Disquiet Junto Project 0543: Technique Check
The Assignment: Share a tip from your method toolbox.

Step 1: Think of some technique — small or larger, simple or complex — that you employ when making music.

Step 2: Make a piece of music employing that technique.

Step 3: When sharing the piece of music, describe the technique so that others might employ it.

. . .

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, May 30, 2022, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, May 26, 2022.

. . .

More on this 543rd weekly Disquiet Junto project — Technique Check (The Assignment: Share a tip from your method toolbox) — at: https://disquiet.com/0543/

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-0543-technique-check/

Disquiet Junto Project 0543: Technique Check

Birds Of Connecticut - every night, thousands of birds migrate through the skies of Connecticut. I like to go outside just before sunrise and record the different birds that are in the area. This morning between 5:00 am and 5:30 am I recorded a Chipping Sparrow, Baltimore Oriole, Tufted Titmouse, American Goldfinch, Black-capped Chickadee, Red-winged Blackbird, White-breasted Nuthatch, Chimney Swift, Carolina Wren, Northern Cardinal, and Gray Catbird. Now, I'm not able to identify all of these birds on my own. I use the Merlin Bird ID app created by the Cornell Ornithology Lab. I import the bird tracks into Apple Garageband, then add a few guitar drone tracks using a tc electronic aeon string sustainer. I find the entire process and the resulting track to be fun to create and very relaxing to listen to. I hope you do too.

Disquiet0543 - Birds Of Connecticut - Technique Check

Simulated birdsong. Woozy loopy clarinets. VHS tape disintegration.

Techniques
- Asymmetric loop lengths
- LFO control over panning
- LFO control over track volume
- Phase offset of LFOs to create variation

Charlie Disquiet0543

I'm uploading this for Disquiet Junto Project 0543: Technique Check. My technique that I'm sharing is I use sound memory instead of actual samples for my composition. Even when it's "incorrect," I find how I remembered the sound to be more interesting than using a direct quote. 

I think this comes from the fact that I was a classical pianist who refused to learn how to read for years. I memorized everything until I finally was forced by my teachers to learn to read. This was my first rebellion against the schooling of music. In honor of my youthful protest, I wrote this all in my head.

As I composed the main theme,  it kept blending in my head with the song, "You Are My Sunshine," probably because of C-D-E-F-A ("you ne-ver no-tice [how much I love you]"). So I put the song in my transition sections.

The Bach-like counterpoint isn't a real counterpoint. I just thought of the sound in my head and didn't carefully count intervals, chase fugues, or anything "formal." Everything in this piece is from sound memory. In the end, it seems like the materials will weave into some magical counterpoint, but shimmer away. It's a total sham! Or is it?

Hearing Things (disquiet0543)

For this challenge:
Disquiet Junto Project 0543: Technique Check
The Assignment: Share a tip from your method toolbox: Think of some technique — small or larger, simple or complex — that you employ when making music.

Hi, "rhythmic delays" is my technique for this junto.
This is something I use a lot, this is not the most abusive example of it, but it's really important for this track, and peculiar cause it's all acoustic instruments (I do use this a lot on electric guitars) 

I recorded this one last year on an "hotel room" setup, I had my laptop, a great microphone and a very good audio interface, a small requinto, an harmonica, some hand percussion  and a soprano ukulele.
Back home I decided to finish a second track that I did release earlier this year but this one stayed on the vault, unused, unfinished.
 
The use of my technique of rhythmic delays is more prominent as the track advances, I set up a couple of delay lines (mostly straight 1/8th notes, a 1/4th note echo and a syncopated dotted 1/8th notes one. I add more delay as the track progresses and gradually augment the feedback. It's quite simple and effective.
And it gives a weird "robotic" feel to a pure acoustic performance.

Comments are welcome (this is one of those tracks that could remain in my vault for decades, and I appreciate that the junto challenges push me to revisit it and just share it)

Un Bosque Austral (disquiet0543)

Disquiet Junto Project 0543: Technique Check
The Assignment: Share a tip from your method toolbox.

A way of playing/improvising that I enjoy a lot is playing acoustic instruments into long delays with feedback. The delay creates a sort of loop, but audio processing in the signal chain changes the characteristics of the sound in a cumulative way: with each round through the delay line, the sound is further transformed. It feels a bit like you’re ‘sculpting’ the sound.
The basic technique is quite old, first implemented with tape loops over 50 years ago by artists like Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveiros; and later by Brian Eno & Robert Fripp (it’s often called Frippertronics). Modern digital equipment and software allow for more intuitive, instrument-like control of the audio processing and for on-the-fly routing and re-routing of audio signals. One of the setups I use a lot is a Max-controlled Ableton set where return tracks are set op as audio processing chains with the delays, and are then fed into themselves and each other using sends. 

Things can quickly get cluttered though: if you keep playing notes into the thing and everything gets fed back into itself, things are likely to get crowded. One technique that mitigates this issue is to have a pitch shifter in the signal chain that shifts everything down an octave: with each round through the delay line, everything is pitched down, until after a couple of rounds it dies in a highpass filter. I’ve found this to be a nice setup to explore harmonies and modes. As you play, you’re accompanied by the delayed, pitched down stuff you played before.
This little piece I made is an exploration of the phrygian mode. It’s a bit rough: I just did a couple of takes and this seemed the nicest.

More on this 543rd weekly Disquiet Junto project – Technique Check (The Assignment: Share a tip from your method toolbox) – at: https://disquiet.com/0543/

Laying Low (disquiet0543)

Since contributors use a wide variety of methods & equipment, which can be fairly incomprehensible to those using totally different ones, I thought I would keep to something simple that can be performed with any sound editor. 
Step 1: open a track then duplicate it.
Step 2 : add fx of choice to one or both
Step 3:  swap stereo channels of one 
Step 4: play both simultaneously & export as one track
The track I use here is an unaltered live electronic sequence created in Pure Data together with a heavily modified duplicate.

More on this 543rd weekly Disquiet Junto project – Technique Check (The Assignment: Share a tip from your method toolbox) – at: https://disquiet.com/0543/

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-0543-technique-check/

Double Up (disquiet0543)

Abstract Sound Structures, Musique Concrète & Live Electronics.
Experimental abstract animation videos.
It is my aim to create and/or edit my tracks & videos using free or open-source software only.
Influences include: J.S. Bach, John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Giacinto Scelsi, Mauricio Kagel, Conlon Nancarrow, Christian Wolff, Harry Partch, Luc Ferrari, Morton Feldman, Cornelius Cardew, Bernard Parmegiani, Ana-Maria Avram, David Tudor, Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros, Renaissance Polyphony.
All my work is published under a Creative Commons licence & can be freely downloaded (as wav) or remixed.

Double Up (disquiet0543)

ray_cobley