Tuonela

I used the same recording I made in 2013. Multiple edited copies were stretched, pitch-changed, put through different types of reverb, reversed, cut-up and re-edited, all using Audacity effects and plugins. The Vocoder and Phaser got a look in too.

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The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it.

Welcome to a new year of Disquiet Junto communal music projects. This week’s project is as follows. It’s the same project we’ve begun each year with since the very first Junto project, way back in January 2012. The project is, per tradition, just this one step:

Step 1: Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it.

Background: Longtime participants in, and observers of, the Disquiet Junto series will recognize this single-sentence assignment — “Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it” — as the very first Disquiet Junto project, the same one that launched the series back on the first Thursday of January 2012. Revisiting it at the start of each January ever since has provided a fitting way to begin the new year. By now, it qualifies as a tradition. A weekly project series can come to overemphasize novelty, and it’s helpful to revisit old projects as much as it is to engage with new ones. Also, by its very nature, the Disquiet Junto suggests itself as a fast pace: a four-day production window, a regular if not weekly habit. It can be beneficial to step back and see things from a longer perspective.

More on the 679th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Ice Age — The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it — at https://disquiet.com/0679/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto /

Bhopal by Tuonela

A long way from where we thought we were by Tuonela

Over an existing drone I had made from the “quiet” ambience of my house I added three slightly different versions of a stretched treatment of an electronic version of the opening bars of the theme from Star Trek: Voyager.

Also added was a long stretch made from the tonic chord of the theme, pitched an octave down, for a bit of gravitas.

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The Assignment: Bury a slow melody deep inside a drone.

Step 1: We did a drone project last week and it went well, so let’s do another one. You needn’t have done last week’s to do this week, as is always the case. Again, you may, yourself, be experienced recording drone music, or you may never have recorded any. You may not even be sure what drone music is, in which case read up a bit. Not matter your experience and familiarity, please give some thought as to what constitutes drone music.

Step 2: Think about what makes a melody, even a very slow and simple melody, different from a drone.

Step 3: Now record a piece of music that is, objectively, a deep drone, but somehow within it, somewhere well below the surface, include a slow-moving melody.

More at https://disquiet.com/0676/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto /

Its name engraved in iron letters by Tuonela

By chance (always a favourite way for things to happen), I was working on just such a drone, ie developing complexity and then relinquishing it, when this dropped.

Based on a very old abandoned project using a recording of Also Sprach Zarathustra. Not sure what was done to it originally (alright, I can’t remember), this mix added some duplicated passages pitched down, stretched slightly and repositioned in order to create tonal contrasts.

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The Assignment: Record a drone that goes from simple to complex to simple.

Step 1: You may, yourself, be experienced recording drone music, or you may never have recorded any. You may not even be sure what drone music is, in which case read up a bit. Not matter your experience and familiarity, please give some thought as to what constitutes drone music.

Step 2: Now think about what makes a drone simple and what makes a drone complex.

Step 3: Now record a piece of drone music that begins simple, gets complex, and then gets simple again. And note: The simple drone at the end needn’t necessarily be the same sort of drone with which the piece opens.

More at https://disquiet.com/0675/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto /

The ancient and languid waters of the sea of death by Tuonela

Two simple drones, pitched the same, one evolving out of the other. The first is made from my own recording of a thunderclap during a Sydney rainstorm, the second from a recording of the ambience of my house when we are out and the animals are asleep..

Minimal and mercifully short. Headphones recommended.

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The Assignment: Make the quiet part loud, and vice-versa.

Just one step this week: Record a piece of music in which you make loud that which is usually quiet and quiet that which is usually loud.

More at https://disquiet.com/0673/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto /

The doors of the disbelievers by Tuonela

The night became dense by Tuonela