I interpreted Serial Composition as 7 lines of 6 bars. Each bar has three notes: three horizontal lines with the first on the bottom. Each note can be split in three, so vertical lines are in fact triplets.
The color is the velocity empty/black/red -> 75/100/127.

The composition has 5 voices from the Epic Solo Taiko. Each voice performs each line from top to bottom but loops on each line for a random number of iterations (thanks to Live follow up actions).  I got the idea from In C, and was happy enough with the results here. I keep all voices synchronized on 6 bars, but they do not start all at the same time. The composition stops when all voices have reached the final line. 

More on this 225th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Sight read a late-1940s painting by Argentine artist Lidy Prati as a graphically notated score”) at:
http://disquiet.com/0225/
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://disquiet.com/junto/
Join the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:
http://disquiet.com/forums/
Image originally posted (and viewable in larger scale) at
http://blakegopnik.com/post/142806762364

CoaT - Serial Taiko (disquiet0225-Serialcomposition)

This week's Junto involves making music for meditation.  A bell is required to toll a minute into, and a minute before the end of, the music. 

Medidation often involves focusing your attention on something that is organically changing - so I wanted my music to give some options for this, such as the repeated piano notes, or the short looping elements that gradually evolve, or the timbral and spacial changes of the reverb cloud.  I wanted the piece to gradually 'defocus' and then regain an altered focus towards the end, returning to the piano notes that it started with. Often what is sought in meditation is not 'The Answer', but a different way of questioning ourselves / our situations - so I tried to evoke that concept with a slightly questioning manner in the coda rather than having a more usual stable harmonic resolution.   With these ideas in mind, I then improvised the music using several tools to create a series of mental spaces to move through.

More on this 323rd weekly Disquiet Junto project (Music for Meditation: Record a piece of music suited to meditation) at:

https://disquiet.com/0323/2

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/1

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0323-music-for-meditation/

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

The image associated with this project is by Chris Corrigan and is used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/4XtNyA

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

(Dis)Quiet Meditation  (Disquiet0323)

Loops of different lengths laid over each other.

Meditation - disquiet0323

“Write a poem imagining your conception,” recommends Andrei Codrescu in an essay titled Exercises for Poets. “Use the breath measures that might have been those of your conceivers ... [then] write a poem about your birth. The poem itself should be concerned mainly with the journey from the moist darkness of the womb through the birth canal into the light of the world.”

Suss Müsik declines to envision such grotesque imagery, thank you very much. That being said, effective meditation is understood to be something like returning to a womblike state. One concentrates solely on breathing in order to achieve a deep form of relaxation, helping to clear the mind from the cognitive detritus that collects day-to-day.

For this lengthy piece, Suss Müsik began with a simple organ riff that was played through a Moog MF-102 ring modulator. The sound of breathing was sampled and distressed to match the timbre of metallic percussion. You might hear voices and flutes in there as well. A chime enters at the 1-minute mark and repeats just before the final ascension back to consciousness.

The piece is titled Lůno, named after the Czech word for “womb” and dedicated to little Zachary Isaac (who was born this week to good friends of Suss Müsik). The image is magnified cotton.

More on this 323rd weekly Disquiet Junto project (Music for Meditation: Record a piece of music suited to meditation) at:

https://disquiet.com/0323/2

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/1

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0323-music-for-meditation/

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Lůno [Disquiet0323]

I initially was going to only use singing bowls as the primary sound and add some ambient birdsong until I accidentally came across the recording of the Montezuma Orependola, which completely inverted the idea. I assembled the field recordings and treated some of them with Reaktor's "Spinning Through Space" effect, but only between the starting and ending chime. I'm not sure if this is everyone's cup of meditative tea, but it's definitely mine.

Recordings:
 - Scimitar Babbler: https://freesound.org/people/genghis%20attenborough/sounds/27334/
 - Laughingthrush: https://freesound.org/people/genghis%20attenborough/sounds/27434/
 - Montezuma Orependola: https://freesound.org/people/tim.kahn/sounds/184463/
 - Singing bowl 2:00 and 9:00 marker: https://freesound.org/people/Cpt_Asteroid/sounds/138671/

Soundcloud

Scimitar Babbler, Laughingthrush, Montezuma Orependola [disquiet0323]

Disquiet Junto Project 0323 - Music for Meditation
Record a piece of music suited to meditation.

This is inspired by and dedicated to my wife, Mairead. 

I hope to bring you peace and inner calm as you meditate, my love.
Namaste.

Maireaditation (disquiet0323)

“The most indubitable respect in which ideas have helped mankind is numbers,” wrote the philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell. “We have become, in certain respects, progressively less like animals [in] that forethought more and more dominates [our] impulses.”

Russell believed that all human knowledge was, at most, a best guess based upon knowledge attained to that point. In his 1903 book The Principles of Mathematics, Russell argued that mathematical concepts were immune from doubt because they were constructed entirely of logic. An algorithm is really nothing more than a process — a set of rules to be followed in order to achieve a result.

The logic breaks down because life and language are slippery, inexact and subjective. A famous example of Russell’s Paradox is the barber who shaves everybody in town except those who shave themselves. Who shaves the barber? If he shaves himself, then he doesn’t shave himself; if he doesn’t, then he does. Groucho Marx once remarked that he would never join a club who would have him as a member. Suss Müsik doesn’t really make music, nor do we do much sussing. Paradoxes abound.

For this piece, a simple four-note phrase was played on piano utilizing a scale of 8 notes. The 2431 algorithm was applied not only to note sequences, but also to sustain levels and attack times. This created a weird phasing effect during transitions. The algorithm was also applied to a “scale” of wordless vocal recordings by Suss Müsik friend, collaborator and mentor Wm. Wolfgang Allen. Expect more such collaborations from this team in the very near future. 

The piece is titled Russellian. Many thanks to NorthWoods for contributing this inventive and interesting assignment to the Disquiet Junto community.

More on this 377th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Algorithms Assemble / The Assignment: Have fun with rules applied to scales, in coordination with the Algorithmic Art Assembly — at:
https://disquiet.com/0377/ 2

The project is lightly adapted from one proposed by Junto member Charlie Kramer (aka NorthWoods).

More on the Disquiet Junto at:
https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1

Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0377-algorithms-assemble/ 2

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Russellian [Disquiet0377]

vcv rack      release date: 24_ 03_ 2019     
More on this 377th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Algorithms Assemble / The Assignment: Have fun with rules applied to scales, in coordination with the Algorithmic Art Assembly — at:

https://disquiet.com/0377/ 2

The project is lightly adapted from one proposed by Junto member Charlie Kramer (aka NorthWoods).

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0377-algorithms-assemble/ 2

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

CoaT - Serial Taiko (disquiet0225-Serialcomposition)

Conjecture of a Time