Disquiet Junto Project 0690: Knot Bad
The Assignment: Interpret wood grain as a graphic score.

Step 1: Find a piece of wood, the grain of which captures your imagination.

Step 2: Consider how the shapes of the grain might be interpreted as a graphically notated score. (If you are not familiar with the concept of a graphic score, read up.)

Step 3: Record a piece of music in which you interpret the grain of the wood you selected in Step 1 as a graphic score.

Deadline: Monday, March 24, 2024, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.

Details: https://disquiet.com/0690/

Disquiet Junto Project 0690: Knot Bad

More on the 690th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Knot Bad — The Assignment: Interpret wood grain as a graphic score — at https://disquiet.com/0690/

disquiet0690

The graphic score used, featured as the cover art, is a photo I took of part of a wood-panelled ceiling in my home. The track, in four continuous sections, comprises a mix of layered electronic sequences created using Pure Data with additional sounds and editing carried out using Audacity.

Knotty Pine Perusal (disquiet0690)

Ooooh good ... Here's another track that the SoundCloud algorithm refuses to recommend to potentially interested listeners ... If you're interested in music that a robot doesn't consider 'music', why not give it a listen! 😜

More on the 690th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Knot Bad — The Assignment: Interpret wood grain as a graphic score — at https://disquiet.com/0689/

more halF unusuaL

halF knoT [disquiet0690]

This week's Disquiet Junto prompt instructed us to find a piece of wood with interesting grain, and interpret it as a graphical music score.

My music desk is a pretty solid piece of furniture, and the dark stain makes the wood grain stand out prominently. I noticed that the grain on one side of the desk contained two interlocking swirls, and the radiating pattern reminded me of a magnetic field. So I decided that this week's composition would be played with wood and magnets.

I used a contact mic to record the percussion part, playing the top of the desk like a hand drum. Then I recorded three layers of guitar played with an ebow: an electromagnetic "guitar pick" characterized by infinite sustain. Ebow has the drawback of making dynamics difficult but I was able to make it growl and howl enough to get some texture and noise out of the performance. 

The bass layer was played on a Schecter Damien 7-string guitar with an altered tuning. I managed to play the bottom string freehand with the ebow, floating rather than resting on surrounding strings, which required multiple takes unfortunately. I just really, really needed that low B♭. The other two guitar layers were played on the St Vincent guitar. 

Offboard, the guitars went through my standard bank of stomp boxes, including an Eventide Harmonizer, Keeley Halo, ARP-87 and Julia pedals from Walrus, and a trusty RAT distortion pedal. DAW effects were mainly reverb and Chromaglow, plus a stereo delay and EQ on the percussion part.

More on the 690th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Knot Bad — The Assignment: Interpret wood grain as a graphic score — at https://disquiet.com/0689/

Lost in the Ironwood (disquiet0690)

This week's task is rather serendipitous in that I am actually engaged in some minor wood working this weekend. I recently built a small Buchla 100 system (and its case), consisting of what is shown in the image and the as yet unhoused (and not shown) 114 touch control module, which is what the piece of unstained pine sitting on top of the Buchla is destined for. I selected pine because my woodworking skills are still rather rudimentary so working with higher priced and more difficult lumber makes me nervous. Plus, there is something comforting about pine's ubiquity and approachability. Making a mistake with pine seems excusable. Doing so with walnut or oak less so. That said, I got to thinking about the pine that I picked up at my local lumber shop in terms of the conditions under which it is grown and the vast quantities of trees that are stripped from the land so that people like me can make boxes for their vintage synthesizers. Sonically, I imagined this as a somewhat discordant drone, with peaks and valleys and occasional moments of harmony. The trees grow, mainly in a state or quietude, before they are cut down and processed to the sound of chain saws and saw blades. And then everything goes quiet again as the next crop is planted.  Graphically, I notated this imagined scenario as a series of constant lines, punctuated here and there with peaks, valleys, bright and dark spots, representing in part the knots and impurities in the pine but also the experience of the piece of wood in its transition from tree to commodity. Everything you hear was created on my humble System 100, which was first fed through the Empress Zoia pedal using the "soft focus" effect created by Christopher H.M. Jacques and then further transformed in Logic using "fragments," and "motion" from Arturia, with hints of the unprocessed Buchla emerging here and there. And there was panning. Lots of panning, so headphones are the preferred listening approach.

More on the 690th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Knot Bad — The Assignment: Interpret wood grain as a graphic score — at https://disquiet.com/0690/

I built my contribution around a photo of the floor in our hallway (see cover) into which I interpreted short phrases for four different instruments. First, I wanted to record different wind instruments, but then decided to give the rarely used Ableton Note a go. To this I recorded live percussion, which was a disaster. You can hear my comment “bireweich” in the background, which means “totally ridiculous” in Swiss German (direct translation = soft pear, with pear probably meaning head in this context). I kept the recording anyway and cut it into a loop, to which I added a patch in MiRack which I tried to operate according to the cloudy yellow notes. Et voila: four from the floor.

Lovely spring - or autumn - to everyone!


Disquiet0690 - Four From The Floor

A response to Disquiet Junto prompt 0700, and based on a true story. From the window in my pantry I can see into my neighbor's back yard, where they have their hen house. Sometimes things happen. 

Unedited field recording, vintage Korg M3R. and reverb.

When I went outside this morning with my field recorder, one of the hens got agitated and started complaining loudly and repeatedly. She continued for almost exactly three and a half minutes, then stopped just as suddenly as she had started. The song is 3:43 minutes long.

Poses the age-old question, "Can Coraline make a serious song around a chicken sample?" What do you think?

More on the 700th weekly Disquiet Junto project, View Frame — The Assignment: Share the view and some sounds inspired by the view — at https://disquiet.com/0700/

The Discovery of a Fox (disquiet0700)

For this week's @disquiet Junto Project I'm not quite sure why the Logic Pro Wurlitzer pattern came out so doleful in response to the view from my bedroom window. I'm happy in my home, though I am moving fairly soon, so maybe that's why. I was pretty pleased with the first and third contributions I made to the recent trio projects, so with this I combined a simple tonal part with part of the recorder improvisation by @kate-gallaher in the woods. In the background are the birds and an airplane, similar to the urban sounds I have hear at dawn (though far fewer birds).

Happy 700th @disquiet ! Thank you for making these happen Marc Weidenbaum.

More on the 700th weekly Disquiet Junto project, View Frame — The Assignment: Share the view and some sounds inspired by the view — at https://disquiet.com/0700/

View Frame (disquiet0700)

The photo was taken yesterday morning when it happened to be raining. The track is an electronic sequence created using Pure Data with a touch of delay and reverb.

More on the 700th weekly Disquiet Junto project, View Frame — The Assignment: Share a peek out your window and some sounds inspired by the view — at https://disquiet.com/0700/

Rainy Day Outlook (disquiet0700)

More on the 700th weekly Disquiet Junto project, View Frame — The Assignment: Share the view and some sounds inspired by the view — at https://disquiet.com/0700/

(brief tinkle on the super gemini with two layers, a sort of pad and a sparrow-inspired chirrup, recorded on my phone in the room as well as into the mixer, then blended and grotted up with some speshul air windows gribble grabbles)

oot thair windah [disquiet0700]

The world outside is under construction.

Who ordered the mission? Who‘s going to pay the in the end?
What will the world look like, will it turn out nice?
From inside its hard to figure it out. 

Disquiet Junto Project 0700: View Frame
The Assignment: Share a peek out your window and some sounds inspired by the view.
Step 1: Take a photo out your window, with a little bit of the frame in view. Show people a glimpse of your world.
Step 2: Record a short, simple piece of music inspired (or otherwise informed) by what you see.

Framing the view [disquiet0700]

Today any information is processed in chains of automated steps, mostly for providing handy services. Do we know more now? Do we understand each other now more than ever?

The Assignment:
Select a piece of software, preferably one you use regularly, and misuse it in the service of recording a piece of music.

Chains in this contribution:
1. Copy the assignment to Pages
2. Have it automatically translated in different languages
3. Have it read automatically, recording the reading
4. Have the resulting sound file chopped up and put some fx…

More on the 702nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chain of Applications — The Assignment: Make music by misusing a piece of music software — at https://disquiet.com/0702/

Chains[disquiet0702]

More on the 702nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chain of Applications — The Assignment: Make music by misusing a piece of music software — at https://disquiet.com/0702/

disquiet0702

This was my contribution for Disquiet Junto Project 0702: Chain of Applications. The Assignment: Make music by misusing a piece of music software. This project is the second of three that are being done by the Disquiet Junto in collaboration with the 2025 Musikfestival Bern, which will be held in Switzerland from September 3 through 7.

Here’s a copy of my post on the Disquiet Junto 0702 discussion thread on Lines:

I rarely use the metronome in Ableton Live, even when recording on top of a rhythm. Maybe it’s the lack of experience with it but I find the sound too distracting. For this project, decided to not use the metronome as a rhythm aid but as a sound source to be sampled and manipulated into an experimental composition.

First, recorded the sound with a Panasonic microcassette recorder. I then recorded it back into Ableton Live. The output connection on the recorder was picking up some static and noise but used the recording anyway, From there I used Audio Damage Circa to loop and mangle the audio. Used Imagiro Autochrome, SoundGhost Jumble and ValhallaRoom for effects. The result reminds me of a chorus of frogs, insects and other creatures in some wetland at night.

More on the 702nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chain of Applications — The Assignment: Make music by misusing a piece of music software — at https://disquiet.com/0702/

Metronomia Chorus [disquiet0702]

Letzter Zug durch Herold [disquiet0702]

This weeks Disquiet Junto asks us to abuse software to make music. I was going to pass on  this one quite honestly - there has been lots of interesting work in this field - using data files as audio etc etc. but then, and I’m not quite sure why, a project in an electronics magazine from when I was a child came to mind. In the project they created (an incredibly lofi)  video by using electro-mechanical scanning of a light resistor. Seeing video as an analog signal then prompted this. 

I’ve got a Max/Jitter patch collecting video. The video is split into 4 pieces - each piece is treated as a wavetable and the volume of it is modulated by taking the video segment using the average of each column from left to right scanned at quite a low frequency. A few parameters here and there let me turn it into music rather than noise and there is a reverb and a bit of delay in there for good measure. And then I recorded an improvisation on the whole setup. 

I’m still not quite sure it counts - surely using Max/MSP to make music is its entire reason for existing! But perhaps it’s ok since ALL the audio signal is generated by a video camera……

[disquiet0702] moving to light

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.

Disquiet0690 - Four From The Floor

xhg

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