Not sure if this fits the bill, but… A five beat rhythm track was created in Audacity, then multi-tracked and mixed with different pitches and effects and assigned to extreme left or right channels – with one mix being in “true” stereo and one dead centre in mono. A couple of mixes were placed to provide a counter-rhythm. I hope.

A drone track was added in 2 octaves (one left, one right) as well as a Bluecat mix which gives that jittery effect.

Nice and short for a change.

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The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo.

Step 1: Think about stereo for a moment.

Step 2: Now think about it a bit more — specifically, think less about using stereo as a means to give a sense of a physical space to a recording, and more about using stereo as a compositional tool.

Step 3: Record a piece of music in which you engage with stereo based on the ideas you formulated in Step 1 and Step 2.

More on this 549th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Sidelines (The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo) — at: https://disquiet.com/0549/  

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

Tone construction 03 [disquiet0549]

In his excellent book The New Analog, Damon Krukowski suggests that listening to a quadraphonic recording is a simulacrum of the geocentric model proposed by Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy in 150 (CE). Ptolemaic cosmology assumed that the Earth was a stationary object situated at the center of the universe, and that other heavenly bodies traveled uniformly in a perfectly circular motion around it.

A different stereophonic geometry can be observed in “gandy dancers,” a nickname given to African American railroad workers in the 1920’s. Their job was to maintain and repair miles of railways in the segregated US south: replacing rotted cross-ties, refilling ballast, locking pieces of track into place, and straightening and leveling the lines to ensure safe train passage. The workers were known for their synchronized, graceful ballet that required strength and agility. 

An important aspect of railway work was the transport and installation of heavy steel rails lining both sides of the track, a process called “dogging” in which a lead workman served as the “caller” or “call man.” The caller would sing a four-beat song to mark time, and the rest of the crew would follow in rhythm, working shoulder-to-shoulder in pairs. As they tamped the ballast under ties raised with square-ended picks, the workers engaged in call-and-response to ensure that all tasks were executed safely and correctly. 

For this week’s project, Suss Müsik took inspiration from a 1939 field recording* of Zora Neale Hurston singing a traditional railroad “spiking” tune. A pair of percussion “lines” represent two sides of railroad track, each treated with glitched stereo delay in opposite left-right channels. A synthesized melody accompanies the lyric, which was passed down from a Jacksonville caller named Max Ford. The hammers heard in the original were intended to replicate the sound of spikes being driven into cross-ties, and they’re faithfully included here with bidirectional panning.

The piece is titled Gandy Dancing and is presented in honor of those who risked physical safety to produce not only infrastructure, but also a rich cultural legacy. May we celebrate their voices heard softly in the thick southern humidity, the kudzu creeping slowly onto the railway edges. 

Learn more about gandy dancers from this fascinating Folkstreams documentary: https://www.folkstreams.net/films/gandy-dancers.
More on this 549th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Sidelines (The Assignment: Get intentional with stereo) — at: https://disquiet.com/0549/

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-0549-sidelines/

*Citation: Kennedy, Stetson, Herbert Halpert, Zora Neale Hurston, Herbert Halpert, and Zora Neale Hurston. Dat Old Black Gal. Jacksonville, Florida, 1939. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/flwpa000005/.

Gandy Dancing [Disquiet0549]

Electronic composition, sounds created in Pure Data.

Daybreak & Fading Stars (naviarhaiku445)

Sensen - DC

The word “folly” is an English term to mean foolish or lacking good sense. In French, the word “folie” emphasizes aesthetic beauty over practicality to the point of being extravagant, whimsical or silly. This is an egregiously unfair way to denigrate the need to enliven our surroundings with objects and structures that enhance one’s life experience.

“Humankind needs structures and tools that are enriched beyond the severely utilitarian,” wrote Victor Papanek in his timeless book Design for the Real World. “Delight, balance, and that pleasing harmony of proportions that we project outward into the world are psychological necessities for us.”

For this piece, Suss Müsik took inspiration from the contemplative “stone face ruins” of Chanticleer’s public gardens. The "ruins" are not ruins at all, but rather a hardscape of three ornamental ‘rooms’ evoking a sense of mystery. One room in particular warrants mention: from the bubbling, deep black depths of a 24-foot reflecting pool surrounded by lush succulents, polished marble faces gaze upward in repose.

Suss Müsik created a soundscape using custom devices built from the “ruins” of old computer hardware. Two contact mic-inputs are passed through a Meng Qi Wingie2, which was controlled by a handmade MIDI input. One channel was refactored as an arp sequence; the other provided a vaporous coloring agent when passed through heavy reverb. A fourth device controlled three synth voices with grain modulation playing the same arp sequence. Here’s a video of the performance: https://youtu.be/mnPiy5d9gCs

The piece is titled Papanek and was recorded live in October 2022. The image is taken from a summer 2022 trip to Chanticleer.

More on this 565th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Musical Folly (The Assignment: Make a piece of music inspired by this architectural concept) — at: https://disquiet.com/0565/

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-0565-musical-folly/

Papanek [Disquiet0565]

From the album Five Broke Downe Homesick for the Open Road Medley Blues. Out on my Bandcamp label this November 3rd, 2022.  https://jeffgburekprojects.bandcamp.com/album/five-broke-downe-homesick-for-the-open-road-medley-blues

Raindops In Your Teacup

a bass for radio

First track in my new record "The Leaves Don´t Leave The Tree" published in Intronauta music and Kalamine Records in February 2023. https://kalaminerecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-leaves-don-t-leave-the-tree
Enjoy and support!

01 Cloudy

Slumber

Spring Stories Pt.1 (Before Sunrise)

Evolutions within the alterworld - Sector 3

UK creatives should listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK4wBWiozyM

You must hear this: https://vimeo.com/52766051

*****

Ed Brunsden was kind and patient enough to interview me for  his blog Desert... Mountain... Dust...  - you can read it at https://desertmountaindust.blogspot.com.au/2017/02/tuonela-primitive-progressive.html

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. ~ Aldous Huxley

All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it. ~ Jean Cocteau

All music is beautiful. ~ Billy Strayhorn
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I've become addicted to drone. Again. I was the kid with his head on the piano, listening to the overtones die away, or pressing his ear to the steel hull of the ferry, enthralled by the sounds it created. I was the kid who formed wordless songs to accompany the sound of train wheels on a long journey, or hummed along with the fan on a hot day.

In the 60s I used to play my 45s on 16, or backwards, or by hand using razor blades as stylii.

I made cut-up tapes on a cheap cassette recorder in the 70s and experimented with reel-to-reel in the 80s. 

Thank you Subotnick, Lygeti, Coltrane, Jimi, Mimaroglu, Eno, Cluster, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk, Throbbing Gristle...

I am not a musician. I am a scavenger of sounds. I use the most basic software to process those sounds, stretching and filtering until something emerges that makes a joyful noise. Or not...

Tone construction 03 [disquiet0549]

Tuonela

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Patrick Picault

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