Playlist

Recorded

July 1, 2018

Cavatina "Ecco, ridento in ciedo" - Rossini - Failoni Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), Will Humburg, Roberto Servile, Sonia Ganassi, Ramon Vargas, Angelo Romero, Franco de Grandis, Hungarian Radio Chorus [from The Barber of Seville (Highlights)]

a distance traveled before we get off the ride

Rainy Night - Duke Ellington [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

say a thing (twice) (or two things) then comment or overturn
the back ends of the melodies invite consideration

The Goodnight Waltz - The Voices of Walter Schumann [Rescued Record]

The Age of Sentimentality's Last Gasp

Walk, Little Julie - Chester Hanchell [from Anthology of American Folk Music Vol. 1]

jaw harp in the raw

Requiem Canticles - Stravinsky - London Sinfonietta, Oliver Knussen

pitch plates microadjust their relative altitude
planar placards plastered on the pitch plate walls
icons

Track 6 - Tillicum Junior High School Orchestra [from my mom's tape of a concert give March 3, 1971]

with vibraphone solo

Subhuman - Throbbing Gristle [from Throbbing Gristle's Greatest Hits]

inverted accentuation becomes name classification

July 4, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 77 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 1986]

vacuum cleaner vacuuming floor clacking sticks and ocarina or flute
we have a hum on the tape from something
it wanders

Neal & Anna's Outpost on Brooklyn Ave, as they were packing it up

typing tap tap tap tap ding! szzzhook!

persistent lack of focus, phoning it in, not present
weary and wearying the hum does not help
this tape has ennui
impervious time

Don't Mix The Colors - Courtney Love [from Kill Rock Stars]

words on a good enough rhythm track
half a song or less

Gradus 99 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 2006]

single tones allowed to linger
turn their predilections for proliferation inward upon themselves
become sets of parts independently spinning
fulfilling the compositional imperatives
which notes to play
is so simple to accomplish that the notion of necessity in the short term
or of form at all as a specious trajectory
is left far below

Front Door - Shaprece [from Scatterbrain EP]

circling insistence (a worry stone)

Banned Telepath 47 Somerville - Aaron Keyt [April 2016]

the new note nears quickly
improvisation composing itself as a composition composing improvisationality

July 5, 2018
Cavatina "Largo al factotum della città" - Rossini - Failoni Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), Will Humburg, Roberto Servile, Sonia Ganassi, Ramon Vargas, Angelo Romero, Franco de Grandis, Hungarian Radio Chorus [from The Barber of Seville (Highlights)]

intricate prestissimo blah blah blah
tour de articulation

Irish Black Bottom - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

wide open window to another celebration
when it is over
feels empty

Tweedledy Dee - Elvis Presley [from First Live Recordings]

clearly worked over before release
with vinyl surface noise just as clearly audible
no-one was, apparently, thinking history and collecting quality data

(He's) The Great Imposter - The Fleetwoods [from The Very Best of the Fleetwoods - Come Softly To Me]

Requiem Cantlicles - Stravinsky - Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Stravinsky

categorically disparate rhythms
though coordinate
choral sound disblending as instruments perfectly
ceremony
voices instruments solos chorus - all treated emphatically impersonally
each is there to function just so
not anybody's show really
as though these were sound samples pulled from hammer space

July 10, 2018

Jascha Horenstein reminisces with Alan Blyth

". . . nineteen tzwolve . . . Webern and Berg were the ushers who controlled the membership cards . . . enowmously tense and inhibited . . . Vienna is the only place in the world . . . a closed shop . . . icy cold every inch the emperor of music . . . "

Well I Just Might Do That - University of Washington Contemporary Group Improvisation Ensemble [July 1981]

barbasol theater
it's got lemon in it
an historic moment for proto Banned Rehearsal
in that we were beginning to spill out of academic oversight
into sessions which we then inflated into legend out of all proportion to the actual results
good thing most of the sound is lost
come inside you'll catch your
keith
mind your mother
clump clump clomp clomp
done

4th of July, Asbury Park - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen Live 1975-1985]

full blown legend domain see your life as mythic grandeur
your face here

July 11, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 267 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [September 1991]

in the past I have made errors in that regard
moan tube scolding big red bag of fun
soft skinned rattle of rattles
semi independent double reeds
finger independent righty lefty
breath dependent if each speaks or in turn
jalopy rattle get it firing tambourine
this sounds like Aaron's now defunct electric organ
rather than the funmaker
30 minutes in not a dud moment really
terrainish
concerns itself with another subject than the terrain we experience
much as geology arose from metallurgy and mining
Mr. Punch you are a bad bad man
diabolic plotting encrustations of narratives' remains
realms are missing
music is an abstraction of activity
informing our future selves of the past reporting back truly what we say
common pulse theory

DX7 - Brad Anderson [from Dark Energy - Interstellar Pianos]

probes in substance with danger traps beacons left behind
creatures that feed on geyser's edge in pitch darkness

July 12, 2018

Day Signals Sonic Nebula - S. Eric Scribner [from Stormsound Cycle, live at the Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, on May 21, 2011]

slow circle
drawn
dug
stethoscope to deeper tunnel
clanging cagebars
rain drops what zooms by cares not
performance as self preservation
face of impervious
the slowly drawn circle nears, lurking, respiring
a membrane within the sound
cessation without conclusion

July 17, 2018
Finnegans Wake Chapter 4 - Rio Matchett [from Waywords and Meansigns]

immediate: as though related over morning breakfast finger thump on table
scifi traffic medievaly chanting past on the interstar
repletely misoverheard
leaning close over the cafe table
not fussy about the jointures
color not corrected as gossip passed
then report per radio tv with background
journalismus

July 18, 2018
Duetto "All'idea di quel metallo"- Rossini - Failoni Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), Will Humburg, Roberto Servile, Sonia Ganassi, Ramon Vargas, Angelo Romero, Franco de Grandis, Hungarian Radio Chorus [from The Barber of Seville (Highlights)]

light orchestral touch
the air they breathe

You Made Me Love You - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

not much space on these old tracks, timewise or dynamical
best to fill it completely

Tynan Tyme - Chet Baker, Art Pepper [from Playboys]

now we got us some elbow room

A Thing Of The Past - The Shirelles [from Shirelles Anthology]

such subtlety of vocal pressure
just exactly the right weight given to each part of each syllable

no slop

Secret Agent Man - Johnny Rivers [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

something in the sound is often repressed

July 19, 2018
Selections from Finian's Rainbow - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, Joanne Deacon [from my mom's tape of a concert given May 4, 1971]

extended medley or truncated show
Irish as ethnic quaint (harmless) lesser European pastoral
LA < > NY
Hollywood < > Broadway
good enough modulations (not to write home about)

Universal Corner - X [from Wild Gift]

measures measuring measuring measures

In Session at the Tintinabulary

July 2, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 962 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer


July 16, 2018
Assembly Rechoired 57 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy

Playlist

Recorded

June 24, 2018
Symphony in B-flat, op. 60 - Beethoven - Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan

Tonality as practiced here is not a set of keys and their relationships. It is, rather, constructed from the dynamic ambiguity of scale-degree functions within contrapuntal web-works: how each pitch within the object of discourse relates to all the others as a polyvalent set of latent scale-degree functions :: as an expressive tool or a box thereof :: here's the power-up: an interval pattern is a thing but it can be set willy nilly within any particular portion of the key.

I appreciate how well this recording is engineered to sound like it is being played in an exquisite place. I'm sure it was, but it even sounds like it was. Great timp sound in the 4th movement.

Skid-Dat-De-Dat - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

Was his slow vibrato an imitation of old recording instability / spindle speed variability?

Stranded In The Jungle - The Cadets [from Original Oldies From The 50's Volume Thirteen]

silly? check.
fully realized? check.
variety show comic skit song
vaudeville :: minstrel show
place and history
Jungle :: Town
played as
Primitive :: Sophisticated
equally treacherous

Guitar Pete's Blues - Guitar Pete Franklin [from The Art of Field Recording Vol. 1]

His guitar playing is mostly a right-handed strummy picky sort of affair. A robust relation between his right hand and his singing.

voice: diaphragm | vocal cavity
guitar: lh pitch mix | rh articulation

7 O'Clock News - Silent Night - Simon and Garfunkel [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme]

the mistake was in presuming our own innocence
personal note: I was 7 when this came out. It came into my consciousness not long after, probably through the older kids at choir camp. Howsoever faux profound it is, I succumbed to it hook line and sinker.

Track 4 - Tillicum Junior High School Orchestra [from my mom's tape of a concert given March 3, 1971]

Sounds Haydnish, perhaps Weberish.

Discipline - King Crimson [from Discipline]

guitar strings are drums
long thin drums
long thin drumheads
pitch is a change in the shape of the drumbody
Learn to Play Guitar with Fripp!

Banned Rehearsal 76 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 1986]

perhaps we made a pact

tiny sounds only and yet tape machine conglomerate of sounds
piano as recorded intermezzo in the wild
my how they talk
a very Keytian play
part 2
must have been just before the Ben and Jim concert that Neal and I did
circular texts we laugh less controllably
bells and strums Leiermann BOW reference from the old days mash up Leiermann and Hidden Damage overdriven guitar lobs laser blasts at Elvis back carnival game stack-o-decks at its craziest made possible and limited by the Realistic mixer (it was cheap) the spot I'll seek if the hour you'll find there's that Stranded In the Jungle guy to where we began again at the end

pop pop
dada
thubbup
thubbup
thubbup

pronounced
pronouncement
snort
pronounced

Blue All The Way to Canada - Moe Tucker [from I Feel So Far Away - Moe Tucker Anthology 1974 - 1998]

caboodle convoy chrysler after chrysler to Canada

Yaburebukero (reduction mix) - inBoil [from Sonicabal 2001]

some uncertainty as to origins
all electro I suppose
makes a wicked rattle of it
to vibrate your whole skeletal
really shake it

June 25, 2018

"...woe my road is spoken..." (midi draft 1 060522) - Keith Eisenbrey

my string quartet in an early finished version
unlike some I have the ability to forget details of my own composition
so that though I know this changed considerably I can't recall precisely at which point it veers
sudden nonsequiturs of harmony-timbre, clearly made segments
all there rudely

You Don't Know - Rachel Harrington [from Celilo Falls]

about as perfect a thing as can be
just guitarplucking, singing, and a wee bit'o'harp blowin' here and there.

Banned Telepath 47 Seattle - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy [April 2016]

for 908 so long ago
a common aspect of BR has become the easy way we can move around the room, with happy dis-regard, or with focused regard, of where we are in relation to the microphones. I have skewed this somewhat in my current setup: 2 stereo channels, one aimed LR, the other UD (Up Down). It rounds it, but the sounds still move scitter scatter playing squeaky mouse nose right up the camera there restless jitters quick and that is all

June 26, 2018
Overture to The Barber of Seville - Rossini - Failoni Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), Will Humburg [from The Barber of Seville (Highlights)]

pre-highlights highlights
something is about to happen kids
pay mind

Sunset Cafe Stomp - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five (with May Alix) [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

Is the sense of what was meant by "Stomp" in this context derived at all from the Southeastern Native American "Stomp Dancing?" If so, how?

That's All Right Mama - Elvis Presley [from First Live Recordings]

false starts for laughs
takin' care of business
beatnik nerves

Scarlet Purple Robe - Georgia Jean Eversole [from The Art of Field Recording Vol. 1]

immediacy inescapable
punk gospel
you've been preached to up close

Psychotic Reaction - Count 5 [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

somebody is playing with dials at the board
makes it sounds like rubber bands

June 27, 2018
Track 5 - Tillicum Junior High School Orchestra [from my mom's tape of a concert given March 3, 1971]

neoclassical, and pretty classy too.

Son of Manhasset - University of Washington Contemporary Group Improvisation Ensemble [from a private tape of a concert given at the Seattle Concert Theater in July 1981]

Does anybody remember where exactly the Seattle Concert Theater was?
me on piano I think
it is a mistake to demonstrate, by what we play, that we have heard what another has played.
hear and do, it is enough

Ferryboat Bill - The Velvet Underground [from Another View]

pencil sketch collective

Banned Rehearsal 266 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [August 1991]

some appliance hums and tocks in the back behind guitar mbira ocarina cymbal toy piano (fan in

August?)
disresonantly metalictocky
something vanished
drum shaker vocal like an official whisking compounds to make drum corps
funmaker duly introduced
Aaronsbundler tattered away into old radio land
advanced dance calls for rhomboid dancing
empty brain rattle can
where does the sound come from
did he we mean it to sound like that
behind that drum beat beat beat bidi beat beat beat a moil resolving to their drums at tether length
there's that clavichord consorting with toy piano
tuning the last piece he wrote
we filled those cassettes
crammed them

June 28, 2018
Pay Me My Money Down - Bruce Springsteen [from The Seeger Sessions]

hitchin' a ride on another starshine
so that no voice other 'cep'n' his can be heard as an individual

Desert Bloom - S. Eric Scribner - Ivan Arteaga [from Storm Sound Cycle, The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, on May 21, 2006]

music like weather
and the ground

ample time for an interval to be a slough

Falling On Your Face - Ravenna Woods [from Alleyways and Animals]

accelerating subtly then de-accelerating ratchet-like through broad but delineated space
four ways to fill the same space altered

Playlist

Recorded

June 19, 2018
Mona - Youth Rescue Mission [from Youth Rescue Mission]

a tinge of string band and blood harmony
later, the center of sound scatters

Banned Rehearsal 908 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt - April 2016

assembled from Banned Telepaths 47 - Aaron playing Wallace in Somerville, MA; Karen, Steve, and me chiming in at the Tintinabulary in Seattle
sounds' seeming mass
moving air
massive instrument objects
to move air in specific modes
Wallace enters the space
otamatone answers
a trio for two pianos and otamatone
Steve provides essential percussion entwinings
actuation centers wander about the space
light percussion takes the field
copper pipe insulation squeak speak.

A Voluntarie - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

an ordered garden path
a path of vistas

Jazz Lips - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

horns dancin' wild

Slippin' And Slidin' - Little Richard [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

piano and drums keep it lively for bouncing voice and horn on

Mr. Ed's Theme Song - Jay Livingston

well there it is

A Poem On The Underground Wall - Simon and Garfunkel [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme]

egregious poeticizing
insufficient song

June 20, 2018
Track 3 - Tillicum Junior High School Orchestra [from a private tape of a concert given March 3, 1971]

a little waltz, probably some J. Strauss or other

Two Hymns of Brahma - David Jones - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Michel Singher [from a private tape]

Americana brash, then going for exotic ala Hollywood, in the service of which we find some pretty nice colors

I Know What I Know - Paul Simon [from Graceland]

He writes this from the sound first, then downward into the song. It is no better a song than it needs to be to inhabit the sound from within which it emerges. PS as groove assembulator.

June 21, 2018
Psalm 23 (meditation, responses) - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer

This 1991 score still intrigues me, specifically as it concerns the question of what small part of the

final performance result is actually written down. The score consists of a small book of page pairs. One facing page contains a verse from the Psalm and the other holds two short fragments of written music, the first fragment of which is always the same. In performance I improvised a path from the constant fragment to each not so constant fragment. This particular recorded realization (there have been several) follows my entire clavichord take with an edited version of Neal's reading. I guess, in some sense, this is the (responses, meditation) version of (meditation, responses). Listening to it after all these years I'm thinking I should do more composing for clavichord.

X-Communication - The Sub/Con Group [from Sonicabal 2001]

industrial-like sounds
between sci-fi Foley sound and music sound
unfortunately it wanders into  recognizable beat stuff
if it is a drum machine then it is making a point about drum machines that didn't much need making
if not, then ditto
a paucity of color

Nocturne Interruptus - Brad Anderson [from Dark Energy / Interstellar Pianos]

honest cheap sounds thrills naked non-finesse

Consort of Voices - S. Eric Scribner - Clifford Dunn, Keith Eisenbrey, Matt Kocmieroski, Dale Speicher [from Storm Sound Cycle {private recording}]

the tempo is somewhere in the single digits per minute, and mostly whole notes
some minimalist stratagems wander through to reveal, briefly, the spirit that had hovered throughout
I believe this was the final piece in Steve's 9+ hour live epic Storm Sound Cycle, performed at the Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, in May of 2011. I don't remember what instrument I was playing.

Animal - Ravenna Woods [from Alleyways and Animals]

interval :: production-distance between overdubbed tracks :: vocal/piano drums/synth :: reverbillumination
artpop

In Session at the Tintinabulary

June 18, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 961 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer

We gathered on the porch for the first time this Summer.

We note that it is pretty close to the 34th Bannediversary (June 24, 1984).

Playlist

Recorded

June 5, 2018
Psalm 23 (meditation, responses) (vocal take) - Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 1991]

I made this quasi-setting of the 23rd Psalm in 1991 for speaking voice and clavichord, intending the

Eastern Washington

finished product to be some sort of recorded rendition. When Neal read the Psalm for me that August I wasn't entirely certain how the text would fit in with the clavichord commentary. Eventually there were two finished versions, the first accomplished with analog dubbing, and the second, realized some years later, with digital. Listening to my verbal instructions to Neal I find that my concept of how texts ought to be set has not changed much over the decades. I want to hear the sound of the words going by so that they mean what they mean, with minimal dramatic characterization or word-painting, and always being cognizant of the poetic structure.

Coffin and a Six Pack - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

vintage sounds
sample-ready

Thirty-Three Seconds - Storrs Barrett Booch-Williams [from Sonicabal 2001]

apparently a Cage tribute track

Shenandoah - Bruce Springsteen [from The Seeger Sessions]

Baker City, Oregon

Of all the various ilks of americana out there, I think I mistrust the overinflated rural-sentimental the most, as it winds so close to icky ante-bellum nostalgia.

Circle Song - Steve Scribner - Ivan Arteaga, Mike Sentkewitz (?) [from Storm Sound Cycle (live on May 21, 2011)]

against a backdrop
augmenting the distance to the lively made sounds
nocturnal
during
sleep

Good Friend - Ravenna Woods [from Alleyways and Animals]

careful and organized arrangement
buttjoints
greeting card sentiment

June 6, 2018
A Fancie - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

imitative
proto-fugal
any passing place can generate all things new
routes kept open
civilization seeps outward

Big Butter and Egg Man from the West - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five with May Alix [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

vocals occupy a lesser place within the song structure
it is a song, but the instrumentals are the show, the vocal bits are present only enough to register

Since I Met You Baby - Ivory Joe Hunter [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

another greeting card
an illustrated letter
it is what she wants to hear so it is what you tell her

River Line Blues - Shirley Griffith [from The Art of Field Recording vol. 1]

guitar and voice are one
pitch/meterpoint syncopation // guitarstringtimbre voice word confluence and retrofluence

For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her - Simon & Garfunkel [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme]

I can't help but think Paul was as frustrated with Pop as with folk rock - but that the full on blues had been foreclosed by Mr. Dylan. He had to futz around for a bit before he really hit his song-writing stride.

Track 2 - Tillicum Junior High School Orchestra [from a private tape of concert given March 3, 1971]

bass booms out into a time warp
affects not just the EQ but also the rhythm sense, as in organ music

June 7, 2018
Terminal Preppie - Dead Kennedys [from Plastic Surgery Disasters]

feeds off some of the same misanthropic sophomoranticisms as Saint Zappa.

Readings of a Sonata - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 1986]

Neal and I dink around with another old score of mine, Sonata 1979
We trade-off readings to use up unused tape footage
We accomplish 3 full readings and the first part of a fourth

It's a graphic score so all the notes and rhythms are different, to varying degrees

sounds great, in that cruddy way we had, all the way

8-Ball Deluxe - 7 Year Bitch [from Kill Rock Stars]

Batman rhythm with a slippery bit
quantitive meter in action as rhythm

C'mon Jenny - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

what surf rock sounds like sitting in the rhythm section

Tokyo Fist - Alex Keller [from Sonicabal 2001]

radio signal morsey sound
(love it!)

Banned Rehearsal 702 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 2006]

geography of inhabiting

how where and across what extent do the determinable agendi specify their place or their vectors or their circulations

never quite settling for a trio for long

though the constant xylophone (all hail!)

sound assembly takes time (give it)

and so delicate

because it isn't what it is without how it got to be

In Session at the Tintinabulary
June 5, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 960 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

June 11, 2018
Yellowstone 180611 - Keith Eisenbrey

I skipped blogging last Saturday because Karen and I were on the road by mid-that-morning to make a week's long loop among the five northwestern states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, in order of our arrival in each. At the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone, on a windy day (hang on to your britches, dear, it's pretty gusty) I made this recording of our footfalls on one of the older boardwalks.

June 13, 2018
Phillipsburg 180613 - Keith Eisenbrey

10 years ago, during a similar road trip, we passed through the lovely little town of Phillipsburg, in

Montana. The memory stuck in my head all these years as "wouldn't it be nice to spend some time here?" So this time we did. After supper at Silver Mill Restaurant & Saloon (quite nice!) Karen and I opened the balcony windows of our room at The Kaiser House (the Mural Room) to take in the fresh air. I quickly grabbed my recording device to pull in the bird songs and the hominine shouts and the motor roars from the magic hour far from home.

Playlist

Recorded

May 20, 2018
Sellingers Rownde - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

differentiating between the strummy-beat stuff and the fiddly-bit stuff
each goes its way

but the strummy-beat leads the dance
the purpose of variations, here, is not to venture far far afield, but to delight in wit and subtleties
and oh the delight!

Death Might Be Your Santa Claus - Rev. J. M. Gates [from Goodbye Babylon]

Sprechstimme inverted
not song sinking toward speech
but speech lifting toward song

Rollin' Heart - Vaughn Monroe [a Rescued Record]

advice (mixed)
big voice
just enough electric guitar (?) for an awesome solo
and horns!
and backing vocals!
fanfare to end

Milestones - Bill Evans Trio [from Waltz for Debby]

a trio's trio
(not a piano solo with backing band)
a piece for trio solo with occasional spotlights

The Dangling Conversation - Simon & Garfunkel [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme]

for the benefit of the music biz
he shows of what he is professionally capable
can songwrite
can sing
can arrange
can mix
can even do a subtle bit of acting there in the singing, like Bowie made a whole career of

Unnamed Track #14 - Tillicum Junior High School Band [from my mom's tape of March 1971]

vigorously triumphal
a bit wooly in the composition department
pointless repeats
time falling flat

Killer - Walt Wagner [from Caprice]

audition sampler tape portfolio resumé
hire me
what I can do
goes around at least once too many times
trying to outcool Bernstein
please don't

Seventeen Prepuntal Contraludes - Keith Eisenbrey [from my recital of February 2018]

Me, back in the day, with what I thought was a nice shirt

I had more bravado in the tempos when I was younger
I play more carefully now
the piano writing is, if am allowed to brag, fab.
I divvied up the pieces so that I could turn the pages myself
this created an interesting set of mini-suites, new to this reading

Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring - J. S. Bach [from Hallmark's Listen to the Joy]

the arrangement is painfully awful
the instrumental sounds fail to earn their place
not even the harpsichord can save it, just sounds antique-y, not authentic

Banned Rehearsal 265 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [August 1991]

only way to get a large legacy
sounds like Toad Hall in the Age of Resin
crud-organ and violin duet
Russian Ouster Overture in light of this week's events
duet with distance
plain as it gets
dirt in the down down in the dirt
low in the crud effect like that of the butterfly but more sublime, universal
the sort of vintage sound one never hears on radio
what the 90s really sounded like
Gorbo's gone Gorbo's back just like that he rose on the third day
mocking percussion solo accompaniment by ROO
this is the other tune
the one not known by Harry Truman
becoming drum circle for comment and prophecy
Literary criticism Howl was the clearin' of his throat
oom ba baby slide whistle ghostings extended vocal duet in tongues
how timely, for Pentecost
buddha baby doo dah boobfood
discourse about scat
sitting up (the struggle)
some dirty limericks

Tombstone Track - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

darkedged beachboys highschool dragrace legendsong

The Magical Fairy Princess - The Bran Flakes [from Sonicabal 2001]

soundtrack for creepy animation film doll toy object person
like a puppy dog's tummy not its tail

Ballin' The Jack - Brad Anderson [from Dark Energy - Interstellar Pianos]

pianistic figurations as blunt object combat
structured like artsy mini psychohorror film with sci-fi tinge

Misc 110518 - Keith Eisenbrey [May 2011]

four seconds of sound scraps I found on my hard drive a few years ago. Two of them are the only bits of sound I was ever able to extract from C-Sound, one is a wee bit of Padme from Star Wars Episode 1, and the fourth is Microsoft Sam. Not in that order. You could listen to it several times in the time it takes to read this.

Alleyways - Ravenna Woods [from Alleyways & Animals EP]

Prince Costello as a baritone

(blogger's note: from Byrd to Ravenna Woods in a day!)

May 23, 2018
Munsers Alman - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

block chords given several species of spins and vectors
each vector and spin given its own several and back again

On Jordan's Stormy Banks We Stand - Seventh Day Adventist Choir [from Goodbye Babylon]

anotomical ecstasy song
prophecy and prayer commingled

Serenata - Walter Piston - New York Chamber Symphony of the 92nd Street Y, Gerard Schwarz

miniature Great Moments
by the book in the middle of the road

Porgy (I Loves You, Porgy) - Bill Evans Trio [from Waltz for Debby]

just one of those things
just one of those perfect things
he sings a song and opens a window and turns back to sing the song
he sings the song

Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall - Simon & Garfunkel [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme]

oh that ever so meaning laden last dissonant tkwhang #so #sincere

Unnamed Track #15 - Tillicum Junior High School Band [from my mom's tape of March 1971]

unidentifiably familiar accelerando dance from further Europe

Now Those Things Are Gone - Walt Wagner [from Caprice]

unable to not overplay his hand
unable to not overact the song

Unlabeled Track 4 - Empire Brass Quintet [from American Brass Band Journal Revisited]

bandstand in the park
of a Summer

May 24, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 75 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 1986]

unsightly clavichord hair

the dijeridu
was nu
now she finishes the muffin story
the dangers of conformity
Ashgrove
bran' new life
gonna have me a wife
itsa bran' new day
gonna go down
to Californighay
lots of pluck
Strum und Din
honing in on that perfect disintonation
Aku in the back (ground)
winding toys up letting go
Eccliastical Musings screeching away glorioso
all of the old odd faves
(liberated intonation)
sacrificing accuracy in favor of precision or vice versa
all those metronomes Neal and I recorded like a cricket field
vamp to close
never fade

Toast - Infamous Menagerie

pressed into descent
forced down
arm wrestle resistance
what they are saying is for tribal members only

Long Hair Lenny - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

novelty song pastiche
. . . with your wavy curls

Third of Thumbs - atlatl [from Sonicabal 2001]

big bee buzz the floor bass (disturbs cats)

In Session at the Tintinabulary

May 21, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 959 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Playlist

Recorded

May 8, 2018
A Fancie - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

like Spring weather
if you don't like it
wait a few minutes
it will wander into other segments

did Byrd ever write anything that wasn't fancy?

Mama's Angel Child - Papa Stovepipe [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

acoustically inflated at the mid/low guitar range
as though the recording set up created a virtual box
with a virtual hot spot
I was rather taken by the wide ranging tune and by how it was referenced between voice and guitar

Roll Over Beethoven (live) - Chuck Berry

more advertisement for the brand
reckless guitar

Some Other Time - Bill Evans Trio [from Waltz for Debby]

duples answer to start
then wander
but always with eyes fixed on each other

the bass player steps a great distance across the strings
one giant leap for a tune
one piece of cake for the plucker

The 59th Street Bridge Song - Simon & Garfunkel [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme]

moves along pretty quick for a song about slowing down
over just like that nothing to it

Unnamed Track 13 - Tillicum Junior High School Band, Bob Runyan [concert of March 3, 1971, from my mom's tape]

somebody playing their recital piece on piano

Someday - Walt Wagner [from Caprice]

a mood
you know
for the big screen

Pretty Words - Elvis Costello [from Trust]

hoisting voice up to the chorus from the verse
can't stay long
nor after

Banned Rehearsal 74 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 1986]
But first the Overture.
(hey kids let's play this piece I just wrote in Australia [Retrato de Euchababilla] I'll play the funmaker and we can all caterwaul along)
I had completely forgotten
and yet how marvelously grotesque!
We take pains to sort of match pitch
without being overly concerned with actual success
that is
heavy on the sort of
more like a game
Bravo

Neal's song Electric Garbage pickin' it up by the bushel

song to dance

In Session at the Tintinabulary

May 7, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 958 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Giddy. We were giddy. Aaron's rubber chicken only made it giddier.

May 13, 2018
Who would True valour see - Keith Eisenbrey - University Temple Chancel Choir, Chris Vincent, director

In the late oughts I wrote a number of hymn tunes to old texts. This one was written in January of

2008. The name of the tune is "Bianca Kaitlin," after a niece. The particular impetus was a conversation I had with our pastor at the time, Rev. Mary Boyd, concerning the well known setting "He who would valiant be." I don't remember anything else about the conversation other than that I decided to set John Bunyan's original words. I did make some effort to write the harmony as square and solid as I could. I was mostly successful, though the way the tune ended up going demanded some challenging internal cadences. Our little church choir sang magnificently. Thank you Chris Vincent for asking if I had anything we might perform and also for doing such a beautiful job with it.

Writing hymns is an interesting experience. As a composer you have to get yourself out of the way of so much. It really isn't about you.

Playlist

Recorded

April 21, 2018
She's Creepy - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

Imagine if The Sonics' ur-proto-punk The Witch had been written by Paul Revere and performed, by The Raiders, as though they were The Ventures. How Northwest can you get?

Play Station Central - Orion O'Malley Hughes & Lightnin' John Daley Three Turtles [from Sonicabal Vol. 2]

noise not reduced
mega chalkboard skqqqueeeel

microphone held right up to the crater's edge

Caldero del Diablo - Brad Anderson [from Dark Energy - Interstellar Pianos]

bare figurations from the fount of bare figurations

battle ray guns and shields zip zap zzzzingggg

Banned Rehearsal 792 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 2011]

music box joplin picks up where it left off in the last episode

we take pine cone turns to speak until distinction is presumed to talk at once

follow each thought pattern as it puts itself together
center on the most difficult
maintain incongruity in a leveling world

rhythm generation
low tones on electric piano
frame drum wash board suspended cymbal
xylophone various gongs and what nots
tasteful use of the pitchbend on the midikeys

The Humma Song from OK Janu - A. R. Rahman, Badshah, Tanishk Bagchi, Shashaa Tirupati & Jibin Nautyal [from Bollygood Vol. 1]

appropriating cultural appropriation
lots of characters to keep track of

April 22, 2018
The Carmans Whistle - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

Imagine the englishy words: "Heare the carmans whistle blowe" or the like, in the likeness of the children's round Hear the Lively Sounds of the Frogs in Yonder Pond, which now I imagine one could use as the basis of a Byrd pastiche.

That last simultaneity is a killer.

Graysom Street Blues - Margaret Johnson [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

following each vocal line find the instrumental commentary

Rock and Roll Ruby - Warren Smith [from Sun Records Definitive Hits]

hold tight to the formula
be sure the brand name is clearly visible at all times

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

magical dance of consideration among the trio members

Homeward Bound - Simon & Garfunkel [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme]

This is about as tightly written a song as any they produced back in the day. Up there with The Boxer.

April 24, 2018
Unnamed Track 11 - Tillicum Junior High School Band, Bob Runyan [from my mom's tape of a concert on March 3, 1971]

One of those tunes ubiquitous on UHF commercials 100 Favorite Classical Melodies (none of that boring stuff in between)

A Song for Cynthia - Walt Wagner [from Caprice]

off the shelf tune-smithery, pre casio pre-set

Cache Cache - The Who [from Face Dances]

I'm honestly not sure why anyone bothered with this.

Dulcimer Tunes and Anti-Muffins - Karen Eisenbrey [April 1986]

She could have been out partying (I was in Australia) but instead she made this tape. First some tunes then she reads a L'Engle story. Almost finishes it too!

April 26, 2018
Lounge Act - Nirvana [from Nevermind]

It starts with a second or so of Lurchish groan. At the very end is a similarly brief electroid fade-out. These post-production idea bits come across as being distinctly outside the songness of the song (which song I rather like by the by). They are production decisions, or electronic music compositional decisions - in that they force us to take this recording as a recorded object, in contra-distinction to allowing us to accept it as a song that happens to have been recorded for distribution. They echo each other bookend-ishly: a framing device, an Apology, in the old sense, much in the same vein as the arch title. Interesting, but I'm not convinced it does the song any particular favors.

Evil Martian - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

Same pre-ambular idea as LA above, but this time straight out of the novelty song grab bag: a sci-fi sound of yore around which a pastiche of yore is woven.

Sphygmomanometer - Mabuse [from Sonicabal Vol. 2]

The opening hit is allowed to inhabit and breathe, inadvertently highlighting the problem with inserts from outside the song such as in LA and EM above: they tend to either outshine or distract, as though the song were not convinced of its own entityhood. Here the insert is the show, with no song to photobomb its glory.

Banned Rehearsal 701 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 2006]
we are waiting for Neal to arrive (he does about 10 minutes in)
me on electric guitar
Karen an various crude bells, whiny wind, washtubbass
there he is, through the door in the left speaker
another guitar amplified, amply modified
lifts Karen back to crude tractor clutch bells
we shred after our fashion
recede to dry bones
scratchy throat
done

In Session at the Tintinabulary

April 23, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 957 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt

Ominous

Playlist

Recorded

February 17, 2018
You'll Do - Rachel Harrington [from Celilo Falls]

a hook
upon which to hang lines
lines that point to the hook
that point to the hook and riff around it
that's what

Gradus 286 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [March 2016]

particular qualities of otherness
not that other
but how other

an interval set is a set of ways that two pitches can sound when compared

odd how suddenly it now sounds like parts of triads
as though a new layer had appeared from where?

applying precise oomph to these notes can effect a sense of modulation
one key sense to another among just only these 3 or 4 pitch classes

merged voices: played voice / space voice

February 18, 2018
Will Yow Walke the Woods Soe Wylde - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

the keyboard setting of a song becomes a staged dialogue of the song it sets
virginal: lute simulator

Black Bottom Stomp - Jelly Roll Morton [from Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz]

circus clown juggle act

End of My Line - Woody Guthrie [from Columbia River Collection]

a scene from the electrification of the rural West (recent then and not yet 100 years done)

Mine Or Yours - Chet Baker and Art Pepper [from Playboys]

selling cool elegance
up-to-the-minute expertise

Cry For a Shadow - The Beatles [from The Beatles Anthology Volume 1]

an audition tape instrumental
would you hire this band behind your singer?

Lake Hills ca 1971

Scarborough Fair - Canticle - Simon & Garfunkle [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme]

How very English! To what extent was folk rock's influence on rock in general a bulwark against African-American culture, and to what extent was it an implicit, but near silent, acknowledgement of it? I suppose it would take some subtle tweezers to determine.

Unnamed Track 4 - Tillicum Junior High School Band, Bob Runyan, director [from my mom's tape of a concert given on March 3, 1971]

the muscular West
triumphalist tales we teach our teens

The Sheltering Sky - King Crimson [from Discipline]

a silent journey into the wilderness
a soundtrack
as it passes over the horizon the drum remains last seen
the tallest mast

Spirit In The Night - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen Live 1975-1985]

Mock Myth Romantic Days of Freedom
but sincere, as though everyone was exactly there
sharing shared experience exactly
each desiring so strenuously to be larger than life could be

February 19, 2018

Banned Rehearsal 260 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [June 1991]

at Toad Hall, an echo place

reading from On The Road (Ezekiel vision of Wrath to the West)
cosplaying literarily as angels

Aaron at Toad Hall ca 1991

make sounds like snoring

plunk plunk mbira plunk

not energetic
importing sounds doesn't change that - still not energetic

drunken spouting
each on their own bar stool
into feedback coda

Happy Happy Happy We!

Handel and Shakespeare duel it out powerless
exit clown into my grave
Kerouac returns to close

Gonna Have Fun - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

neo Sun Records sound

February 20, 2018
Ariel - Greg Sinibaldi - Greg Sinibaldi, ewi/electronics; Ryan Ferriera, guitar; Ted Poor, drums

I'll be writing a review of this album soon I hope. These are from my notes of a second listen.

breathing in dense atmosphere or liquisphere deep ocean saturn exhalation bubbles rise irretrievable The Monster caged rattles something in the room [did the first time around too, the shades?] 1st cut has lots of power rock vibe to it downbeats seem clear until you try to latch on

roles: of ewi || of drums || of guitar

or: when it does resolve into power repetitions it doesn't last, it dissolves or just falls apart glueless

chopped sound like dicing attitude-challenging fleas

the stage moves around us to a different room
not moving forward through time from then to now and beyond
sense of looping back without repeating cyclic drones notwithstanding
GS has come stuck in untime

what remains unprocessed the substrate of real life or the encrustation of it upon

certainly nothing light about it nor glib

cats are going a bit bonkers

Ruggles monumentality? hm.

a homogeneity: same? amp system; same? guitar; same? drums? for each cut
has always seemed an alien mindset (my problem though I guess)
or rather: the space is so repletely filled at all moments that we are thrown upon variations in viscosity as a lifeline

ends with gentle quiet

In Session at the Tintinabulary

February 19, 2018
Gradus 328 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

quite the list of notes to begin with, taking up a considerable time in telling them

first sounds all thick close
close wound ivy vines
thick and woody

each either new or a reference or mathematically postulated
folded into the crumple of crumpling time
the exactly knife edged →there←

a compositional stance earnedly arising within a weberberance of further indextualization

Playlist

Live

September 23, 2017

Sahba Sizdahkhani

Ivan Arteaga
Sahba Sizdahkhani
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Strings and Pulleys - Ivan Arteaga with Allison Burke
parsing the holding into vacant space
touch weight sax fuss distance
scooted
decision tongue and seamless finger flutter

A thoughtful and intriguing tweezing out of aspects of playing saxophone in public, it was already well underway when Allison, incapable it seems of walking without aesthetic deliberation, adjusted the furniture on the stage.

Sahba Sizdahkhani
his amp says Oahu on it slant
with an eighth-note flag on the "a"

how is repetition accomplished, exactly?

Luscious layered builds, on 104-string santour and percussion played in sequence but kept alive with long loops.

Recorded

September 24, 2017
The Battell - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr

Figures on tapestry
music portrays other music
how lifelike!

Die Kunst Der Fuge, Contrapunctus XVI (Rectus) - J. S. Bach - Lionel Rogg

It ties the ear into knots keeping track of it all, but in such a whistle-y carefree way.

Tommy Dorsey

Big Fat Ma and Skinny Pa - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

And it starts with a whistle. Ultra-musicianship being pushed into lightweight shoes. Something has got to give.

After You've Gone - Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra, Sy Oliver and The Sentimentalists

The arrangement is as hierarchical as movie credits. Leader, Soloists, Rhythm, Choirs.



Oregon Trail - Woody Guthrie [from The Columbia River Collection]

A list of complaints, Whitmanesque, celebratory. How bad they was doin' was why they came.

September Song - Sarah Vaughan [from Interlude - Early Recordings 1944-1947]

She inhabits ever millimeter of those long notes. At the coda phrases are handed down through the ranks, Byrd-ish.

With A Song - Sonny Rollins [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Horn playing, here, is an expression of the shaping of the mouth's cavity, where sound is rounded.

Der Song from Witwe Begbicks Trinksalon - Paul Dessau - uncertain about performers due to poor indexing on the CD

Ein Bierhallsingspielslied.

Sing Ye A Joyful Song - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey [from concert of April 11, 1961]

My mom, as a teen

Rescued from my mom's tape.

Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa (Sad Song)- Otis Redding [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Fifth item in a row with "Song" in it, not planned. OR carves his vocal into the mix with a deepgrooved chisel. Barely a narration beyond the song structure itself.

Track 1 - Tillicum Jr. High School Band [from concert of March 3, 1971]

Another rescue from one of my mom's tapes. I believe this is a band arrangement of a von Weber concert piece for solo clarinet, played by my brother Paul, who would have been 14.

Cock In My Pocket - The Stooges [from Metallic 'KO]

Aestheticizing sophomoric crudity.

Track 2 - University of Washington Contemporary Group Improv Ensemble [from Neal's Recital Tape, May 22, 1981]

Otherwise known as Undifferentiated Functions. Neal starts center stage, playing the Bickleton Fight Song. I'm in the closet with another piano. When I eventually make my appearance it may have been the first time Karen ever saw me. We were not introduced at that time.

Pink Cadillac - Bruce Springsteen

A riff on original sin, and how the lengths of lines falling into line roll around to find the rhythm of the hook.

September 26, 2017
Banned Rehearsal 253 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [April 1991]


Our first born, a few week old, makes his taped debut. A distant radio signal finds itself somewhere in the wiring. Frogs and dogs. We pick up an activity and carry it with us to unknown parts, the thread of thought. Wastelands? Burned bare. Dischord wouldn't fit, much like life.

September 28, 2017
Sonic Brilliance 19 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Holden K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer, Kia M [July 1996]

Jumps into the thick of it. You're supposed to be a dragon. Lizard of Oz. Sounds flow right in, undirected. Why do we have all these buttons? A crowded aviary compressed into the space of sound smaller than the studio. Ringing and rattling.

Assembly Rechoired 46 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [September 2001]

Trumpet, piano, percussion. Buzzy.

Come Out And Play - Dead Vampires [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]

Close packed mass physicality. The subject matter is the mosh pit.

Banned Rehearsal 786 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [February 2011]

Shaker crickets
bell traffic
mist snake glides
occupy kalimba
finding the lower limit of audibility
ritual of not disorder not entropy
the chosen moment unyieldingly placid

Along The Path (Dreams of Emptiness) - Denise Glover [from Pathways]

Tuning in time and timing in pitch
The vocal entrance kills
Every time

In Session at the Tintinabulary

September 25, 2017

Banned Rehearsal 943 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer