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, March 14, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, March 18, 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 0063: Gregorian-orian-ian
This week’s project involves the role of architectural spaces in the composition of music. It is a shared-sample project that takes a piece of Gregorian chant as its source material.
These are the steps:
Step 1: Download this OGG audio file that contains a recording of monks singing Gregorian chant at the Abbey of Sant’Antimo in Italy:
Step 2: Play back that recording loudly in a highly reverberant space and record it. Your best bet may be a bathroom.
Step 3: Create a new piece of music using the recording you just made as your primary source material. You cannot add any new source material. You can manipulate the audio recording as you please, but restrict yourself to effects that simulate echo, such as delay, reverb, and looping. You may also use the original OGG file, but only in addition to your own recording of it being played back in the reverberant space.
Background: For additional thinking on the role that architecture has played in the evolution of music, this 2010 talk by David Byrne is recommended:
http://blog.ted.com/2010/06/11/how_architectur/
Deadline: Monday, March 18, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.
Length: Your finished work should be between 1 and 4 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 “disquiet0063-gregorianorianian”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 63th Disquiet Junto project at:
Disquiet Junto Project 0063: Gregorian-orian-ianMore details on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/
The source of this piece is a recording of monks singing Gregorian chant at the Abbey of Sant’Antimo in Italy:
The image of the Abbey is from wikimedia.org.