Disquiets

Disquiet Junto Project 0693: Melody Sorted
The Assignment: Reorganize a familiar song note by note.

Step 1: Choose a familiar song for which you have access to the sheet music.

Step 2: Select a segment of the song, perhaps one round of the chorus and the verse — perhaps more, or less, after you finish reading these instructions.

Step 3: Write down all the notes (and their lengths) in the main melodic line.

Step 4: Alphabetize the notes, and also sort them by length, in ascending order, so an Ab goes before an A, and a quarter note goes before a whole note, and so forth. (You might also adjust for where the note falls relative to middle C, starting low and proceeding up.)

Step 5: Record results when all those notes are played in the sequence that was derived during Step 4.

Bonus round: Also consider appending to Step 5 what it sounds like when that same set of notes is played randomly.

Deadline: Monday, April 14, 2024, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.


Details: disquiet.com/0693

Disquiet Junto Project 0693: Melody Sorted

My first contribution to Disquiet Junto, responding to the prompt "Know the Shadow".

With the reference to "The Shadow Knows" in the prompt, I had the idea to recreate an old radio program. I dug around in the Internet Archive and found recordings of 1930s radio from which I cut samples. Select samples were then arranged to tell the story I wanted to tell, of a mentalist named Professor Penumbra hypnotizing the listener through the radio.

The concept of a shadow is expressed in multiple ways: in the title, within the samples, with stereo imaging, with polyrhythms, and using high- and low-frequency EQ sweeps.

To fully experience the shadow, please enjoy with headphones.

About Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/2023/11/30/disquiet-junto-project-0622-know-the-shadow/

Disquiet Junto

Professor Penumbra (disquiet0622)

My second contribution to Disquiet Junto, responding to the prompt "A Fresh Pair".

The prompt invited me to consider two disparate influences and bring them together somehow. I missed the word "cultural" in front of "influences" and assumed musical influences. I immediately had the seed of an idea: Gary Numan 1978 vs Gary Numan 2018.

Please enjoy "Splintered Android" with headphones, and be kind to your electric friends.

About Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/2023/12/14/disquiet-junto-project-0624-fresh-pair/

Splintered Android (disquiet0624)

This week's contribution to Disquiet Junto, responding to the prompt "Noise Ceiling".

The prompt consisted of a photograph of a bare bulb light fixture on a roughly-painted section of ceiling. We were asked to describe how the space sounded.

It felt like a closet to me. So I took my stereo field recorder to the utility closet in my basement and recorded a CLAP, converted it to an impulse response, and then turned into a convolution reverb patch. Essentially, I created an aural simulation of that space, which lets me place any sound within that space.

The rhythmic breathing and kick drum are placed fully in that simulated closet space, to create a sensation of "close air". The background pads also migrate from a very spacious tone to the constricted space of the closet.

Ready your headphones for "Futility Closet".

About Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/2023/12/21/disquiet-junto-project-0625-noise-ceiling/

Futility Closet (disquiet0625)

A reflection on my past 12 months of music.

1. Who Not While. A discarded sketch that set this year's solo album in motion.
2. A raw recording of an ARP-2600 that I was able to play at the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio. (https://mess.foundation) This synth part is used in the opening and closing tracks of the album.
3. You Dream You Die. This started as a purely piano composition, and I like the tension between the messy organic and the mathematical clockwork.
4. A Sensation of Nightmare and Stain. The album is well underway at this point. 
5. The Iconoclast. This year's Drone Day composition, which also marked my first live in-person performance since the 90s.
6. A Convincing Story of the Self. Experimenting with using AI-enhanced text-to-speech as a vocal element.
7. True Colors. I finally got around to finishing production of my tracks in the Cyndi Lauper cover I'm doing with Eloquent.
8. A fragment from a jam session with my friend Fred, who I am secretly recruiting for a Live Band Thing.
9. A fragment from a jam session with my friend Kevin, who I am also  secretly recruiting for a Live Band Thing.
10. Passions and Peculiarities. The title is taken from a sentence deep inside my partner's dissertation, and coincidentally this is their favorite song on the album.
11. Outside, Last Night. The last track I completed for "The Nine Doors", my first full-length Sudre's Violin album.
12. Professor Penumbra. My first contribution to Disquiet Junto.

You are twice as likely to be moved emotionally if you use headphones.

About Disquiet Junto: disquiet.com/2023/12/21/disquie…625-noise-ceiling/

Audio Journal 2023 (disquiet0626)

A response to Disquiet Junto 0627: Just Ice Society.

The vocals were created using AI-enhanced text-to-speech, using content adapted from WikiHow. 

Recorded and produced at NOSIGNAL Multimedia Labs, The Shambles, Chicago, IL USA.

About Disquiet Junto 0627: https://disquiet.com/2024/01/04/disquiet-junto-project-0627-just-ice-society/

Making Ice at Home May Seem Overwhelming (disquiet0627)

More on the 693rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Melody Sorted — The Assignment: Reorganize a familiar song note by note — at https://disquiet.com/0693/

disquiet0693 - Melody Sorted

Disquiet Junto's 693rd prompt instructed us to sort a well-known melody by note and duration. I chose "Claire de Lune" as my source material.

I don't read sheet music and my father didn't raise me to do math on paper, so I wrote a Ruby script that processes a .mid file and sorts according to various pieces of MIDI data, including note number, note name, and time between note on and off events. You can see the source at https://gist.github.com/CoralineAda/3f559279caa892a46fa2ee26fc62b339

I processed the MIDI file a few different times with different sorting criteria, then laid out the variations (including a random sort) in what I hope is an interesting progression. 

In terms of instrumentation, I used a Yamaha digital piano for the lead and a Korg M3R for the pads and accents.

More on the 693rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Melody Sorted — The Assignment: Reorganize a familiar song note by note — at https://disquiet.com/0693/

The Lunar Sort (Variations on Claire de Lune) (disquiet0693)

Felt Piano
Soundscapes
String samples

Created by DD in the morning of Friday  April 11th in Paris, Jazz ballad inspired on the lovely "First Song (for Ruth)  by Charlie Haden, following the instructions provided on this challenge:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0693-melody-sorted/

Step 1: Choose a familiar song for which you have access to the sheet music.

Step 2: Select a segment of the song, perhaps one round of the chorus and the verse — perhaps more, or less, after you finish reading these instructions.

Step 3: Write down all the notes (and their lengths) in the main melodic line.

Step 4: Alphabetize the notes, and also sort them by length, in ascending order, so an Ab goes before an A, and a quarter note goes before a whole note, and so forth. (You might also adjust for where the note falls relative to middle C, starting low and proceeding up.)

Step 5: Record results when all those notes are played in the sequence that was derived during Step 4.

Second Song (disquiet0693)

The source is the Burns song 'Ye Banks and Braes', which I selected more or less at random from an old songbook. I arranged the notes as instructed and played the resulting sequence on a recorder. The track has two parts and in the first I duplicated the recording several times, made various alterations to the pitch and created a round or canon,  adding a degree of delay and reverb. The second part is the result of playing the notes in a totally random order, again with some additional delay and reverb.

More on the 693rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Melody Sorted — The Assignment: Reorganize a familiar song note by note — at https://disquiet.com/0693/

Bars Any Bad Knees (disquiet0693)

Uploaded for the disquiet 0693

Step 1: Choose a familiar song for which you have access to the sheet music.

Step 2: Select a segment of the song, perhaps one round of the chorus and the verse — perhaps more, or less, after you finish reading these instructions.

Step 3: Write down all the notes (and their lengths) in the main melodic line.

Step 4: Alphabetize the notes, and also sort them by length, in ascending order, so an Ab goes before an A, and a quarter note goes before a whole note, and so forth. (You might also adjust for where the note falls relative to middle C, starting low and proceeding up.)

Step 5: Record results when all those notes are played in the sequence that was derived during Step 4.

I tried re-arranging the chorus of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgDKtLPp46s. The results it turns out are... not great!

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0693-melody-sorted/71471/16?u=mdh

Melody Sorted (disquiet0693)

I create original experiential music from NOSIGNAL Multimedia Lab in Chicago. The Hard Times described my music as "creepy, haunted, but also a little bit uplifting." Prolific.

The Lunar Sort (Variations on Claire de Lune) (disquiet0693)

Coraline Ada Ehmke