Track made for the Disquiet project 0549 Sidelines.

Anomia (disquiet0549)

More on this 549th weekly Disquiet Junto project – Sidelines (The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo) – at: https://disquiet.com/0549/ 1

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

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Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0549-sidelines/

PolyRhythmic Phase I

Disquiet Junto | Sidelines | Polyrhythmic Phase I - disquiet0549

This is a response to the 0549'th Disquiet Junto challenge - this time, prompting the composer to thing about stereo, and how it can influence like a compositional tool. 

This piece is put together with many experiments of pan'ing, rhythmical and otherwise, through different LFO's, copy of tracks, rhythmical gating of synth VST's and effects - and this is what I ended up with. I wonder, if anyone else can hear, how the concept of stereo influenced this piece?

Tools used include Valhalla SuperMassive, MaxForLive LFO and LFO Cluster, Sinevibes Switch and U-He's DIva for synth lead and SpitFires "Hammer" for percussion. 

More on this 549th weekly Disquiet Junto project – Sidelines (The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo) – at: https://disquiet.com/0549/ 1

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0549-sidelines/

disquiet0549 - Be Ips

Not sure if this fits the bill, but… A five beat rhythm track was created in Audacity, then multi-tracked and mixed with different pitches and effects and assigned to extreme left or right channels – with one mix being in “true” stereo and one dead centre in mono. A couple of mixes were placed to provide a counter-rhythm. I hope.

A drone track was added in 2 octaves (one left, one right) as well as a Bluecat mix which gives that jittery effect.

Nice and short for a change.

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The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo.

Step 1: Think about stereo for a moment.

Step 2: Now think about it a bit more — specifically, think less about using stereo as a means to give a sense of a physical space to a recording, and more about using stereo as a compositional tool.

Step 3: Record a piece of music in which you engage with stereo based on the ideas you formulated in Step 1 and Step 2.

More on this 549th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Sidelines (The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo) — at: https://disquiet.com/0549/  

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

Tone construction 03 [disquiet0549]

The band Stereolab is an all-time favorite of mine. On their last albums they use a technique they called „Dual Mono“, which lets you listen to two tracks in full stereo separation. So you get two extremely clever interwoven arrangements of one song that fit snugly together in a stereo mix. That’s super clever and, god, so hard to achieve. 

  Everything in my short track is panned hard left or right, with no exception.  I split melodies to go either left or right; the drums are more consistent and don’t move too much in the „dual mono“ field. There are some melodies oscillating fast from side to side to give a stereo impression. If you just listen to one channel, it should sound different from the other.   

Musically, sound- and production-wise, it’s a bit a train wreck. I doesn’t sound very consistent, way too fluttery, and definitely on the easy listening side, but all this trying, panning and mixing took a lot of time. Also interesting to see that my bread and butter sounds don’t work in mono. 
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Disquiet Junto Project 0549: Sidelines
The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo.

Step 1: Think about stereo for a moment.

Step 2: Now think about it a bit more — specifically, think less about using stereo as a means to give a sense of a physical space to a recording, and more about using stereo as a compositional tool.

Step 3: Record a piece of music in which you engage with stereo based on the ideas you formulated in Step 1 and Step 2.

Also: When posting the track, describe a bit of your thinking and process.

(...)

More on this 549th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Sidelines (The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo) — at: https://disquiet.com/0549/

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

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

Duophonic [disquiet0549]

In his excellent book The New Analog, Damon Krukowski suggests that listening to a quadraphonic recording is a simulacrum of the geocentric model proposed by Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy in 150 (CE). Ptolemaic cosmology assumed that the Earth was a stationary object situated at the center of the universe, and that other heavenly bodies traveled uniformly in a perfectly circular motion around it.

A different stereophonic geometry can be observed in “gandy dancers,” a nickname given to African American railroad workers in the 1920’s. Their job was to maintain and repair miles of railways in the segregated US south: replacing rotted cross-ties, refilling ballast, locking pieces of track into place, and straightening and leveling the lines to ensure safe train passage. The workers were known for their synchronized, graceful ballet that required strength and agility. 

An important aspect of railway work was the transport and installation of heavy steel rails lining both sides of the track, a process called “dogging” in which a lead workman served as the “caller” or “call man.” The caller would sing a four-beat song to mark time, and the rest of the crew would follow in rhythm, working shoulder-to-shoulder in pairs. As they tamped the ballast under ties raised with square-ended picks, the workers engaged in call-and-response to ensure that all tasks were executed safely and correctly. 

For this week’s project, Suss Müsik took inspiration from a 1939 field recording* of Zora Neale Hurston singing a traditional railroad “spiking” tune. A pair of percussion “lines” represent two sides of railroad track, each treated with glitched stereo delay in opposite left-right channels. A synthesized melody accompanies the lyric, which was passed down from a Jacksonville caller named Max Ford. The hammers heard in the original were intended to replicate the sound of spikes being driven into cross-ties, and they’re faithfully included here with bidirectional panning.

The piece is titled Gandy Dancing and is presented in honor of those who risked physical safety to produce not only infrastructure, but also a rich cultural legacy. May we celebrate their voices heard softly in the thick southern humidity, the kudzu creeping slowly onto the railway edges. 

Learn more about gandy dancers from this fascinating Folkstreams documentary: https://www.folkstreams.net/films/gandy-dancers.
More on this 549th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Sidelines (The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo) — at: https://disquiet.com/0549/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0549-sidelines/

*Citation: Kennedy, Stetson, Herbert Halpert, Zora Neale Hurston, Herbert Halpert, and Zora Neale Hurston. Dat Old Black Gal. Jacksonville, Florida, 1939. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/flwpa000005/.

Gandy Dancing [Disquiet0549]

This is my submission to the Disquiet Junto 549 and the assignment was "Get intentional with stereo". Usually I make a habit of putting all voices in my pieces purposefully on a position in the stereo spectrum or let them move around in a useful way. For this assignment I took this to a higher level. The kick and the snare are jumping from side to side. The hihat is happily hopping around. The bass just wobbles a bit. There are two melodies in which the stereoposition is connected to the pitch. There is a low melody on the left and a high melody on the right and they meet somewhere in the center.
More on this 549th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Sidelines (The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo) — at: https://disquiet.com/0549/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0549-sidelines/

Everything's moving

Everything's Moving (disquiet0549)

Thinking about stereo...

More on this 549th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Sidelines (The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo) — at: https://disquiet.com/0549/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0549-sidelines/

call and response [disquiet0549]

Disquiet Junto Project 0549: Sidelines. The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo.

What if … we would hear deep frequencies left, high frequencies right? This was the idea I applicated on a track that was already in work (most sound is Auxture with own samples plus a Grain Scanner Preset with bowed metals). Remember from the collab projects: I hate it to split up a track in two totally different channels. But while listening to this I asked my self: Why is our brain unable to merge the sounds to mono? Are there musicians in the universe who can? We can trick our eyes to make stereo images happen just by looking at two different mono images (see cover)…

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Cover based on
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Windbergwasserfall_Stereo_002.jpg

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For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

More on this 549th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Sidelines (The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo) — at: https://disquiet.com/0549/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0549-sidelines/

Windbergwasserfall Stereo [disquiet0549]

Starting with a bouncing table tennis ball and adding percussion, arpeggio and a very distorted bass, all the while messing with the stereo field with modulation (both Ableton native LFOs and CableGuys' ShaperBox).
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More on this 549th weekly Disquiet Junto project – Sidelines (The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo) – at: https://disquiet.com/0549/ 1

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0549-sidelines/

bounce (disquiet0549)

This track was born from the Bargaining chapter in “While They Were Sleeping” a moment where the main character pleads with a shattered world, begging to save those trapped in silence. But he can’t. This song is for them.

It’s for every voice that was buried too soon. for the peoples of every land suffering. For every girl who was silenced. For every boy who was forgotten. For the ones who screamed and were answered only by dust.

Musically, this is not a song. It’s a grave. It’s a prayer. It’s the sound of trying to carry an entire people’s suffering in your chest, and realizing that no melody will ever be loud enough to resurrect them but still trying. Still playing. Still lighting the candle.

“Can’t You Hear Their Voices” is for the ones who were erased, but never truly gone. It’s for the ones whose echoes live in the fire of every story we dare to tell. Listen closely. They’re still here.

call and response [disquiet0549]

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