Each Thursday at the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate.
This assignment was made in the mid-afternoon, California time, on Thursday, February 28, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, March 4, 2013, as the deadline.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0061: Textinstagr/am/bient
This project requires a single die, or the digital equivalent.
Here are the steps in the project:
Step 1: Roll a die six times (or six dice once), add up the combined results, and then subtract five from it. Make note of the resulting number. If you don’t have access to a die, you can use various digital equivalents. This link, for example, will roll six dice simultaneously:
http://www.random.org/dice/?num=6
Step 2: Visit this Twitter account:
Step 3: Count the tweets of that account backwards from the most recent tweet at the time of your visit until you reach the tweet that coincides with the resulting number from step 1 above. Make note of this tweet, unless it begins with an @ sign. If the tweet begins with an @ sign, then use the next tweet (continuing down in reverse chronological order). If the next tweet also begins with an @ sign, then continue until coming to a tweet that doesn’t begin with an @ sign. This final tweet will serve as the title of the track you will soon begin composing and recording.
Step 4: Now, roll a die twice (or two dice once), add up the combined results, and then subtract one from it. Make note of the resulting number. This link will roll two dice simultaneously:
http://www.random.org/dice/?num=2
Step 5: Visit this web page and locate the list of Instagram filters:
http://goo.gl/MWPb0
Step 6: Count down the list of filters on that page until you come to the filter that coincides with the resulting number from step 4 above.
Step 7: Close your eyes and imagine a simple photograph that would be described with the tweet that is the title of your track, and that would have been treated with the filter that resulted from the step 6.
Step 8: Now imagine that the image from step 7 is the cover of your next single. Record a track of original ambient music that would be this single. It should be between one and two minutes in length, true to the postcard-like quality of Instagram — and, by extension, Textinstagram.
. . .
Background: This project is a low-key followup to the Instagr/am/bient compilation that I developed at the end of 2011, and that was in many ways the direct precursor of the Disquiet Junto. Various contributors to Insta/gr/ambient were among the initial participants in the Junto.
Deadline: Monday, March 4, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.
Length: Your finished work should be between one and two minutes in length.
Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto.
Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0061-textinstagrambient”in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.
Download: Consider setting your track in a manner that allows for attributed, commerce-free remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).
Linking: When posting the track, be sure to include this information:
More on this 61st Disquiet Junto project at:
Disquiet Junto Project 0061: Textinstagr/am/bientMore details on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/