(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!

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"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

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playlist: "disquiet junto and almost junto"

(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)].

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"(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

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"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

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"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

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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)].

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"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

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"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

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Dwaal I

>> DOWNLOAD <<

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

(Sharbaugh)
Michael Ash Sharbaugh [ https://soundcloud.com/michael-ash-sharbaugh ]: guitar, synthesizers, and 'found sound[s]'
Composed and Recorded ca. June 18 to 21, 2015.
sm7 [ARIA (D)].

Upon receiving this week’s Disquiet Junto assignment—“imagine your favorite instrument is dreaming while it sleeps — what does it sound like?” I instinctively thought of yawning, and imagined to which tone that would equate in electronic instruments. In Indo-Iranian languages, such as Sanskrit, the vocalization, “a-o-m,” or ‘om,’ would be the natural sound that comes from the throat and mouth upon its opening and closing—with voicing, of course.

Accordingly, I made the base tone of my composition to note, C3, as it seems to be the central key upon which samples and subsequent synthesis are built—and the note which my keyboards and synthesizers would ‘utter’ were they to yawn with their fictitious ‘mouths.’

I widened my perception of what an “instrument” can be: rather than focusing on one discrete sound-making unit in my studio, I envisioned the entire studio as my ‘instrument,’ and, thus, utilized it to its fullest in composing this piece. I played and recorded nearly each instrument I own at the predetermined C3 note and built a composition [in the key of C harmonic minor] upon that. I usually weave found sounds into my compositions, so I included a submarine’s sonar ping [http://www.soundsnap.com/submarine_sonar_ping_military_single_military_blastwavefx_09678] to accentuate the piano and percolating synth parts in the background.

I named the piece after my studio—Intro/Ergo, and added the present tense Latin verb, 'sum,' to reflect my studio's state of 'beingness,' as it is to be represented in this piece.

[As of June 21, 2015, I have added additional instrumentation to this piece—guitar.]

More on this 181st Disquiet Junto project (“Imagine your favorite instrument is dreaming while it sleeps — what does it sound like?”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/06/18/disquiet0181-instrumentaldream/

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/

Intro Ergo Sum

>>> DOWNLOAD <<<

"Intro Ergo Sum" [disquiet0181-instrumentaldream]

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.

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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.

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#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