Disquiet Junto 0712 Zebra Code

The Junto project this week came from a post I saw online, where barcodes were being interpreted as riffs.

I shared the idea with Marc and he indicated it was an idea worth exploring.

So I began looking at products in the kitchen cupboards and found most were atonal, which suited metal and I began riffing to settle on the stripes I'd use.

This label from a local supermarket took my interest as it had a more musical key and I think the Junto projects are an opportunity to share something specific to my location, as it's often interesting to see glimpses of participants' lives from around the world.

Then Marc shifted the idea to be a rhythm, which made sense as the Junto is not just guitarists.

The barcode I'd chosen was interpreted with the longer lines as accents for the narrow lines, which I decided were kick drums as I'm so used to putting them on the "one".

You can see there's a cymbal for the wider line and I settled on a snare for another width.

I took this rhythm and found a chord progression from my folder of Live sketches, then began arranging the parts.

In the process I halved the speed of the drum part at the beginning and in a middle section, as well as reversing the chords in other parts to add harmonic interest. 

Finally, I like to add delay, so I took the grainy quality of the barcord to suggest a granular or glitchy effect.