project dirigent selections

selections

Disquiet Junto Project 0221: Morning Music
The Assignment: Compose something — quiet, peaceful, refreshing — you’d want to wake up to.

Took a bit of the opening music from NPR’s Morning Edition. Time stretched various amounts, layered and edited, bit of Borderlands added to create a dreamy soundscape. 

Thanks to BJ Leiderman for the Morning Edition theme music.

I posted a second, extended  version on my other Soundcloud page at:
https://soundcloud.com/project-dirigent/my-morning-edition-extended-version-for-radio-and-very-large-orchestra-disquiet0221-morningmusic

The photo associated with this project is by Alf Eaton, used thanks to a Creative Commons license: https://flic.kr/p/8NUM/

More on this 221st weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose something — quiet, peaceful, refreshing — you’d want to wake up to”) at: http://disquiet.com/0221/

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

Creative Commons license granted. 


Dreamscape [disquiet0221-morningmusic]

Disquiet Junto Project 0238: Magnifying Contact
The Assignment: Record a piece of music, emphasizing the sounds of production over the music itself.

Open the case, assemble the instrument, check the reed, wind up the metronome...

Got out my bassoon and recorded the first thing that came out. I wanted to start the piece with the sound of the bassoon fading into a dreamy texture. I captured a few notes and stretched them to make a long A minor drone to go under other sounds.  The minor second (e to f-natural) ended up sounding really dark and mysterious. Layered the notes and faded them in and out using the envelope tool in Audacity. 

I went back and recorded a bunch of key clicks and instrument noises and stretched them a bit to blur the sound. They came out sounding like gasps! Added an intro and ending.

This turned out sounding really different from my original plan but I went with it. A bassoon in need of exorcism. Use headphones for maximum heavy breathing. 

Recorded on a Zoom H5. Edited in Audacity. 

Thanks to carroll27 on Freesound.org for the metronome sound. 

Creative Commons license granted. 

More on this 238th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Record a piece of music, emphasizing the sounds of production over the music itself” — at:

http://disquiet.com/0238/
More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/


The Performance, "Strumento Infestato" for bassoon and processed sounds [disquiet0238]

Black Rain [Gomel 1986]
Submitted to Naviar Records/Clouded Lands Gomel 1986 project.
 
Artillery shells carrying silver iodide explode over Gomel seeding clouds to precipitate radiation from the atmosphere before it drifts towards Moscow. It was described as black rain. Alerts and news bulletins follow. The final voice is Gorbachov's announcement of the disaster. 

You Tube news compilation excerpts were from NewsFromUkraine.  Distant artillery sounds thanks to: Aegersum on Freesound.org.

Black Rain [Gomel 1986]

Naviar Haiku 190, Disquiet 0295
Poisoned Waterhole, for 2 pianos (naviarhaiku190)[disquiet0295]

For Western Riverina Arts and the Crossing Streams project.

Poisoned Waterhole:
Violent disregard echoes.
Keenly felt today.

Poison Waterhole Creek near Narrandera owes its name to a tragic story (one of many) which happened when Europeans claimed the land, 200 years ago. In the 1830s, several groups of Aboriginal families used to camp by the waterhole. Annoyed and eager to get rid of them, the local homestead owner poisoned the waterhole, killing many of them.

Haiku by Peita Vincent https://www.frankandearnest.com.au/our-story. Image by Jason Richardson http://bassling.blogspot.co.uk.

Poisoned Waterhole, for 2 pianos (naviarhaiku190)[disquiet0295]

Thin Snow Scatters On the Wind (naviarhaiku256)

Naviar Haiku 256

Thin snow scatters on
the wind, melting as it falls
Cries for help for light 

Robert Hayden (1913-1980) published his first book of poems, Heart-Shape in the Dust, in 1940.

Even though he was interested in African American history and often expressed his concerns about race in his writing, he didn’t want to be identified as a black poet. William Meredith wrote about him: “Hayden declared himself, at considerable cost in popularity, an American poet rather than a black poet, when for a time there was posited an unreconcilable difference between the two roles. There is scarcely a line of his which is not identifiable as an experience of black America, but he would not relinquish the title of American writer for any narrower identity.”

Thin Snow Scatters On The Wind (naviarhaiku256)

Naviar Haiku 257
Daybreak (abstract)
daybreak;
from the middle of the rain
a skylark song

haiku by Uejima Onitsura https://terebess.hu/english/haiku/ryokan.html
picture by Aaron Burden https://unsplash.com/@aaronburden

Daybreak (abstract) (naviarhaiku257)

Disquiet Junto Project 0362: Operational Surrealism
The Assignment: Make a piece of music informed by a key text from the art movement.

The Sewing Machine and the Umbrella for Piano and Percussion disquiet0362

Particles of Me for Mallets and Strings (naviarhaiku270)

snowing
through the blizzard
particles of me

haiku by Alan Summers www.callofthepage.org
picture by Ian Battaglia https://unsplash.com/@ianjbattaglia