Bassling blog
Disquiet Junto 0695 Clean After Each Use
The Junto assignment this week is to "Put a piece of music through the dryer."
While I've been holidaying at the coast I'm making happy associations with a chord progression in A# on my ukulele.
A week ago I tried making a song based on lyrics about cupid's arrows and innuendoes.
It was rough and didn't entirely work, but I've used the backing here.
(This chord progression worked better with my Easter Sunday song, I think.)
For the Junto I've taken my backing track and tried to put it through the dryer, but I'm not a fan of those machines for the energy they consume and the uselessness they have in my life.
(There isn't much rain where I live and lots of opportunity for me to get my washing on the line.)
I considered a granular approach to represent lint, but when I decided to use a video from swimming in the Pacific off Valla Beach, arrived at a result more akin to a washing machine.
There's some rotary speaker emulation added, as well as Goodhertz' Lossy effect and DelayCat.
naviarhaiku589 – rising sun
On Easter Sunday I convinced my partner to take a trip to Valla Beach for the sunrise.
There we met a group of people gathered around a fire with guitars to sing medicine songs.
My partner joined them while I took photos, then I sang a little and one of the group offered a jar of "eggs".
The handwritten message on the slip of paper I drew said "Wisdom is crystallised suffering," and the woman who offered it explained she'd heard this from a Buddhist giving a talk.As we continued to walk among the waves at sunrise I had words form around the scene, which I've drafted into the song here:
First verse:
With each breath to caress the earth
at the start of every day
the seasons have a rhythm
of sunshine and rain
like shifting sands
under the movement of waves
as morning light will break
through clouds in a golden ray
Chorus:
Everything will change
nothing stays the same
all of your wisdom
crystallised from pain
Second verse:
In the rumbling of the ocean
a rhythm as old as time
a melody in the roar
song of ebb and climb
as the storm can leave behind
a peaceful breath of calm
from chaos we make meaning
dance like fire to our song
Bridge:
We crash like the waves and we break
then we rise again and learn from mistake
build a home in the unknown, make peace in the storm
finding strength in lessons we learn from being born
Chorus
Disquiet Junto 0694 5/4ify
There is one step for the Junto project this week:
Take a pre-existing piece of music that is in 4/4 — either your own or something in the public domain — and add a beat to each measure, transforming it into 5/4.
As I'm preoccupied with homework, I listened to a few of the sketches on my desktop for inspiration.
This bass riff is a bit uneven, so the extra beat in the drum loops hardly seems to unsettle it.
Which meant that I added more feedback to the delay on the synth!
Disquiet Junto 0693 Melody Sorted
The Disquiet Junto project this week is to "Reorganize a familiar song note by note."
It outlined a process using sheet music, but I thought I'd use a MIDI file instead.
So I downloaded Hall and Oates' 'I Cant Go for That' and rearranged the melody into an ascending sequence of notes.
It was a process that I stopped after running out of space, so there are still some of the higher notes in place -- particularly at the start of verses.
Then the song seemed to need a bit of rearranging, so I muted a couple of parts, such as the organ.
I also added some randomisation to the MIDI for the drums.
Connor's ASMR board
In the middle of our recent Easter hat-making one of the students declared that he was building an ASMR board.
I hadn’t seen these before and Google results suggest it is more likely a fidget board, but I like the concept and am thinking about building my own with a piezo pickup embedded.