Disquiet Junto 146 Swyping Silence



This week the Disquiet Junto asked for a short piece of music based on a symbol for the word 'silence' with this gesture outlined in the image.

The word 'silence' brings to mind a story my partner tells of visiting an Italian chapel and hearing the word 'Silencio' broadcast loudly over and over without irony. At first I was tempted to record myself playing a short chord progression without plugging in the instrument, but I kinda wanted to make an electronic track.

I chose to interpret the gesture through the rising and falling lines, which led me to pick up my fretless bass. The starting letter S was next to A so I started on A#. The next letter O is only a few steps below S but elsewhere the gesture seems to move backward, so I decided to go up a few steps in pitch to D then drop back to A because that would be a bit lower than the A#, right? And for ease I kept E as E, with a little dip down to C via C# since B seemed out of key.

As the word 'silence' has seven letters, I chose to use a 7/8 time signature as I'm keen to explore alternatives to 4/4 at present. This led me to title the track 'Silence Over Solitude' as 'solitude' was the first sensible eight-letter word to come to mind.

And the bell-like chimes remind me a bit of a chapel, I guess.