Disquiet Junto 0362 Operational Surrealism

The Disquiet Junto this week develops a Surreal idea:

Make something as “beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting-table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella.”

The image of the sewing-machine and umbrella reveals their similar curves; and the dissecting-table to me suggests an editing suite.

Anyway, I started looking at the videos in my Disquiet Junto folder and noticed two that were similar length and tempo and key and, then a penny dropped, water themed.

Why can't you just be

Sunrise

Playing with a few recordings and using the drums as a gate for the bassline, which has also been warped up a couple of octaves and reversed.

Hairy tunnel

Some months ago Gavin was offering this big hairy kick drum and I had to have it

After a detour in Melbourne and some uncertainty about whether it would make the trip to Leeton, I've been recording with it.

The sound in this video came off my Rode Videomic, then passed through EQ and compression.

Disquiet Junto 0361 Zork Diaries

Step 1: Zork is the title of one of the earliest interactive text adventure games. The complete text of a spoiler-laden full run of the game is at the following URL, housed at Georgia Tech, or the Georgia Institute of Technology:
http://bitly.com/junto-zork

Step 2: If you’re not familiar with Zork and/or with interactive text adventures, consider reading up. Otherwise, just think of the script as exactly that: the bare-bones narrative of a story. Step 3: Compose a score (along with, if possible, sound effects) for the first page or so of Zork. It is suggested that you begin with the fifth line of provided text (“West of House”) and end about a page down, where it reads “The door reluctantly opens to reveal a rickety staircase descending into darkness.”

Zork is a similar age to an old MIDI soundcard I have, which was designed to accompany early computer games.

The piano sounds it produces led me to consider a soundtrack like that for a 'silent' movie for Zork.

My accompaniment starts with the title screen, which looked awesome back in the day, then follows up to the arrival in the attic.

Sounding Nature

Looks like I might be the only Australian, either way I'm stoked to be part of Sounding Nature.


The project covers 55 countries, with almost 500 sounds and 250 artists taking part -- you can explore it in full at www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature

Also, look for me jamming with cicadas in Costa Rica!

Being in the music business

Disquiet Junto 0360 Fishbowl Progressions

The Disquiet Junto this week asks for a piece of music in which:

the relative position and movement of sounds are as important to compositional development as are melody, harmony, and rhythm.