybille - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

sketch for an opera number?
I love these 18th Century bass lines
so unashamed to own their function. 

Perhaps a miniature diptych?
a vamp for a pantomime?

Sonata in E-flat Major, Hob. XVI:16 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

what I said above about Scarlatti
applies here as well
yes Haydn invented all sorts of new ways to tightly bend (and bind) the structure together
but he also balanced that
with a wide figuration range
and a quick rhythm of its changes
it simply takes more twine
to hold plausibility
also without such care taken
his jokes won't make sense

Fantasia in D minor, K. 397 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Lil Kraus

a lot of this would work real well on clavichord
not all of it though
very much a fortepiano piece
but certainly recalling the older figurations
this piece goes into a mood now and then
a mood to sweep away
yes
yes
that's the end

Sonata in G Major, Op. 47 #2 - Johann Ladislav Dussek - Zvi Meniker

a lively but essentially gentle imagination
he will never do anything to actually shock you
he was more into charm

Coriolan-Ouverture - Ludwig van Beethoven - Academy of Ancient Music - Christopher Hogwood

a terrifying story
thrills chills worry and dream
has there ever been a symphonic overture written for Titus?

Etude in F Major, Op. 10 #8 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot (1942)

establishing the key is not the point of what these figures are doing
they're discussing things amongst themselves
the key is the carrier wave at most

Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564 - Johann Sebastian Bach / Feruccio Busoni - Wolf Harden

Busoni was a devotee of the cult of Bach
in reverence of the learned past
doing what Liszt had done for Beethoven
in his (Liszt's) transcriptions of the 7th Symphony (Beethoven's)
for instance
or Brahms for the violin Chaconne (Bach's)
stop here first
be warned
this is a fugue
you venture upon
who me?
adds voices at the bottom of the stack

Selection 11 of Selections from The Nutcracker - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy 

harp is the storybook instrument in this milieu
fairy tale dynasty doomed to blood

September 13, 2021

Walz Medley - The Gregg Smith Singers [from The Great Sentimental Age]

none but
as anyone but
or any but
me
as in
she would not dance
with none but me
perfectly reasonable usage
but strikes me as poetic
(doggerelic?)
in the sense
that the choosing of it
was due to the syllable count

2 Poems, Op. 63 - Alexander Scriabin - Michael Ponti

a light passes across a terrain
in flood
with languid spent desire

Fuzzy Wuzzy Rag - W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

a dance
to leave one breathless and flushed
earlier comments regarding binary form
could be applied to this as well
plausible coherence

Finnegans Wake, Chapter 1 (finish) - James Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer [recorded at Gallery 1412 on November 22, 2015]

face to face
vertical time unspooling
the imputed thread of plot
providing a plausible coherence
but thinner
than the repetitions of rhythm
the word games
the lists
and doublings
all the apparatus
of its sentence by sentence
phrase by phrase
coherence
3rd Set Piece:
the Prank Queen.
in imitation of narrative
invocations
Elegiad
tales told above a bier
reports from the living
applause
chat
out

September 14, 2021

Ornaments - Alexander Krein - Helen Lawrence, Jonathan Powell

wordless melody sung with piano
featuring a certain amount of portamento and other articulating embellishments
I wonder if this piece was intended as a show piece for student virtuosi
it would certainly take some serious breath control 

per Slonimsky,
Krein was heavily involved in Jewish theater
in the years after the revolution (1918)
often using "authentic" "Jewish" material.
believable
but I am an ignoramus on the question

Sally Gooden - W.M. Smith [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

dance hall standard?
any tavern
anywhere
in any America?
shave and a haircut six bits
piano taking care of business

Frankie and Johnny - Alabama Boys [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

the song so well known one hardly needs to speak the words
these guys are all over their guitar licks and fiddle licks

Lincoln Portrait - Aaron Copland - Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz, James Earl Jones

set the controls for sanctify
it is stern and hard and wiry 

was this written at approximately the same time as Sandburg's bio
(yes, more or less)
the condensed version
for the war effort
in time of peril
we erect an elder saint
if everything is underlined
is anything 

thought control in action

Tone Painting (parts 1 and 2) - Dodo Marmarosa [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

solo piano
noisy recording
with some wobble 

moody
in glancing imitation
of what?
concert hall music?
or film noir soundtrack?
but more internally focused than movie music can allow itself to be 

I count 3 parts so far at least

String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 92 (#5) - Dmitri Shostakovich - Fitzwilliam String Quartet

breathing as best it can within strict confines
its key is a cover
he could probably get away with more in his quartets
because only musicians ever listen to them
everything turns bitter
we are being led inside
where memory is
we are prodded
time
soon
to leave
be sure to pick up your resolve and outrage at the door
sleep as well as you can

Blue Monday - Fats Domino [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Monday is a mess
something almost punk about the plainness of it

Peasant Cantata - The Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey [April 10, 1962]

not Bach
short canonic choruses a capella
has almost a Billings-ish vibe to it
neo-Billings?

Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

hard
left right track assignment
bass and drums one side
guitar on other side
with everything else
vocal up the middle

Daniel - Bellevue First United Methodist Church Children's Choirs, Betty Eisenbrey [April 14, 1972]

featuring me
member of the chorus
being fed odd biblical history
asserting
for instance
that Daniel was a Christian Man
this is even stranger than I remember
just throw all the bible stories in
higgledypig
we'll stop to praise Daniel's sweetheart
with similes from Midwestern Americana

The Laughing Gnome - David Bowie [from Starting Point]

as dumb as it is
David gives it all he's got
can't quite do it with a straight face, just as well

Intermezzo I - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded at Bard Hall, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, November 2, 1982]

Keith Eisenbrey · Intermezzo 1 (821102) 821000

I have a picture of me dressed for this occasion
sharing a little concert with Dan Sedia,
for an audience of six.
Ben opined that
since they were all my friends
it wasn't really an audience.
I thought that
if a real audience consisted of people who were not my friends
that I didn't want one.
Ben quipped "Not to worry."
but as a composition
I was
in this
thinking about filling in intervals sequentially (horizontally)
and gradually,
step by step,
clearly influenced by ("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...")
at the time it had a poetical title
Long Way Noon
suggested by AW,
a fellow student the summer before with whom I was sharing an intense correspondence
a poem in single tones
except some dyads
notes at opposite ends of the keyboard
a flaw perhaps
played slowly
trying to crack melody's code
two lengths of notes on the pages
long and really long
as played
no two notes are the same length as any other

your blogger, November 2, 1982, Bard Hall

[NB the Reality Check portion of the postscripts of this blog are from Intermezzo V, which was largely based on edited lines from the above mentioned   correspondence]

Dig It a Hole - U-Men

vocal provides the message
guitar provides the Amen
and other support

September 15, 2021

Four6 - John Cage - Stu Dempster, Neal Kosály-Meyer, William O. Smith, Melissa Walsh [recorded at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, on May 25, 2012]

earbrain identifies sounds:
signal noise
"ahem,"
chair movement,
etc. 

some sound distinguishes itself in earbrain
by adding intent (implied) to identity:
harp sound made by (intended by) Melissa,
vocalization made by (intended by) Neal,
clarinet sound made by (intended by) Bill,
etc. 

In order to treat un-made-by sounds as music
in the same sense we treat made-by sounds as music
we must either
posit an intent and an intender to the un-made-by sounds
or remove intent from the made-by sounds.
Given that this would need to happen subconsciously |
inside earbrain
either accomplishment would require a spiritual discipline
with uncertain results
beneficial or malevolent. 

The paradoxes of Zen are often cited in this regard.
I find myself unwilling to consider walking that path.
I descended a different rabbit hole,
have my own problems and urgencies to work out. 

But the question remains,
how might I take this in,
if I have chosen not to follow the Zen path
and if Cage's intentions and motivations are therefore relatively opaque to me?
That is,
if the inherent paradox doesn't incandesce, for me? 

Perhaps by now they serve

for me
mostly to neutralize the impact of the music rather than clarify it?
In this case the recourse to Zen could be seen as less explanation than cop-out. 

(to my ears,
in this case,
the performers are listening to each other and responding to each other just as they would in any other music.
Their individual personalities just as clear
perhaps more so than in industrialized orchestra music,
but not a level unique to many another music) 

((and to be honest,
I would have a difficult time pointing at what it is I object to, exactly.
hence my befuddled verbosity))

Soup - The Keeners [a Rescued Record]

in the manner of a confession
formulaic delivery
generic rock riff in the back

Work / Architecture / Unity / And / The - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [March 12, 2021, take 2]

very little by way of breaks between bits
good experiment but (because) failed results
the bits would each benefit by some elbow room

A Beginning - Peter Fedofsky [from The City of Good Neighbors]

smooth overtracked tenor
with keys
lazily nice

my journal entry of February 20, 2012

Gradus 206 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [February 20, 2012]

in the age of A natural,
but also in the age of 2 rungs per session. 

For me,
Gradus is not about,
nor even peripherally concerned with
John Cage.
It is about Neal's earbrain.

to the extent it might be posited that Cage's concept of silence
(whatever it is)
permeates the conceptual substrate of Gradus,
I would counter that Neal's earbrain
has transmogrified that concept into his,
utterly. 

Cage's concept of silence was his alone.
Neal's concept,
likewise,
belongs to Neal alone.

Sinksmania - Camarones Orquestra Guitarristica [from Feeexta]

Karen and I heard this Brazilian band at The Kraken
in what may have been the last dive bar show we went to before the shutdown. 

I probably bought this on some Bandcamp Friday or other. 

loud instrumental
mostly guitars
a tight ensemble

September 16, 2021

Goe from My Window, Fvb 42 - John Mundy - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

decorated manuscripts
in colorful and ornate calligraphy
the sound of the music
the sense of the music
the placid goingness of the music
all match the style of page
suitable for presentation to
and preservation by
16th Century nobles 

flowing with the pace of an elegant cranky

Symphoniae Sacrae II, Op. 10 #20 "Zweierlei bitte ich, Herr, von dir" - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

the control of pacing through meter is marvelous
modern mixed meter is an upstart 

devastating

Prelude and Fugue in B minor (Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band 1) - Johann Sebastian Bach - Sviatoslav Richter

thank you for taking the repeat
we need to live in his space before moving on
how it climbs and climbs and yes,
the 2nd repeat as well!
My hero!
again we need the time and repetition
to contemplate the/this tonality
before venturing into the aggregate-completing fugue,
with its chromatic climbing
the pacings of the sequences in the fugue episodes
match the pacings of the canon in the Prelude 

the view from these heights is humbling

Sonata in C Major, Kk. 132 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

shows his cards before his tricks
he still robbed you blind
even when and while he explains what he's doing 

This one has luscious dissonant chords that sink in solid.

La Sophie, Wq. 117/40 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

understated misbalance
until the accents enter from the stage right
it doesn't fall apart
it unbinds itself
from its parts
its parts seize their own micro destinies

Divertimento in F Major "il maestro e lo scolare" Hob. XVIIa:1 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim, Andreas Staier

little dialogues
now repeat after me
alternating registers
bass treble
(4 hands clearly)
repeat that. young whippersnapper!
dueling banjos style
listen to the metronome and pitch pipe?

Symphony in D Major, K. 385 "Haffner" - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter

he treats counterpoint the way he treats operatic ensembles
everybody stays in character
in 2 the chug chug chug motive moves around the orchestra
comes back in all sort of unexpected places

Symphony in D Major, Op. 36 (#2) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Berliner Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan

a bit smeared to get that big glow
it all seems to run together
gets along without particular propulsion
like a list of Beethoven Symphony parts
got together for a BeetSymCon
in too big a space

Etude in E-flat minor, Op. 10 #6 - Frédéric Chopin - Cecile Licad

this one misses its key terribly,
remembers it fondly
and regrets its absence,
grieves for it,
though it never was

Selection 12 of Selections from The Nutcracker - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy

a quick number
for not one of the marquee dancers
just up and coming

Battle of San Juan Hill - Mike Bernard [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

not the first keyboard work to depict a battle by a long stretch,
William Byrd played this game through a whole suite.
this uses many of the same effects, if different tunes.
Definitely silent movie fodder
or perhaps campaign fodder.
It does sound like a bunch of tin Americans attacking cannonfire.
(T. Roosevelt sold himself as a hero of this battle,
and was running for President as a Bull Moose the year this song was made.)

Moonlight Blues - W.C. Handy [from Allen Lowe's Really The Blues]

the tune is squeezed from one note to the other
in lazy waltz time
just begging for the Max Fleischer liquid line treatment

September 17, 2021

She Walked Right Up and Took My Man Away - Lizzie Miles [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

another take on Frankie and Johnny?
Yup.
There's that rubber tired hack
names and events have been changed
but the structure of betrayal remains

Finnegans Wake, Chapter 6 (continued) - James Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer (recorded from Neal's live stream November 21, 2020)

a lightmare and a liberal education
a swallowship in full sail
answer
Finn Mccool
two
the felicitude of our orba
the soapstone of silvery speech
water quaffed
five
poor old Joe
gooseberries
what would the farseer see
ten
gossip
friend of vegetables
see if I'm self thought
underworld of nighties and naughties

In Session at the Tintinabulary

September 13, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 1034 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Neal called in to the can set upon the xylophone while Karen and I puttered around the Tintinabulary.

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

the united states' mint and when I saw a

dark wood 17 the way was lost ah

how hard a thing to what my fear so bitter

Reality Check::

trace result

sand paper

stones