Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.com and at disquiet.com/junto, 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. There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.
Tracks will be added to this playlist for the duration of the project:
This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, March 17, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, March 21, 2016.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0220: Rhythmic Arrhythmic The Assignment: Make overtly rhythmic music from short loops of overtly arrhythmic source audio, following instructions from Dennis DeSantis.
Dennis DeSantis adapted this week’s project from the chapter “Implied Rhythm in Short Loops”from his excellent book Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers. The project explores how rhythm emerges from almost any audio material if short fragments of it are repeated incessantly enough.
Step 1: Find or make an audio recording of the arrhythmic material of your choice and gradually reduce its loop length until rhythmic patterns begin to emerge.
Tip: This usually works well with loops that are no longer than about two seconds.
Tip: Good sources include: existing music, field recordings, and recordings of speech.
Tip: “Bad”or uneven loops can often yield the most interesting results. Don’t necessarily aim for loops with clean boundaries or that are aligned to zero-crossings.
Step 2: Use the inherent rhythm in these short loops as the basis for a piece of new music in which the “discovered”rhythm is clearly audible.
Step 3: Upload your completed track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.
Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Deadline: This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, March 17, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, March 21, 2016.
Length: The length is up to you, though between two and four minutes seems about right.
Upload: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, only upload one track for this project, and be sure to 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. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.
Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please in the title to your track include the term “disquiet0220-rhythmicarrhythmic.”Also use “disquiet0220-rhythmicarrhythmic”as a tag for your track.
Download: It is preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).
Linking: When posting the track, please be sure to include this information:
More on this 220th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Make overtly rhythmic music from short loops of overtly arrhythmic source audio, following instructions from Dennis DeSantis”) at:
https://disquiet.com/0220/
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
https://disquiet.com/junto/
Join the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:
https://disquiet.com/forums/
The photo associated with this project is by Junto member Will Benton (web.willbenton.com), a computer scientist based in Madison, Wisconsin.