fascinating reading about your process. cool that you used your own field recordings. nice job

Great composition, sounds great, thank you for the write-up, very interesting and inspired/inspiring.

Creative and unique sounds...Awesome use of samples:) Great work Michael!

powerful captivating track, great use of those water samples, real cool disquiet challenge! sometimes minimalism is the most powerful!

Tension and mystery, nicely manipulated and sewn together.

(Sharbaugh)
Michael Ash Sharbaugh: vocals, guitar, electronics, synthesizers, samples and recordings, drum programming, and found sounds
Compiled ca. May 6, 2015 to September 18, 2023.

Here are my sonic contributions to the experimental project assignments posed by Marc Weidenbaum [https://soundcloud.com/disquiet] of the Diquiet Junto [https://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto] [http://disquiet.com/]. Each week, Marc sets forth a set of guidelines and tenets for a limited-length original composition. See the Disquiet Junto pages above -- and My explanation below -- for more specific details.

Some of my pieces follow in perfect suit to the assignment; some--although initially inspired by the Disquiet Junto assignment--veer from the project guidelines completely, and, thus, were not submitted to the Disquiet Junto SoundCloud group [https://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto]. I find them attractive just the same. I pray that You will enjoy them, as well, reveling in their embryonic and experimental gusto.

Special thanks go to Marc Weidenbaum for his inchoate prompts!

-+-

"The 'Disquiet Junto' are a group of [like-minded] musicians and sound-recordists who voluntarily participate in weekly, four-day assignments that inflict constraints upon their sound-creation processes. These constraints are intent to induce creativity WITHIN each participant, and to stimulate the communal sharing of novel ideas AMONG them. The sonic opuses that result are often achieved via experimental means -- instigated by the very nature of limitation, and through the inevitable mutability of subsequent, collaborative reworkings of extant works by group members, and those of intrepid, forward-thinking 'outsiders.'"

~ Michael Ash Sharbaugh

-+-

playlist: "disquiet junto and almost junto"

According to the story of Buzz Aldrin during his trip to the moon his vision of "fireflies" through his cockpit.....! Thanks for your listen ! : )                                              Sounds of perfect landing : https://soundcloud.com/blink-twice-archival/sets/ark-dambient-open-collab

LUNAR

(Sharbaugh)
Michael Ash Sharbaugh [ https://soundcloud.com/michael-ash-sharbaugh ]: synthesizers, percussion, and 'found sounds'
Composed and Recorded January 25 to 27, 2014.
sm3 [LANDR].

Humanizing this piece was of the utmost importance. Throughout its composition, I could not keep Bassel Safadi [ باسل صفادي ] out of my head: his plight, his privation, his predicament. I viewed the video as requested, but it ‘went in one eye and out the other’; Mr. Bassel was my prime concern.

Having never composed Syrian or Syrian-type music, I familiarized myself with Syrian music scales as approximated to Western scales. Multifid are the Syrian scales I discovered, so I settled upon one that felt aesthetically comfortable: C – Eb – E – F – Ab – (C).

Further unsure of my handle on these Syrian scales, I secured (paid for and downloaded) an improvisation based on the most ancient tablets containing Syrian music transcriptions—pianist Malek Jandali’s “Echoes from Ugarit.” Without listening to Jandali’s part, I imported the introduction to this piece into my DAW, pitch-shifted it down a whole-tone (from D to C), expanded it to conform to 123 BPM, and improvised to it myself using the musical scale outlined in the paragraph above. I recorded my improvisation. It took about sixteen takes.

I then removed (muted) Jandali’s recording and added ‘contrapuntal’ tracks—bass, bell, and strings. The driving rhythm was provided by a sample of a bottle dropped onto a concrete sidewalk and almost broken—a sonic representation of what it might be like to be in Mr. Bassel’s place. The field recording of Syrian grasshoppers was added to highlight what I could imagine would be the despondency and loneliness of Mr. Bassel’s predicament.

More on this 108th Disquiet Junto project (“Create a soundscape for the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra.”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2014/01/23/disquiet0108-freebassel/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/?p=16588

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

More on the campaign to free Bassel at:

http://freebassel.org/

For their collaboration on this project, special thanks to: Niki Korth, Barry Threw, and Jon Phillips.

Ballade of Bassel

Buy on iTunes ...

"Ballade of Bassel" [disquiet0108-freebassel]

(Sharbaugh)
Michael Ash Sharbaugh [ https://soundcloud.com/michael-ash-sharbaugh ]: synthesizers, 'found sounds,' and 'found sound' manipulation
David Seidel: [ n/a ]: sine wave generation and manipulation
Composed and Recorded ca. March 7 to 13, 2014.
sm5b [ARIA(A)].

-+-

"(This finished piece is based upon an unfinished work that was intended to fulfill the requirements for the 114th March 7-10, 2014 Disquiet Junto project, 'disquiet0114-60Hz,' which -- to paraphrase for simplicity's sake -- was 'to compose a piece of music using only pre-recorded sine waves.' Below is my description of the process.)"

~ Michael

-+-

"Prior to importing the sine wave chunks, I first fixed the tempo of my DAW to 60 BPM to reflect the frequency of the sine waves within. Therefore, with respect to the piece’s title, “Infrastructure” (named in deference to a phrase in Marc Weidenbaum’s liner notes in David Seidel’s release), I could introduce sonic elements at exact temporal multiples and divisions of the number, “60”—reflective of the frequency of those electrons flowing throughout my native United States [US].

Unsure as to whether I broke the rules or not, I layered the five chunks together, muted sections of chunks 1 and 5 in order to form a seamless bed at the instant of one minute, with beginning chunk 1 left raw and ending chunk 5 fed through a distortion and reverb.

I then chopped sections from each of the others. Those sections I had chopped up were multiplied and pitch-shifted several times to form a Bb-minor chord, a Db-diminished chord, and an F-major chord. Each ‘chord’, strained as it sounded, was fed into the same distortion bus as chunk 5, which sometimes overpowered the smaller chorded chunks due to its immense low frequency power; thus, some were barely audible.

After hours and days thinking of how to make this piece musical, I realized that all waveforms are made up of sine waves. Seeking a piano waveform and a vocal waveform, I experimented. I time-compressed several sections of the chunks and layered them, which resulted in several usable sounds distinguishable from the longer, droning chunk beds—a percussive, which I elongated by 11 measures, a ‘bleep’|‘blip’|‘bloop’, which I elongated by 4 measures, and a wind sound, which I elongated to 11 measures and then shortened yet again to 4 measures. I used these sounds to punctuate the chordal changes—the Bb-minor, the Db-diminished, and the F-major chords.

Even the reverb settings were dialed in to represent the infrastructure of the US, what with rectangular room spaces (skyscrapers) and reflective surfaces representative of concrete.

After the Disquiet Junto deadline had passed, I took up the project again added a multitude of synth lines, Rhodes-ey piano licks, and muted percussion tracks. I topped the piece off with subtle throat-singing samples from FreeSound.org:

storm#16.wav: http://www.freesound.org/people/djgriffin/sounds/22023/
tibetan chant 3.wav: http://www.freesound.org/people/djgriffin/sounds/15363/ "

~ Michael

-+-

"More on this 114th Disquiet Junto project — “Combine elements of Dave Seidel’s album ~60 Hz (Irritable Hedgehog)” — at:

http://disquiet.com/2014/03/06/disquiet0114-60hz/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/?p=16588

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

The source audio is from Dave Seidel’s ~60 Hz album, released on the Irritable Hedgehog record label. More on the album at:

http://recordings.irritablehedgehog.com/album/dave-seidel-60-hz "

~ Marc Weidenbaum

-+-

Infrastructure

Buy on iTunes! ...

"Infrastructure" (based on [disquiet0114-60Hz])

(Sharbaugh)
Michael Ash Sharbaugh [ https://soundcloud.com/michael-ash-sharbaugh ]: guitar, synthesizers, and 'found sounds'
Composed and Recorded April 7 to 19, 2014.
sm6 [ARIA(A)].

This piece was initially inspired by a disquiet junto [https://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/] assignment [http://disquiet.com/2014/04/03/disquiet0118-internetroomtone/] that called for participants to create a work that “answer[s]” the question “What is the room tone of the Internet?” It was assigned for the span of April 4th through 7th, 2014, and I honestly had difficulty answering the question in sound. The sheer thought of such an undertaking—both conceptually and aesthetically—boggled my mind. Thus, I did not put forth my rough sonic draft.

However, in the spirit of the disquiet junto, and because this piece was sparked by its prompt, I hereby offer forth my process.

I imported a heavily effected sample of a 56k dial-up modem into my DAW, cut it down to a small section, time-expanded it, and looped it to meet 103.52 BPM—a tempo that was its closest match. I then added synth flourishes that seemed to match its resultant periodic tonic. Intuitional aesthetics guided me in adding additional motifs in the bass and treble registers. An old, out-of-tune, dirty, nylon-stringed acoustic guitar was added at the end, intentionally spaced to seem as if wandering.

I arrived upon the title having ‘learned’ that the internet moves along at .6 to .7 the speed of light: the average is .65; the speed of light is ‘c’.

More on this 118th Disquiet Junto project — “What is the room tone of the Internet?” — at:

http://disquiet.com/2014/04/03/disquiet0118-internetroomtone/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/?p=16588

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Image associated with this Junto project used via a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/2af9A

point65c

"point65c" (based on [disquiet0118-internetroomtone])

(Sharbaugh)
Michael Ash Sharbaugh [ https://soundcloud.com/michael-ash-sharbaugh ]: synthesizers and found sounds
Shriek Productions: bass guitar [loop]
Composed and Recorded ca. January 26 to 30, 2015.
sm4 [LANDRmed].

"A Diamond at Midnight" was inspired by a Disquiet Junto assignment put forth on January 22, 2015 [disquiet0160-oneminutepastmidnight]. This assignment called for the composer to make a sound recording of wherever they were as of midnight on the night chosen. At midnight, I was just beginning this piece, so I recorded it live on a hand-held digital recorder, imported it into my DAW, and then merged it with the version that already existed in the digital domain; hence, there is the noise of my studio's fan in the piece's introduction.

The reason I did not introduce this piece into the Disquiet Junto was that I had already added additional music to it, which was against the rules for that assignment. Thus, I continued working on it for two nights, adding two fabulous bassline loops from Shriek Productions. The URL to their sample library is included below.

I wish to thank Shriek Productions for infusing this piece with 'groove.'

http://www.soundsnap.com/user-name/shriek_productions

A Diamond after Midnight

Buy on BandCamp!

"A Diamond after Midnight" (based on [disquiet0160-oneminutepastmidnight])

(Sharbaugh)
Michael Ash Sharbaugh: synthesizers
Composed and Recorded ca. March 20 to 23, 2015.
sm4 [ARIA(D)].

-+-

"In an attempt to accept this week's Disquiet Junto assignment — 'create an original, multi-part piece with a single audio source,' I chose a prerecorded track of a single atmospheric pad to form an aural bed of sound. I then time-compressed it greatly, so I could use it for a droney, low-end, 'percussive' background and, also, as fodder for a higher-frequency, foreground melody. I recorded these three tracks together, but was disappointed with their resultant complexity; thus, I abandoned hopes of entering it into this week's Disquiet Junto 0168 -- 'Three of a Kind,' -- project, and began to add parts using various synthesizers.

The resultant piece, 'Dwaal I,' is spacious and hazy, and named after an informal word of South African origin, 'dwaal,' which means 'a dreamy, absent-minded, or befuddled state.'"

~ Michael

-+-

"More on this 168th Disquiet Junto project — 'Create an original, multi-part piece with a single audio source' — at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/03/19/disquiet0168-threeofakind/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/ "

~ Marc Weidenbaum

-+-

Dwaal I

>> DOWNLOAD <<

"Dwaal I" (based on [disquiet0168-threeofakind])

2025/01/25
Title/  Fish(Khan andTot)
Vocals, song and lyric/Khan
Beat, sound &mix/ Tot
Tot url
https://soundcloud.com/tot-beat
Youtube
https://youtu.be/olFhz3XwyA4?si=RaHnntFj9dXpoQv7

It's a funny song ~
We're like fish

lyrics
[Fish ]
You’re like a fish walking down  the street yeah yeah
I’m like a fish walking down the mountain 
We’re like a fish walking down on the land

Yea ,same to you ,
(I knew) it when I passed you on the street
Yea ,same to you ,I knew
That sounds tough 
Ah
Just go back to the sea
That sounds good
Just go back to ourselves

君は魚のように道を歩く
私は魚のように山を歩く
私たちは魚のように陸を歩く
君も同じだね
通りで見かけた時に分かったよ、うん
大変そうだな
あ
ただ海に帰ればいいのか
そうだね
ただ自分に帰ればいいのか

Fish (Khan and Tot)

聴いて下さりありがとうございます！
Thanks for listening!
MPC3000を使わないでStudio Oneで作りました。
I made it in Studio One without using the MPC3000.
90年代R&Bを意識したファンク、ダンスナンバーです。 
It's a funk, dance number with a 90's R&B vibe.
無断使用禁止です。BGMで使われる方等、
ご用はメッセージ欄まで何卒宜しくお願いします。
If you need us, please leave a message in the message box.
Unauthorized use is prohibited.

#146 Jun. 22, 2024

Epic soundtrack with strings, piano, synths, cool action cinematic drumms, fx sounds & more

"Veil of Light" €PiC

Tellin' Me Lies

Outside In

over out of gas (prod. Calvin Johnson)

Cool Backing Track provided by JAM Backing Tracks ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd5UoQN9lDg
CLIMBIN’ THE WALLS
Another fall
Another injury
Can’t call the doctor
Untrustworthy
Go it alone
All you can do
Prayin’ to God
You’ll pull through

The richest country in the world
The sickest country in the world

CHORUS
Climbin’ the walls
Climbin’ the walls
Pains got you climbin’, climbin’ the walls
Climbin’ the walls
Up to your eyeballs
Pains got you climbin’, climbin’ the walls again

Ooooh-oooh-oooh, Ooooh-oooh-oooh

Grin an’ bear it
All you can do
Bills to be paid
Pull yourself through
I suppose
Pain is my strength
Avoiding hospitals
I go to lengths, ‘cuz

A friend ‘a mine
Took the Covid-shots
Ain’t been the same
Sickness non-stop
She can’t breathe
They tell her she’s crazy
Send her home
Cries like a baby

The richest country in the world
The sickest country in the world

CHORUS
Climbin’ the walls
Climbin’ the walls
Pains got you climbin’, climbin’ the walls
Climbin’ the walls
Up to your eyeballs
Pains got you climbin’, climbin’ the walls again

Climbin’ the walls
Climbin’ the walls
Pains got you climbin’, climbin’ the walls
Climbin’ the walls
Up to your eyeballs
Pains got me climbin’, climbin’, climbin’ the walls again, oh yeah

[Music]

Another pill
Another side effect
Another body
The coroner collects
Left holdin’ the bag
For your mother’s cremation
Cancer stole it all
No salvation

The richest country in the world
The sickest country in the world

Climbin’ the walls
Climbin’ the walls
Pains got you climbin’, climbin’ the walls
Climbin’ the walls
Up to your eyeballs
Pains got you climbin’, climbin’ the walls.......

.......Climbin’ the walls
Climbin’ the walls
Pains got you climbin’, climbin’ the walls
Climbin’ the walls
Up to my eyeballs
Pains got me climbin’, climbin’ the walls again, oh, yeah-yeah


© 2025 Renee La Chapelle – All Rights Reserved

CLIMBIN’ THE WALLS

On a planet resembling Earth, in a Galaxy far, far away 
There were creatures resembling humans of two pigmentations: one red and one blue 
And the red ones instructed the blue ones that there is one word that THEY must never say. 
And they will be ostracized, subject to violence or otherwise harmed if they do. 

You see, one or two centuries prior, the blue ones held red ones enslaved 
And there was a word that the Blue ones would use to refer to the red ones possessed
And though they had long since been freed, in lieu of the justice they craved 
They insisted the blue ones should never again breathe that word, not even in jest

And the blues ones at first were quite gladly compliant, at first they completely concurred
But the red ones adopted this word as a term of endearment, not a hideous curse!  
And now and again some poor Blue would get loose with its tongue and then out popped that word! 
And red ones who heard it were given free license to beat the blue or something worse! 

Even the most rich and powerful Blue ones if ever that word did they say
Were forced to make public apologies, tearfully beg for forgiveness, repentant 
that’s just the trouble with pendulums swinging too wide can the pendulums sway 
What started as simply a politic gesture was simmering now as resentment 

Words are just noises you make to express an idea you may have at the time
Our primitive ancestors, warning of predators, made noises just to alert you 
Always remember the words that are used in that world famous nursery rhyme:
Sticks and Stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you 

Most Blues were fine with not saying the word, its insulting so why not refrain 
And all of that’s true but it’s rather short sighted and frankly it misses the point  
The point is that blue ones were forced to comply or else suffer the punishment’s pain 
And when rules don’t apply to both red and blue equally, blue noses get out of joint 

So small bands of blues started saying the word in their home and amongst other blues 
And the building resentment would over time lead to a war pitting race against race 
Only slaves are subjected to punishment over expressing unpopular views 
Free people use any words that they want to:  a warning from deep outer space!

The Word You Dare Not Say

(Sharbaugh)
Michael Ash Sharbaugh [ https://soundcloud.com/michael-ash-sharbaugh ]: samples and recordings, sample and recording manipulation
Composed and Recorded ca. July 20, 2018.
sm5.

"'Akvo' (Esperanto for 'water') is an experimental musical work inspired by the words of Marc Weidenbaum: 'Record a piece of music in tribute to Terry Riley’s 'In C' using only samples of water sounds.' It took two-and-a-half hours to compose.

...

Water--still and silent in its natural, undisturbed state--requires gravity and an object or substrate to commingle with in order to unleash its signature sound; hence, all of My 'water samples' were the captured sounds of water interacting with an object [a concrete pavement, a two-gallon tin bucket, My rounded mouth], or along a substrate [a stream bed].

(Fortunately, it has been raining often for the last week in My southeastern-North American locale. I was able to depend on it to afford Me fresh sounds for this experimental, musical piece; rain arrived, yet again, today!)

The stream that runs behind My home provided Me the sampled fodder for the sustained, yet undulating, pad that appears early on in this one-minute and five-second piece. The stream sample, originally forty-seven seconds long, was time-expanded to about a minute's duration, and then 'juiced' of its harmonic content using various software plug-ins [various choruses].

Against that background, I inserted a sample of water droplets landing in a two-gallon tin bucket with about two inches of water already in it.

Then, I grabbed a bottle of filtered water from my refrigerator, took a generous swig, and captured My mouth making popping noises. I time-expanded the result, and ran it through a panning phaser plug-in.

A loud water droplet with an extremely 'hollow' sonic character provided Me with the base from which to synthesize the melodic notes for the arpeggio that appears twenty-eight seconds into the piece.

I timed all of the resultant rhythms and musical elements instinctually, albeit to coincide with sonic cues already present and suggested within the 'stream' and 'bucket' samples.

Three of the four tracks were all run through three instances of an identical reverb plug-in; each, however, were treated uniquely when it came to setting decay time, equalization, and pre-delay, as to suggest depth and positioning in the stereo field."

~ Michael Ash Sharbaugh

----

"More on this 342nd weekly Disquiet Junto project ("In Sea" / The Assignment: Record a piece of music in tribute to Terry Riley’s In C using only samples of water sounds) at:

https://disquiet.com/0342/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0342-in-sea/ "

~ Marc Weidenbaum

Akvo

"Akvo" [disquiet0342]

That was assembled (put together from bricks of ready to use samples) for fun in DanceMachine software in late '90.

Free download enabled.

Dance Machine

Try to Dance (Free Download)

POP | SPACEROCK | VAPORTRAP | TRIP-HOP
AMBIENT | EXPERIMENTAL

the PERSON, the SOUND : Since 1985, Philadelphia-born Michael has composed and released hundreds of audio recordings, and published dozens of [erotic] poems.

His 'sonic-sojourn' began suddenly when he was just a teen -- feet splashing rhythmically through puddles leftover by a seaside rainstorm. Having just parted ways with the then-love-of-his-life, Michael composed his first ballad [and first song] ever -- "Tina." He rushed to his beach-side home to record his visceral 'awakening' on a tiny micro-cassette recorder, and vowed -- from that day on -- to create art for the rest of his life.

He began zealously amassing used music equipment, and had built a modest home recording studio by age seventeen, all the while crafting simple pop, ambient, and experimental works that HE had wanted to listen to -- that HE had wanted to hear, affectionately emulating the works of his then-idols, Duran Duran and Brian Eno.

Now, decades later, he has relocated to a small village outside Atlanta, Georgia, and continues to voraciously attend to his dream as a young, heartbroken boy -- to create and release music that he, himself, wants to hear.

Although no longer sequestered to pop and ambient musics, Michael's signature sound has merged the two, having integrated the R&B, hiphop, and psychedelia he has grown to love as a older gent -- having absorbed the edgy rhythms and dreamy soul of the southern United States (Atlanta and Miami).

Michael still puts forth ample amounts af ambient musics, but his recent 'sound' hovers elsewhere -- somewhere amidst the genres of vaportrap, spacerock, and trip-hop.

-+-

the INFLUENCES : Duran Duran, The Weeknd, Blondie, Depeche Mode, Billy Idol + Steve Stevens, Stone Temple Pilots, Dead Can Dance, Siouxsie & The Banshees, This Mortal Coil, Air, Naked Eyes, Tears for Fears, Alice in Chains, John Barry, Leslie Bricusse, The Chameleons [UK], Brian Eno, The Cocteau Twins, ABBA, The Bee Gees, Claude Debussy, Frederick Chopin, Guillaume de Machaut, Early Music, Renaissance music, Baroque music, and Joe Meek.

- + -

#duranduran #theweeknd #blondie #depechemode #billyidol #stevestevens #deadcandance #siouxsieandthebanshees #air #tearsforfears #johnbarry #lesliebricusse #claudedebussy #mauriceravel #frederickchopin #eriksatie #brianeno #thecocteautwins #abba #beegees #joemeek #chameleons #octoberproject #patbenatar #haroldbudd #lindseybuckingham #nakedeyes #aha #ceefarrow #omd #thismortalcoil #stonetemplepilots #aliceinchains #baroque #renaissance #earlymusic #theweeknd #skeler

"Akvo" [disquiet0342]

Michael Ash Sharbaugh

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