<b>Disquiet Junto Project 0106: Sonar Vortex</b>

Vortex with events [disquiet0106-sonarvortex]

I can’t read a score, but since I often take the visual qualities of waves into account when building tracks, I decided to try and recreate the graphic produces by the weather site in sonic terms… which probably means the same thing. 

All sounds were sampled from various works in progress.

The grey areas were represented by three rising and falling drones; the volatility of the afternoon weather by thick, deep drones with spiralling qualities; the hourly temperature “points” by two different sets of treated blips, six for AM and six in the PM. Each was pitch shifted according to the temperature it represented, with a full tone as one degree (approximately). Since the drones are made from the basic “pip” sound, they have a pitch-bending effect on each other.

One was also converted into a wavering, track-length drone representing the bar at the bottom showing the wind directions and intensity.

Since each “blip” can be treated and adjusted individually, there is a total of nineteen tracks.


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This week’s project is about graphic notation. We’ll find the music inherent in weather patterns. The procedure is as follows:

Step 1: Go to the website WeatherSpark.com. Enter the city/town where you live.

Step 2: Find the weather for January 10, 2014. (Depending on when you do the project, this will either be a prediction or a matter of historical record.)

Step 3: This weather website has many viewing options, but the default is to just see the temperature, and you should only see the temperature for this project. The image should roughly resemble the one associated with this post (if not visible, see image at disquiet.com). The chart depicts the weather altering over the course of the day, and has it shown in various bands, with the actual/predicted temperature as a black line, and historical highs, lows, averages, and other data depicted in more subtle shades. For additional information about reading the weather chart, visit this URL: http://goo.gl/3fRGwW. Make a screenshot of the day’s weather chart of your area, and trim it to just show that one day. Be sure to associate that image with your track, so the listener can view it.

Step 4: Produce an original track in which the weather chart is read from left to right as a musical score. Perhaps you’ll assign a different instrument or tone to each band or line. Perhaps you’ll align pitches with temperatures. Perhaps you’ll set the pace based on the time of day.

More on this 106th Disquiet Junto project (“Treat the weather as a graphically notated score”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2014/01/09/disquiet0106-sonarvortex/ 

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/?p=16588 

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/ 


Vortex with events [disquiet0106-sonarvortex]

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

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

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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...

Vortex with events [disquiet0106-sonarvortex]

Tuonela