More than meets the ear

Disquiet Junto 0511 Freeze Tag

When the violin solo is so damn lit

naviarhaiku404 – A red sun

The haiku shared by Naviar Records this week prompted me to make a short meandering bassline.

When I went to Archive.org to find a video to go with it, I found a trailer to an unlikely western.

So I took that video into Ableton Live and rejigged my bassline to go with the little bit of soundtrack it contained, then ramped up the vibe a bit. 

Triggered

Feel somewhat attacked by this meme, since I also made a three-hour ambient album.

In my defence it was back in 2010.

Sometimes I think about revisiting it to see if I can do a better job of mastering the recording, which became irritating with compression.

Disquiet Junto 0509 The Long Detail

The Disquiet Junto project this week is to "Create a piece of music with moments from a preexisting track." 

I've selected a couple of moments from my Naviar Haiku track last week, then arranged those loops into a verse/chorus/verse/chorus kind of song.

To make it a little more interesting, I've also looped a couple of moments from the MIDI guitar part and used these to drive a toy piano (that windchime-like sound) and a Mellotron (sorta like a string quartet, I think).

The result simplifies a busy but meandering track, although both songs seem like they're a soundtrack waiting for activity to accompany.

This piece feels like it could use a bass part but I guess it will do for now.

Cicadas waiting to drop

naviarhaiku403 – On the spring equinox

The haiku shared by Naviar Records appealed to me because it described a spring equinox, which is what recently passed in the southern hemisphere.

On Saturday morning I was watching the sunrise through the trees at the end of my streeet, when I realised it formed a frame that drew attention to the glow of light behind stream rising from the nearby rice co-op.

That image seemed similar to the one described in the haiku, so I felt like I should try and record something -- although it doesn't feel fully realised in this recording.

I was performing in theatres

Disquiet Junto 0508 Germane Shepard

The Disquiet Junto project this week is to "Use the Shepard tone to create a piece of music."

I found a MIDI file that purported to give a Shepard tone, although it didn't sound as convincing as Hans Zimmer.

To give the tones some shape I forced them into a scale using one of Live's MIDI effects.

Then I tried a few different instruments, until it started to hold my interest.

Music critics of the Wild West

Disquiet Junto 0507 In DD’s Key of C

The Disquiet Junto project this week involves working with recordings by Daniel Diaz.

His parts were in the same key as a piece I'd recently revisited for the Naviar Virtual event.

That piece was from March 2016, when I'd walked the streets for music from the wi-fi networks.

The app Sniff_Jazzbox interprets wi-fi data as piano notes, which I'd put into the key of C and played through a string orchestra.

Diaz's recordings were in the key of C, so I stretched them to see how they could drone alongside my wi-fi symphony.