Name: runnels and oomycetes - disquiet0669 by dandante in Disquiet Junto Project 0669: Phonosynthesis
Duration: 5 min 30 s
Description: More on the 669th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Phonosynthesis — The Assignment: Make music to help a forest regenerate — at https://disquiet.com/0669/

Disquiet Junto Project 0669: Phonosynthesis

The Assignment: Make music to help a forest regenerate.

A scientific research paper this month documented evidence that sound can help fungus grow. The conclusion: “Demonstrating a tangible impact on fungal activity, our findings suggest that carefully tuned acoustic parameters might be able to enhance ecological processes.”

Record music to help a forest grow. Imagine an array of solar-powered speakers is spread through a forest-in-need. Or come up with another deployment scenario of your own imagining. What sort of music would you play for the forest to encourage its regeneration?

The research paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0295.

Coverage in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/04/science/fungus-sounds-growth.html

The paper is the work of four people from the College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, in Australia.

Thanks to Michael Rhode for having shared with me the research coverage.

Deadline: Monday, October 28, 2024, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.

Details: disquiet.com/0669

Disquiet Junto Project 0669: Phonosynthesis

Learned from a recording by Orange County Indiana fiddler, Ken Smelser. Notes on the album (Davis Unlimited 33022)state that Ken learned the tune from a Tommy Jackson record.

Ladies on a Flatboat

A tune composed by Oscar O. "Red" Wilson, of Bakersville, in western North Carolina. He was a fiddle maker and a performing bluegrass and old-time musician. In 2003 he received the North Carolina Heritage Award.  This version is after listening to recordings of Jason Cade and the band Hog-Eyed Man.  Artwork is an ink drawing of Red Wilson playing with Bruce Green. Art is by Lyndsay Wills Ferguson.

Grassy Creek

Ted Laderas is a scientist, a cellist, and electroacoustic composer. He combines cello performance techniques with sound processing techniques to expand the outer realms of the cello. Marc Wiedenbaum of Disquiet wrote of his work: “As mediated by Laderas’ bank of technology, the lone cello takes on a kind of serene majesty – sustained, rich, formidable.”

The tracks in Astoria came from a year-long project to produce an improvisation a week. They document not only my growth as a cellist, but my exploration of the electroacoustic possibilities of the cello. The year was filled with small triumphs, funerals, depression, and joy, punctuated with trips to Astoria, Oregon to recharge and recuperate.

The cello plays multiple roles in these tracks, from percussion to bass to contralto, layered together to form impossible ensembles through my use of looping, pitchshifting, and reverberation. Astoria is a confluence of lullabies, hymns, and chamber symphonies into a coherent and satisfying whole.

The OO-Ray - Palimpsests

Tune learned from a Buddy Thomas recording.
Peter Honig  -- fiddle
Dave Howard  --  guitar
1991

Short's Addition

More on the 669th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Phonosynthesis — The Assignment: Make music to help a forest regenerate — at https://disquiet.com/0669/

more halF unusuaL

halF fungaL [disquiet0669]

I’ve always had plants in my studio, and someone once told me that even if sunlight is limited, the constant presence of music playing every day helps keep the plants healthy.

I don’t know about that, , but they look great and seem to grow steadily.

“Record music to help a forest grow.”

I believe that simply having musicians play acoustic instruments in the forest would only bring good to it.

Here I just played “woody”, natural percussion instruments, bamboo drums, wood sticks and blocks, conch shells, cuica, marimba, bombo legüero, talking drum and some other toys. I recorded 3 versions, this is the “fast” one.

Rain Forrest (Fast) - disquiet0669

Phonosynthesis

Disquiet Junto | Phonosynthesis - disquiet0669

According to my research of various websites, the consensus seems to be that calmer types of music are more conducive to plant growth. This track was created using Pure Data & various plugins, etc.
More on the 669th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Phonosynthesis — The Assignment: Make music to help a forest regenerate — at https://disquiet.com/0669/

Dendrosymphonic (disquiet0669)

Regeneration(disquiet0669)

runnels and oomycetes - disquiet0669

More on the 690th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Knot Bad — The Assignment: Interpret wood grain as a graphic score — at https://disquiet.com/0690/

disquiet0690

As the old saying goes, "it's Monday, May 19, 2025, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) somewhere!"  I downloaded "naphthous merenge" by dandante (https://soundcloud.com/dandante/naphthous-meringue-disquiet0697?in=disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0697) and added a new part to it. I figured the original part felt like it had a lot of high and mid-range, so I added a bass part. I improvised a bass synth accompaniment, then nudged it forward a few milliseconds so it would feel more coordinated with the solo and less reactive. 
Then, I noticed the violin part had some buffer/stutter effects, so I added that to my accompaniment as well. I listened to the violin track and switched the stutter effect "on" for the bass track when I heard it in the violin track. This felt like a nice call and response, and I think it's a cool effect to hear it echoing panned extreme left and then extreme right.

The end result is roughly 177 bpm, if anybody wants to add to this!

* * * * *
More on the 698th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Second Third — The Assignment: Record the second third of a trio — at https://disquiet.com/0698/

chopitch (quiet0698)

This is my second submission to this week's Disquiet Junto assignment. The audio panned all the way to the left was recorded by Matthew Mirliani as the first part of a trio. The right channel contains dandante's contribution for the second part of the trio. My contribution can be heard panned to the center.

More on the 699th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Third Third — The Assignment: Record the final third of a trio — at disquiet.com/0699/

Third Third Two [disquiet0699] w/Matthew Mirliani and Dandante

Ok this song is a remake of a song off my third album. Holly liked it and wanted to sing to it. So here we are! 

Prince April

PRTTYBY

Performed by Slee Sinfonietta, April 14, 2015; Brad Lubman, conductor; Julia Bentley, mezzo-soprano.  In collaboration with the Buffalo Philharmonic as part of the "Charles Ives:  An American Maverick" Festival.

Lou Harrison - At the Tomb Iof Charles Ives

My 33 1/3 series book about the Aphex Twin album <i>Selected Ambient Works Volume II</i> was published in 2014. The book was one of the top 5 bestselling titles for the calendar year, and in 2015 was ranked by Pitchfork as one of the "33 best" of the 100-plus books in the 33 1/3 series. It has subsequently been translated into Japanese (2019) and Spanish (2018)

Since 2012 I have moderated the Disquiet Junto group, which began on SoundCloud. More at disquiet.com/junto. 

I've written for Nature, Pitchfork, The Wire, Down Beat, Boing Boing, NewMusicBox, Red Bull Music Academy, Art Practical, the website of The Atlantic, and many other publications. 

I've exhibited sound art at galleries in Los Angeles (Crewest), Manhattan (apex art), and Dubai (DUTAC), and I had a audio-visual installation at the San Jose Museum of Art as part of its 45th anniversary.

And since 1996 I've run the website Disquiet.com about the intersection of sound, art, and technology.

runnels and oomycetes - disquiet0669

dandante

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