Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 309
April 13, 2017
Disquiet Junto Project 0276: 808 Blockchain Beats
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required. There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.
This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 17, 2017. This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, April 13, 2017.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0276: 808 Blockchain Beats
The Assignment: Make 808-style beats based on the blockchain.
Many thanks to Jon Phillips for proposing and helping to develop this project.
Step 1: This week we’re making music informed and inspired by blockchain. If you’re not familiar with blockchain, this concise summary might be of use:
The Blockchain is a distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of ordered records called blocks. Each block contains a timestamp and a link to a previous block. The most well known and original implementation is the Bitcoin Blockchain which is often described as a peer-to-peer (p2p) public ledger of all transactions. Blockchain technologies offer a consensus mechanism of indirect coordination, which provides the ability to achieve large-scale and systematic cooperation in an entirely distributed and decentralized manner. Blockchains can be considered as hyper-political and global governance tools, capable of managing social interactions on a large scale and dismissing traditional central authorities. Specific uses include accounting, identity management, record keeping systems,
voting, and land registries.
The source of the summary:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain
Now, if blockchain is too technical and you aren’t using bitcoin as the new gold ;) then use the images that come to mind: block & chain, and use 808 sounds to make some beats.
Step 2: Make a beat informed by blockchain that uses or is in someway inspired by the 808 drum machine.
Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: If you hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0276″ (no spaces) in the name of your track. If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to my locating the tracks and creating a playlist of them.
Step 2: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.
Step 3: In the following discussion thread at llllllll.co please consider posting your track:
http://llllllll.co/t/808-blockchain-beats-disquiet-junto-project-0276/
Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 17, 2017. This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, April 13, 2017.
Length: The length is entirely up to the participant.
Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0276″ in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.
Download: It is preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).
Linking: When posting the track online, please be sure to include this information, and if possible link to the original track:
More on this 276th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “808 Blockchain Beats: Make 808-style beats based on the blockchain” — at:
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
http://llllllll.co/t/808-blockchain-beats-disquiet-junto-project-0276/
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Image associated with this project is from:
April 11, 2017
What Sound Looks Like
If you look just below the image’s center you’ll see dots, four small indentations in the painted exterior wall. They’re at odd geometric relations with each other. Several subsets of the dots suggest the beginnings of a square, but all together any hope of true squareness collapses, like a cardboard box after the rain. At some point in the past the doorbell was modernized. The doorbells were, plural, that is, since both a knocker and a twister greet visitors. The long-gone upgrade was likely battery operated, since there is no fifth hole for wiring, though perhaps wiring explains the asymmetric lower right. This upgrade, like so many doorbell improvements, came and went and left a reminder that it had failed. The plaster and paint expose the difficulty in righting the wrong. Take a moment to zoom in on the uneven surface, with its stuffed moats and hardened streams, the topology of domestic futility.
An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
April 10, 2017
“Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet” Live
Following perhaps intentionally on the warm reception received by that recent posting of a three-part video showing Gavin Bryars’ Sinking of the Titanic being performed live at the Big Ears festival, we now have the other half of that very same record album, the first from Brian Eno’s Obscure label back in 1975. This is the ensemble Psappha on October 12, 2016, at the RNCM Theatre in Manchester, U.K., conducted by Clark Rundell. (The group’s general manager and artistic director is Tim Williams.) The work is “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet,” which takes the melody inherent in a creaky recording of a homeless man singing a hymn in a painfully sweet and wavering rendition and renders it in a gentle, sensitive setting that suggests a heavenly chorus if not outright beatification. Emphasizing the group’s attentiveness is how serenely they sit for the four full minutes before they actually join the nameless singer, whose verse is heard as a recording to which they eventually play along.
Video originally posted at the ensemble’s YouTube channel. More from Psappha, presumbably named for the Xenakis composition, at psappha.com.
What Sound Looks Like
It’s comforting when Scholastic, the elementary school paper of record, is aligned with one’s household curriculum. Inside is a full spread on seasonal weather sounds, including foley instructions for simulating Mother Nature: “Do you want to make a sound like hail? Tap your fingers on the floor or table.” The back page introduces the useful term “onomatopoeia,” and asks young readers to single out examples from the sentences in which they appear. This is a nice contrast with a music textbook we encountered a year or so back. It sought to distinguish musical sounds from noises. Why introduce judgement and hierarchy at such an early age?
An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
April 6, 2017
Disquiet Junto Project 0275: Revisit Something
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required. There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.
This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 10, 2017. This project was posted in the evening, California time, on Thursday, April 6, 2017.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0275: Revisit Something
The Assignment: Make a track all over again.
Step 1: Consider pieces of music you have completed in the recent past.
Step 2: Select one — perhaps you weren’t happy with it, perhaps it felt unfinished, perhaps it took too much time, perhaps you wish you’d spent more time on it.
Step 3: Do it all over again, from scratch — preferably from memory (that is, don’t go back and listen to it).
Step 4: Then compare the two. When uploading the track you completed in Step 3, please where possible include a link to the original track so other people might compare the two as well.
Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: If you hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0275″ (no spaces) in the name of your track. If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to my locating the tracks and creating a playlist of them.
Step 2: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.
Step 3: In the following discussion thread at llllllll.co please consider posting your track:
http://llllllll.co/t/revisit-something-disquiet-junto-project-0275/
Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 10, 2017. This project was posted in the evening, California time, on Thursday, April 6, 2017.
Length: The length is entirely up to the participant.
Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0275″ in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.
Download: It is preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).
Linking: When posting the track online, please be sure to include this information, and if possible link to the original track:
More on this 275th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Revisit Something: Make a track all over again.” — at:
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
http://llllllll.co/t/revisit-something-disquiet-junto-project-0275/
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Image associated with this project is by Martin P. Szymczak:
April 2, 2017
The Sinking of the Titanic (Live, 2017)
Gavin Bryars’ Sinking of the Titanic was the very first release on Brian Eno’s mid-1970s record label, Obscure Records. The album, from 1975, also included “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet,” which became better known in the subsequent decades than the title composition, in part perhaps because its structure — a minimalist work built on a fragment of a homeless man’s singing — bears resemblance to the decade older “It’s Gonna Rain” by Steve Reich, and later certainly because of a celebrity reworking when Bryars re-recorded it with Tom Waits performing the vocal. Sinking of the Titanic is a very different work from “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.” It’s a slow-motion chamber performance in which the ensemble performs an act of veritable theater, the piece intended to suggest the sound of a band playing as the ship goes down. This three-part video was apparently shot at the recent Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee, on March 26, 2017, a Sunday. The videos are from the excellent account of Seijin Lee, who has access to an incredible and ever expanding catalog of live shows. I created the little playlist so the three parts can be easily viewed in sequence.
Playlist of three videos is at YouTube. More on the event at
bigearsfestival.com. More from Bryars at gavinbryars.com.
What Sound Looks Like
Evidence of last week’s trip to Florida. I eavesdropped on the birdwatchers, paying special attention to how birdcalls helped them in their identification practice. Even this second-hand, scattershot, half-heard information woke me up to the environment.
An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
March 30, 2017
Disquiet Junto Project 0274: Broken Sound
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required. There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.
This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 3, 2017. This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, March 30, 2017.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0274: Broken Sound
The Assignment: Record a piece of music in the genre called “broken sound.”
Step 1: Imagine there is a genre called “broken sound.” Not “broken beats,” not “sound art,” but “broken sound.”
Step 2: Imagine what might characterize the “broken sound” genre.
Step 3: Create an original piece of music in the genre called “broken sound.”
Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: If you hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0274″ (no spaces) in the name of your track. If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to my locating the tracks and creating a playlist of them.
Step 2: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.
Step 3: In the following discussion thread at llllllll.co please consider posting your track:
http://llllllll.co/t/the-genre-of-broken-sound-disquiet-junto-project-0274/
Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 3, 2017. This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, March 30, 2017.
Length: The length is entirely up to the participant.
Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0274″ in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.
Download: It is preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).
Linking: When posting the track online, please be sure to include this information, as well as the identity of the source track that yours accompanies:
More on this 274th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Broken Sound: Record a piece of music in the genre called ‘broken sound’” — at:
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
http://llllllll.co/t/the-genre-of-broken-sound-disquiet-junto-project-0274/
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Image associated with this project is by Marc Weidenbaum:
March 29, 2017
What Sound Looks Like
Doorbells are generally buttons to be pushed, rarely if ever pulled. Sometimes these buttons are illuminated, though generally not. The ones that are illuminated don’t merely help guide the visitor’s finger; they also surface the fact of the electricity that mediates the interaction: that the bell, like the light, is the result of the AC power of the building into which entrance is being requested. Doorbells replaced knockers, the non-electrified notification system of banging a small hard object connected to the door by a hinge. Not all non-electric door-announcement systems are knockers, however. Some ring bells as the result of a spin, bringing to mind bicycle bells. The question is when these spun doorbells originated. Are they a mechanical means to accomplish a post-electric entry sound, or are they a pre-electric premonition of the now common doorbell?
An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
The Drone Comes in Phases
At 25 minutes in length, “Phasic” by Dominic Dixon (aka talkingmakesnosense) of
Newcastle Upon Tyne, U.K., might feel like hours of life on hold — or it might seem like a few minutes cycled through quickly. The piece uses dense, rich drones that waver in and out of sync — hence the track’s title. The phasing renders a slow tonal mantra, a downtempo head-nodder of an organ recital, a sweeping envelope of miasma synthesis. Depending on your point of view, it is majestic or intimate.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/tmns. More from Dixon at talkingmakesnosense.com and twitter.com/talkingnosense.
