Disquiet Junto Project 0669: Phonosynthesis

The Assignment: Make music to help a forest regenerate.

A scientific research paper this month documented evidence that sound can help fungus grow. The conclusion: “Demonstrating a tangible impact on fungal activity, our findings suggest that carefully tuned acoustic parameters might be able to enhance ecological processes.”

Record music to help a forest grow. Imagine an array of solar-powered speakers is spread through a forest-in-need. Or come up with another deployment scenario of your own imagining. What sort of music would you play for the forest to encourage its regeneration?

The research paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0295.

Coverage in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/04/science/fungus-sounds-growth.html

The paper is the work of four people from the College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, in Australia.

Thanks to Michael Rhode for having shared with me the research coverage.

Deadline: Monday, October 28, 2024, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.

Details: disquiet.com/0669

Disquiet Junto Project 0669: Phonosynthesis

Sinny: electronic drums, percussion, kazoo, slide whistle, acme siren, bulb horn, quack and canary sticks, intro bass guitar; keyboard, saxophone, and bass programming

Tooth: bass guitar, stylophone

Adam Becker: dialogue, electric guitar

Idiot Blues

Sinny: synth and rhythm programming, percussion & found sounds

More on this 621st weekly Disquiet Junto project, The Leftovers (The Assignment: Use recently discarded material to make something new), at: https://disquiet.com/0621/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0621-the-leftovers/

Remnants of Rhythm (disquiet0621)

The primary instrument featured on this song is an arpeggiated percussive synth. I interpreted echo and delay as the musical equivalent of a shadow, so I processed that synth patch with Valhalla delay and manipulated certain parameters within the plugin to create warped effects. The idea of incorporating a reversed instrument appealed to me, so I played four random piano chords and inverted the waveform so that the instrument creeps up on the listener.

On one of my non-Sinnysounds songs, I was messing around with a bass guitar and came up with a combination of plugins that resulted in an elastic sound. I felt that this would be perfect for “Doubtful Shadows” and thus overdubbed some bass slides.

Sinny: synth programming, reversed piano, bass guitar

More on this 622nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Know the Shadow (The Assignment: Think about how a shadow might be expressed in sound.), at: https://disquiet.com/0622/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0622-know-the-shadow/

Doubtful Shadows (disquiet0622)

More on the 669th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Phonosynthesis — The Assignment: Make music to help a forest regenerate — at https://disquiet.com/0669/

more halF unusuaL

halF fungaL [disquiet0669]

I’ve always had plants in my studio, and someone once told me that even if sunlight is limited, the constant presence of music playing every day helps keep the plants healthy.

I don’t know about that, , but they look great and seem to grow steadily.

“Record music to help a forest grow.”

I believe that simply having musicians play acoustic instruments in the forest would only bring good to it.

Here I just played “woody”, natural percussion instruments, bamboo drums, wood sticks and blocks, conch shells, cuica, marimba, bombo legüero, talking drum and some other toys. I recorded 3 versions, this is the “fast” one.

Rain Forrest (Fast) - disquiet0669

Phonosynthesis

Disquiet Junto | Phonosynthesis - disquiet0669

According to my research of various websites, the consensus seems to be that calmer types of music are more conducive to plant growth. This track was created using Pure Data & various plugins, etc.
More on the 669th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Phonosynthesis — The Assignment: Make music to help a forest regenerate — at https://disquiet.com/0669/

Dendrosymphonic (disquiet0669)

Regeneration(disquiet0669)

Sinny: Logic Pro synths, piano key scrapes, upright bass, vibraphone, bell tree, log drum, rattles, wood chop, Bloom 10 Worlds app

More on the 669th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Phonosynthesis — The Assignment: Make music to help a forest regenerate — at disquiet.com/0669/

Solarpunk (disquiet0669)

Featuring Lee Evans on percussion in the left channel.

More on the 698th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Second Third — The Assignment: Record the second third of a trio — at https://disquiet.com/0698/

501022 (disquiet0698)

The work is the final of a three-part sequence that unfolded over the course of three consecutive weeks. My part was added to a left-panned piece by fellow artist https://soundcloud.com/lee-evans-722170034/250511-disquiet0697?si=5714bdff05ad4f66afbdf1a2e46e4e42&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing that was combined with a right-panned channel by https://soundcloud.com/cjmcgregor/501022-disquiet0698?si=d1b9cbc85963411a93f6d749a8332eba&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
More on the 699th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Third Third — The Assignment: Record the final third of a trio — at https://disquiet.com/0699/

Hundred Twenty Forty-four [Disquiet0699] (with Lee Evans and CJ McGregor)

m.organ (disquiet0709)

b.erlin (disquiet 0710)

Written by: Christine McVie
Original recording found on Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album (1979)

Personnel
Sinny: synths and percussion
Adam Becker: electric guitar
Luke Giunta: bass guitar
Jade Miori: vocals

Artwork taken by Fab5669 at the Russell Page garden of the Castle of Chenonceau

Never Make Me Cry (Fleetwood Mac cover)

This is the April 2017 version of "Sleep Frost", which was also a late inclusion for Solitary Stat2. When looking for a few more tracks to bulk up the album run time, I took the first minute or so from the April 2017 and renamed it 
"Sleep Dust" to make it a companion composition to "Sleep Frost".

Personnel
Sinny: drum & synth programming, aux. percussion

Solitary Stat2

Sleep Dust

Jungle Descent

My 33 1/3 series book about the Aphex Twin album <i>Selected Ambient Works Volume II</i> was published in 2014. The book was one of the top 5 bestselling titles for the calendar year, and in 2015 was ranked by Pitchfork as one of the "33 best" of the 100-plus books in the 33 1/3 series. It has subsequently been translated into Japanese (2019) and Spanish (2018)

Since 2012 I have moderated the Disquiet Junto group, which began on SoundCloud. More at disquiet.com/junto. 

I've written for Nature, Pitchfork, The Wire, Down Beat, Boing Boing, NewMusicBox, Red Bull Music Academy, Art Practical, the website of The Atlantic, and many other publications. 

I've exhibited sound art at galleries in Los Angeles (Crewest), Manhattan (apex art), and Dubai (DUTAC), and I had a audio-visual installation at the San Jose Museum of Art as part of its 45th anniversary.

And since 1996 I've run the website Disquiet.com about the intersection of sound, art, and technology.

Solarpunk (disquiet0669)

SinnySounds2

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