The Disquiet Junto assignment is: Play with and against a steady beat.
Step 1: Locate a metronome and set it to play at a speed of your choice. Recommended: 70 bpm.
Step 2: Practice playing with, and against, and entirely apart from the beat.
Step 3: Record a piece of music in which you start off playing with the beat, and then veer away from it, and then are drawn back to it, and then veer away, around and again. End the piece while playing apart from the beat, not in sync with it.
My metronome was Ableton Live and the 70bpm recommendation stirred a couple of tracks as I let the Junto directions simmer since reading them on Thursday evening.
After a day or so an idea arose for a beat that veered away, so I started scaffolding a structure of a track.
Sunday morning arrives and I start recording a drum track, using the second take, then first takes of bass and ukulele.
Along the way I thought of veering on the bass too, more than the ukulele anyway.
The Disquiet Junto project this week is to "Record the sound of an advanced alien civilization."
The year is 2126, and your spaceship is on a routine science expedition of the outer reaches of previously unexplored parts of the universe. Your crew has encountered, for the first known time in human history, a planet that is home to sentient life that has developed an advanced civilization not unlike our own. After settling into geosynchronous orbit, you send down a stealth drone to explore. The drone captures audio and video. Please share the audio of your drone’s reconnaissance mission.
The Junto project this week was to record music as Dense Fog Advisory.
I started recording parts and wrote my own lyrics:
Forget forget about the weather it’s clear you’re not ready to go you think I’m being clever but the forecast is not known the outlook is for cloud touching to the ground forget about the weather your work can’t wait
Time is here for passing we’ll do whatever you want we’re going to take it easy going take as long as all the time we need suddenly has become free forget about the weather your work can’t wait
So rather than thinking about a third lunch I am here to be shocked by your electric touch elated and amazed inhaling in your gaze your work can’t wait
While the man can make dollars I am making sense your imagination don’t need a fence I’ll keep you employed your inner work can’t wait
don’t lose life striving a housewife your kind was never kindness I’m going to hand you a knife cut the cake it’s your birthday take all that you want be here be now your inner work can’t wait
Don’t be blind the paradigm was always half-baked the main mistake is feeling you’re faked honest intention in honourable mention your work can’t wait
Not a competition on a mission of regret you were here to be clear and don’t you forget standing here centred there your work can’t wait
Dense fog advised get a life it’s a beautiful day for staying inside and feeling ripe be on your way Yeah, I’ma love you like a fool your work can’t wait
The haiku shared by Naviar Records offered an image that proved to be a rich metaphor.
I had a chord progression from playing on my ukulele and had recently tuned my tenor guitar to suit similar intervals, although it's ADF#B rather than CGEA.
Lyrics were generated with ChatGPT, but required editing to arrive at the result that were recorded:
A silence so heavy felt it would break today weight of words angrily told left scattered, sharp and cold
Now a memory that can’t be shut each shard a lesson, every cut your apology won’t revoke the ringing echo of what we broke
When you dropped the glass and time slowed down shattered dreams in pieces scattered on the ground
The cracks are just the space we need a chance to heal the cuts we bleed glass debris after the fall singing on the kitchen floor
You said you didn’t mean it But the words had already flown now we're left here waiting with truth openly known
Now the floor is all swept we’re still lost in the past and that sound of breaking glass is the only thing that lasts
The ring it leaves behind a circle, tight and blind the sound of what we lost a chord that pays the cost
The cracks are just the space we need a chance to heal the cuts we bleed we made a window with glass melted down from outside your knocks are a softer sound
The cracks are just the space we need a chance to heal the cuts we bleed like glass debris after the fall singing on the kitchen floor
The funny thing about change is how often it makes old ideas new again
Since
I spend so much time lately thinking about guitar pedals, it has been
interesting to ponder the revival of the four-track gain stage.
I
am old enough that access to a four-track recorder was one of the most
exciting aspects of starting at Lake Tuggeranong College when it opened
in 1990.
By that point I'd already been
sequencing songs on my Amiga computer but didn't have enough musical
experience to record much more than simple songs on the Tascam
four-tracks.
Those four-tracks allowed both
sides of an audio tape to be used, so the stereo channels added up, and
were still being used to record music when I was making demo tapes with
bands in 1994 and '96.
Recently the interest in
four-tracks has returned for their distinctive gain staging, which
allowed some shaping of the instruments being recorded.
Although
these sounds have had a lo-fi charm for many "indie" style bands and
added character, the current revival has followed from the distinctive
sound of a guitarist called Mk.gee.
Another
element in his tone is the Rainger FX reverb pedal, which includes a
gate to adjust that allows the effect to be added when the dynamics of
the playing go beyond the threshold.
(One of
the details less acknowledged is Mk.gee's use of flatwound strings,
which make his baritone guitar remind me of bassists like Jaco
Pastorius.)
In a recent video to promote the JHS pedal which emulates a four-track gain stage, the guitarist John
Mayer notes “There is a revolution taking place right now in guitar
playing, and it has to do with dynamics.”
“For most of guitar playing history, guitars were plugged into
amplifiers, and the way that a tube amp responds has kind of defined the
way people played guitar.
“But now people have been plugging into things that aren't tube amplifiers," Mayer continues and those things respond differently.
Alternatives
to tube amplifiers have been around for decades, but the real
revolution isn't the return of four-track gain stages.
The shift to digital and the ability to emulate analogue circuits has been gaining pace, with many abandoning those big old boxes for smaller rigs.
Elsewhere
on the internet in recent weeks is an interview with pedal builder Brian
Wampler, who identifies that digital emulations of technology like tube
amplifiers and other effects are threatening his business model.
He
describes digital modeling as a Napster moment for traditional pedal
makers, saying "for those who remember that, that's where everybody who
had music that you just uploaded to Napster, and now no one needs to buy
any more music.”
I think Wampler's observation is what gives Mayer's sales pitch for the JHS pedal an interesting context.
During
the '90s, in particular, guitar dynamics were smashed in popular music
as loudness was pursued through the use of heavy compression effects.
Maybe that's what comes to mind when I think about the music on Napster, but I hope that the sound of individual players and their dynamics is something being celebrated.
We're
witnessing a variety of revolutions in music technology and, just like
the older guitar designs coming back into fashion, there are older
sounds that are also being revisited.
In some ways it's depressing
to see the "relic" models of guitars being sold so that a consumer can
pretend to be their idol, rather than the excitement I find in hearing
someone like Mk.gee showing the potential for new tones.
I recently went
down a metaphorical rabbit hole to revisit the sounds of Tom
Morello and don't think it requires his signature model guitar to achieve them.
For me a
real revolution is seeing new ideas incorporated into the portable
format that pedals offer and the rise of digital modelling means it's
offering distinctive combinations of effects that become a way to grab
consumer's attention, aside from the heavy reliance on celebrities and
brand names.
From this perspective I am impressed with David
Rainger's inventive products, such as the implementation of gating in
the reverb popularised by Mk.gee but also the wonder-filled Minibar
distortion pedal.
There aren't many products that my family show
an interest in playing and the Minibar was the first since Korg's
Kaossilator and the Wavedrum before that.
(And, thinking of Korg, I'm getting excited to see that Phase8 is nearing release.)
I
am hoping there are many more revolutions occurring in the guitar pedal
format, but that enthusiasm needs to be qualified with a sense of
innovation rather than mining the past for nostalgia.
Sad to learn of the passing of Tom 'DJ Wasabi' Jones
We worked
together on a project to record Narrandera's Big Guitar and it was a
pleasure to also jam with him on that unwieldy instrument.
I met Wasabi through the Burning Seed event in Matong, the town where generations of the Jones family farmed.
His
father Brian Jones died a few years ago and it was his funeral and a
smaller event later on for his Burner family where I think I last saw
Wasabi.
Reading now about his various careers in Combat Wombat,
youth mentoring and live sound, it's clear that Australia has lost an
innovative and important contributor.
I really appreciate how easy going and funny he was, with a work ethic that kept pushing for the best results.
It was also nice to spend time with his extended family and my thoughts go to his young children.
