Musical chairs

Disquiet Junto 0330 Wax Off



The Disquiet Junto this week asks participants to "make a piece of music by erasing aspects of a pre-existing track."

I settled on having a go at 'Lame Brain' from a previous Junto, in part because I wanted a track that was recent enough to still be on my computer.

I'd thought it would be easy to take the arrangement and use the guitar recordings, rather than the MIDI parts that had driven cello and viola parts.

However, I found that I'd erased the guitar recordings in the project file and had to go back to the recording and start there.

As a result, this track is a different arrangement because I'd already erased aspects.

Disquiet Junto 0328 Sonic Pentimento



The Junto this explores the sonic equivalent of "a visible trace of earlier painting beneath a layer or layers of paint on a canvas."

I've interpreted this drawing on a few ideas, including using one of the drafts I'd started when responding to the Junto last week and incorporating elements from the song I wrote for the last Naviar Records' haiku.

And the video includes a toasted sandwich that I've been planning for a while: a sandwich within a sandwich.

Naviarhaiku222 – Ghostly melody



Last week Naviar Records shared my 'Ghsotly melody' haiku.

When that was written I'd forgotten the melody that I'd awoken to find in my head, which often happens.

So for my response I decided to draw on other haiku I've written, compiling a collection and jamming on them until lyrics began to form:

Sleep a dark rough sea
shipwreck surrounding mystery
she hides
many things

Ripples reflecting streaming light
a thought surfacing in the night
both shallow and deep
rivers of consciousness while we sleep

Under morning glow
magpies gently chortle song
brightening my day
while the shadows are long

Ghostly melody
follow me into my day
fragment of a dream
won’t you please stay

Cockatoos exclaim
echoing among river red gums
morning has broken
and so am I

On the dry dawn breeze
a chattering in the trees
if birds knew words
I’d hear headlines

Ghostly melody
follow me into my day
fragment of a dream
come what may

Riding as dusk falls
nostalgia induced shopping malls
looking backwards
while moving ahead

Materialise
handwritten words on a page
watching thoughts appear
feeling my age

As days flutter by
they must feel like full lifetimes
to a butterfly

Ghostly melody
follow me into my day
fragment of a dream
leading me astray

Disquiet Junto 0327 Time Zoned



The Junto this week reminded me how good it is to use a 3/4 time signature for basslines.

I also like using unlikely time signatures when making soundtracks for my toasted sandwich videos.

So I took the opportunity to make both a 3/4 bassline and a sandwich.

The Latin percussion follows 7/4 and an 808 beats 2/4, as well as an organ and cello both in 4/4.

This is my 140th Disquiet Junto video and my 27th Remarkable Sandwich.

It's also the third sandwich I've shared with the Junto :)

Naviarhaiku221 – Spring approaches



The haiku shared by Naviar Records is the wrong season sorta the right location as I'll be swimming in the Pacific Ocean within a few weeks.

In the meantime I'll be swimming in Leeton Pool, which is where my son shot the video I've purloined to accompany my track.

Disquiet Junto 0326 Wave Turntable



The Junto this week asks for a composition using only sine waves and turntable surface noise.

My piece used a couple of sine wave presets from Ableton's Operator synth and a few recordings of a dusty turntable.

The bassline was made with the hum of the turntable as it turned on, dropped down an octave.

You can see in the video that the percussive parts came from the initial contact of the needle on the record, which is an album of bushdance songs that my partner likes.

I recorded a couple of takes on the MIDI guitar to drive Operator, however the video cut out during the second one which was a shame as it was better.

There's a long take of the surface noise from the end of the album to play throughout.

Wings to the mind