Veljo Good enough to stay focused >>> insclife

Without Question

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Mountaintop

winter soldier

Overcast

the war wagon

shadow squeeze

faster pussycat kill kill

Favorite Horror Movie

Disquiet Junto Project 0580: Evo Evol Evolve

The Assignment: Record a piece of music that develops like an organism evolves.

Step 1: You’re going to record a piece of music informed by evolution. Think of stages of evolution, perhaps choosing a specific animal or other life form that evolved over time.

Step 2: Record a piece of music that evolves as it proceeds, based on the patterns (phases, stages) you explored in Step 1. And yes, animals that went extinct are a potential subject.

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Track notes:

I took my inspiration from the long evolution of insect species on the planet, considering the vast scale of evolution from primordial epochs up to the present, where insect species are front-and-centre in the Sixth Great Extinction of the late Anthropocene.

SuperCollider came to mind again as a tool for realisation, since I had ‘traditional’ forms of ‘computer music’ in mind - especially Bernard Parmegiani’s epic La Creatione De Monde (1984)

Now, obviously I don’t have a) a year up my sleeve; and b) the coding faculty in SC to pull off such a gargantuan feat, but I thought it might be a cool point of reference that I could fold into my current understanding (as a beginner) in the SC environment.

Recently I got to grips with buffering audio samples and using sequences to control various patterns - both melodic and percussive. I created a couple of dictionaries of short percussive samples (kalimba, woodblock and guiro) as well as instantiating a couple of Synth objects that produce pure waves. The percussive sounds turned out well when triggered, sequenced and manipulated and I liked the interplay with the pure waves.

My track is a bit longer than my usual submissions (~6 mins) but I thought I needed a decent span of time to realise a time compression of a few hundred million years of evolution.

For the realisation, I live-coded from the initial script (see GitHub link below) and then adjusted various parameters, arguments and variable throughout. The idea was to start amongst the matter of the cosmos and then gradually render a semblance of life on Earth. Eventually, an abundance takes form, before the insect population starts to diminish at the close. It not strictly a linear progression; rather, a fairly wobbly negative exponential progression. I’m still getting to grips with controlling instruments on the fly in SC, but I think I’m improving.

I was happily surprised when I saw the spectrogram of this track. Its progression of blobs, smears and flurries of activity over a time series seemed fitting!

https://github.com/TristanLouthRobins/Supercollider/blob/main/junto0580-evo_compressor.scd.scd

[Disquiet_Junto_0580] Evo Compressor (w/SuperCollider)

This week's haiku, by Hege A. J. Lepri, inspired this improvisation on a Doheny guitar, plus effects. 
Recorded and mixed in Reaper.
Naviar haiku challenge: www.naviarrecords.com/about/naviar-haiku/

Cumulus (naviarhaiku499)

Orchestral soundscape.

I've been "testing" some gorgeous string orchestra libraries I have because next week I have a job to do with it, mostly quiet orchestral pads and soft beds. So This junto comes at the right time to try that, I played some quiet episodes combining different sample libraries and different convolutions reverbs and some Valhalla Supermassive.
The only real instrument I played is the bowed double bass, triple-tracked.
I tried to leave some pure silence a couple of time, filling it with pure reverb and resonances, I'm not sure the silent parts are what I was aiming for, I may rework this during the week end, but this is the result of this morning's work (Friday October the 20th)

Photo by Vladimir Fedotov

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0616-definition-jam

Quiet Versus Silent (disquiet0616)

More on this 621st weekly Disquiet Junto project, The Leftovers (The Assignment: Use recently discarded material to make something new), at: https://disquiet.com/0621/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0621-the-leftovers/

I'm In The House (disquiet0621)

[disquiet0631] Organismic - E

I often leave my sound recording gear outside for overnight when I am at my country house. This spring I was happy that a pair of Great Grey Shrikes built a nest in a tree in the garden. It seemed that they tolerated my occasional visits and female was already incubating the eggs in beginning of May. Then a tragedy struck. Apparently a raven spotted their nest and you can hear two minutes of desperate calls and fight of shrikes. It happed during early morning hours, so I didnt see it but its on the recording. During the day, shrikes had disappeared but in the evening one of them was around, making tentative contact calls as though looking for partner. It even sat next to a blackbird on the wire as to seek substitute companion.

Raven robbing Great Grey Shrike's nest

Biologist, naturalist and field recordist based in Estonia. 

"Sights and sounds of nature are fascinating, I try to capture them both on photos and sound recordings. Unfortunately the diversity of nature is fading away,  I hope that showing the beauty of nature will slow down the merciless destruction of nature by humankind."

Raven robbing Great Grey Shrike's nest

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