Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.com and at disquiet.com/junto, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.

This project was posted in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, April 21, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 25, 2016.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):

Disquiet Junto Project 0225: Serial Composition
Sight read a late-1940s painting by Argentine artist Lidy Prati as a graphically notated score.

This week’s project takes as its subject a painting recently posted by art critic Blake Gopnik. Seen here, it dates from around 1948, he writes, and is by the Argentine artist Lidy Prati (1921-2008). In his description, Gopnik references Piet Mondrian, whose music is often associated with musical scores. Both the grid-like structure of Prati’s piece and its title, “Serial Composition,” suggest it as the subject of sonic investigation. Gopnik connects the piece to computers: “[I]t speaks of a system that can generate them. Computers and their algorithms seem on this painting’s mind, at a moment when computers still filled entire rooms with vacuum tubes.” (Note that as I was researching this project I came across work by Marcelo Gutman, who has created colorful score tributes to Prati.)

These are the steps for this week’s project.

Step 1: View the circa-1948 painting “Serial Composition” by Lidy Prati at this URL:

http://blakegopnik.com/post/142806762364

Step 2: Consider it as a musical score. Think about the sort of musical composition that “Serial Composition” might be.

Step 3: Record yourself performing “Serial Composition” as a graphically notated musical score.

Step 4: Upload your completed track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.

Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This project was posted in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, April 21, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 25, 2016.

Length: The length is up to you, though between two and three minutes feels about right.

Upload: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, only upload one track for this project, and be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please in the title to your track include the term “disquiet0225-serialcomposition.” Also use “disquiet0225-serialcomposition” as a tag for your track.

Download: It is preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track, please be sure to include this information:

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


Disquiet Junto Project 0225: Serial Composition

This week's Disquiet Junto project: Sight Read a painting as a graphical score. 

I examined the painting, noting the different types of symbol. I interpreted them thus:  
Black = Octaves and fifths
Red = Minor chord
White = Major chord
Horizontal line = broken chord (i.e linear) 
Vertical line = chord stab
Square = Held chord with broken chord underneath.
Where there were two lines above each other, I played two lines together. 

Examining the score closely, and you will notice that the third vertical line on the fourth row is actually more to the left than the other vertical lines - in that way I realised that each black line is three units long (hence the broken chords being three notes long). Each stab occurs at the third unit of a block of three , except that one on the fourth line that is on the first position. That is what gives rise to the unusual little syncopation just before the two major chords. 

This recording is of me literally sight reading the score at the piano.
I have tried a different one without the gaps as well, but I made a mistake so I need to re-record it when I have time. 

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

Serial Killer (disquiet0225-serialcomposition)

This week's task was to transform the image attached to this track into a graphic notation. There were 12 symbols, so following the concept of Serialism,  I transposed each symbol to a note within an octave, which I played by hand into Ableton Live via Push. I used Operator for playback and then to add embellishment I found an old piece of audio from my archives, which I hosted in the granular sampler the "Mangle", which was automated semi-randomly and triggered by the same midi notes. Some compression was added to the Operator track to add kick to the sound and some delay was added to the Mangle track to add atmosphere. Finally I used instances of Eventide's UltraChannel plugin on each channel and the master to add some depth and texture.

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

+*~ism [disquiet0225-serialcomposition]

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)

Conjecture of a Time