The Junto this week asks participants to misuse music software.
Usually I use Ableton Live by composing in MIDI, then exporting those notations as sound.
Today I thought to record a song called 'Inner Bitch' using my Suzuki Omnichord to play the MIDI parts.
The Disquiet Junto assignment is to "Break apart a piece of music and fill the resulting spaces."
I've gone back to my surprise hit from Easter, Innuendo.
Carefully the ukulele part has been cut away, then a moody synth added.
What’s the difference between a lead guitarist and a terrorist?
You can negotiate with a terrorist!What do you do when you see a girl on the arm of a guitar player?
Say "Nice tattoo"!What’s the difference between a guitarist and a savings bond?
Eventually, a savings bond will mature and make money!
Well culture – you can't experience culture, you can't learn it, you can't describe it. You've got to live it. You've got to live it. If you want people to like you you've got to like them. If you want people to respect you you've got to respect them. You can't force your ideas on people. It mightn't be the right way for you. You might have to travel another trail to get to the right meaning and in culture you know that, you know that way. It's more like – I suppose culture was a religion or something similar to religion. It's a way of life, yeah, it's the way you live your life.
I couldn't resist recording this piece for the 700th Junto project.
The directions were to show people a glimpse outside my world, so here's my backyard and some of the laundry that I washed today.
As I haven't packed away my drumkit yet for winter, I decided to have a bash.
A 303-style bassline has been added because it was the easiest thing to consider at this time.
One bit of reflection is how I began recording videos for Junto projects at number 100.
Since then that playlist has grown to over 450, which means I've responded to three-quarters of the prompts in that time.
I was first introduced to the Junto community around 027, which involved music from text but I worried my response had misinterpreted the instruction and didn't share it.
For anyone reading who isn't an Australian, the character represented is the kind of lower socio-economic figure that might be considered a "redneck" -- although I wouldn't use that term with them directly.
The signifiers are the mullet haircut, "Jackie Howe" blue singlet and Southern Cross tattoo.
As for the sound of the pedal, I was pleasantly surprised.
On the right-hand side is a tubescreamer-style boost, while the left has a throaty overdrive.
It had me playing rock riffs as soon as these were engaged.
I tried it alongside my CopperSound Foxcatcher and Ly-rock King of Clone, which revealed the former to have a bassier boost and fuzzier overdrive (running at 9v, as I haven't tried the 18v option yet).
The Ly-rock pedal has an okay boost and fuzzier distortion, but has sounded way too trebly for my liking.
A friend introduced me to Kink pedals last year, when he brought a Dozer along to a jam.
While graphics on pedals have been a weakness for me, I really like the sounds that I'm getting from Straya.
In my backyard is a mint plant that I hoped might grow to replace my lawn.
Many butterflies land on the flowers when it blooms.
I started researching their varieties as I began photographing them and became interested in the Wanderer, which is the Australian version of the Monarch.
It has distinctive white spots on a black body and magnificent wings coloured like autumnal leaves.
This type of butterfly arrived in Australia around the time my father's great-grandparents migrated here.
It is thought it may have been blown here by a cyclone, but found the imported milkweed plant that supports Monarch caterpillars and was able to survive.
My parents were both born in North America, so I've come to adopt the Wanderer as a symbol for my identity.
I've performed the song using a ukulele, as it is an instrument from the Pacific – the ocean that unites Australia, Japan and the USA.
The second round of the 2025 Disquiet Junto trio project has been a delight.
Once again Sam Knot has added prose to my drums and I love hearing his gentle voice bringing colour to my beats.
The track was produced with Ableton Live, after I recorded takes for different parts and arranged them. I'd listen to this in a forest.
The dreadful stream in this case is an estuary, and the rain was elusive.
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.
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".
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
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!
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.
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.
The Disquiet Junto project this week is to "Record a piece of music in which the sound of fire — match, burner, cigarette, etc. — provides the primary source for the rhythmic track."
This morning I recorded the matches and lighter, then used a video from the 2016 Queensland Burning Man event to create a bass with Sinevibes Reactive.
In hindsight I can see how I got here, as there's been a lot of interest in my rapping recently. The kids at the primary school where I work often ask me to rhyme.
As I listened to Ravel I admired the strings and thought they would be great in a hiphop-style track. Then I slept on it and woke up thinking about putting words to it.
When I went to publish the result I looked again at the Junto assignment and wondered if I'd strayed too far?
Last weekend I recorded a quick vocal performance and then spent the week making it work in two different tracks.
I like the rawness of the version above, then it was surprising how much the arrangement in the version below changed the tone of the delivery but I went further with edits and going pop.
The Junto assignment this week is to "Interpret wood grain as a graphic score."
Funnily enough, wood grain has been a motif in my household in recent weeks.
My son and I brainstormed a short story idea about someone reading the rings on a slab of timber used as a table.
The River Red Gums in our region are long-living trees and often prompt my pondering about watching centuries pass.
Over the years I've used the image of these trees and the rings as a record, so it wasn't difficult to interpret wood grain except to keep the idea to a graphic score.
Here is an earlier recording of a River Red Gum.
The Junto reminded me of the musical squeaks of my drum stool, so I set about loading up a bunch of samples and then put a bassline to it.
Then I got cold feet and re-read the instructions and wondered if it really considered other studio furniture.
Anyway, I woke up in the morning and wanted to honour the squeaky stool.
Apparently these tress have been introduced in the last 30 years, but require more rainfall a better quality soil than is generally available in our landscape.
However, I know the peachy quality of morning light and often appreciate it in the bathroom, so I made a track to give a sense of that ambience.
The Junto assignment this week is to "Interpret a routine public sign as a musical instruction.
Step 1: Think about signs you see near where you live or work, the sort of routine public signage one generally takes for granted. Consider in particular signs that, unintentionally, are open to broader interpretation than might have been intended.
Step 2: Choose a sign from Step 1.
Step 3: Willfully interpret the sign you selected in Step 2 as a musical instruction of some sort.
Step 4: Record a track in which you follow the musical instruction you inferred in Step 3.
I thought about my drive to work and remembered the sign for ducks near the McCaughey Park in Yanco.
This ducks crossing sign is one that I remember first seeing when I went to university in Canberra and later incorporated into this video I made after becoming a parent.
The ducks suggested a delay, as they lined up with smaller ducklings as the decay.
So I took the track that I'd been playing with and edited the ukulele part to a series of snippets, making it the mother duck.
Then I found a delay after looking around in my effects.
Most of those I have at hand emulate analogue tape-based delays and this called for an effect more like a digital delay.
The Junto assignment is to "Record a piece of music that explores physiological and behavioral techniques."
Last week I had a lesson in playing djembe and the teacher introduced a rhythm based on a heartbeat with two hits and a rest, so I thought to use that in this track.
The behavioural aspect is how I can't help but make a dance track with a steady rhythm like that.
Video from a recent project at the Leeton Pool, which addresses many needs for me.
I know that probably looks vague, but the results are still developing and won't be known for a little while yet.
I'd misread the poem and planned to film myself blowing bubbles at the pool, then my camera wouldn't record.
It wasn't until I decided to read the poem again that I realised it said "hand" and not "head" as I first thought.
The Disquiet Junto instructions this week:
Step 1: Sit for a moment and slow your breath.
Step 2: Continue with Step 1 for a bit longer.
Step 3: Pay attention to your breathing, in and out, in and out. Don’t record yourself. Just listen, and feel.
Step 4: Consider how the process of breathing in and out slowly can lend shape to a piece of music. Again, just do this through personal consideration of the act of breathing. This project isn’t an exercise in audio sampling.
This has been a glass-half-full-kinda month for me.
So as I sat and considered a bunch of nagging thoughts arose in me.
Since my favourite way to distract myself has been jamming on instruments, it wasn't much of a leap to lending the breathing activity to shape a piece of music.
I decided it suited my mood and recorded three instruments in one day, although my family were watching TV when I wanted to record the bass so it wasn't on camera.
The Disquiet Junto assignment this week is to "Treat a set of sounds like a game of pick up sticks."
I decided to use a collection of chords like the colours of the pick up sticks, then added a little intro for them being dropped into place, and repeated that for when they fall during the game and are packed up.
It looks novel, but I think a blend of lemon juice and soy sauce might have given me the best distortion that I’ve heard in my bedroom.
I got curious after looking at Klons and their copies
Doesn’t reach the higher fuzz of the Boss DS1, but worked well before it to add that peaking feeling.
Kinda missing the bass though, so probably better suited to adding volume for solos.
If I played solos on the guitar!
Actually, maybe I should try it on my basses?
After finishing an assignment, I started playing guitar and trying different effects.
Something about the decay of the distortion led me to think it was suitable for the haiku shared by Naviar this week:
One of the four great haiku masters, Yosa Buson studied both Japanese and Chinese poetry. He was also an accomplished painter, and most of his poems were accompanied by paintings, resulting in a more diverse and individual set of works than the one by his main historical influence, Basho.
The event Bosun refers to is the eruption of Mount Asama in 1783, which instantly killed over 1,000 people. The toxic ash traveled 100 miles to Edo, making farmland useless and causing many more people to starve.
The Disquiet Junto assignment this week is to "Record not so much an alarm as a guided wakening."
It prompted me to think back over previous Junto projects that involved waking, particularly "Morning Music" from 2016.
(Another favourite involved an alarm, which was my 40th Junto ten years ago now.)
Lately my days involve needing to get going and I thought I'd make a track that's got some drive.
I used a video from 2016 showing the Mirrool Creek in flood, which seemed appropriate for emerging from sleep.
The humbuckers have led me to grab a few distortion pedals off the shelf and the neck one sounds huge.
I like the split pick-up option, although the volume levels jump around.
It's body good balance with the big green arse sitting comfortably on my knee.
This Meteora design is destined to be another classic from Fender, I think.
