Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, 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. A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required. 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, December 29, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, January 2, 2017.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0261: Audio Journal 2016 The Assignment: Create a sonic diary of the past year with a dozen five-second segments.
This week’s project is a sound journal, a selective audio history of your past year.
Step 1: You will select a different audio element to represent each of the past 12 months of 2016. These audio elements will most likely be of music that you have yourself composed and recorded, but they might also consist of phone messages, field recordings, or other source material. These items should be somehow personal in nature, suitable to the autobiographical intention of the project; they should be of your own making, and not drawn from third-party sources.
Step 2: You will then select one five-second segment from each of these dozen audio elements.
Step 3: Then you will stitch these dozen five-second segments together in chronological order to form one single one-minute track. There should be no overlap or gap between segments; they should simply proceed from one to the next.
Step 4: In the notes field accompanying the track, identify each of the audio segments.
(Level Up: Alternately, you can use more than 12 audio segments — do two a month, or one a week, or one a day. Whatever you choose, just keep them evenly distributed across the year. You might make the segments shorter, to keep the full track length to 60 seconds.)
Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Per the instructions below, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0261” (no spaces) in the name of your track. If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to my locating the tracks and creating a playlist of them.
Step 2: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.
Step 3: In the following discussion thread at llllllll.co please consider posting your track.
http://llllllll.co/t/make-a-2016-sound-journal-disquiet-junto-0261/5891
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, December 29, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, January 2, 2017.
Length: The length is up to you, but three to four minutes sounds about right.
Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0261”in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, 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.
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 online, please be sure to include this information:
More on this 261st weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Audio Journal 2016: Create a sonic diary of the past year with a dozen five-second segments — at:
https://disquiet.com/0261/
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
https://disquiet.com/junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
http://llllllll.co/t/make-a-2016-sound-journal-disquiet-junto-0261/5891
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Photo associated with this project is by Bev Sykes, used thanks to a Creative Commons license:
flic.kr/p/2od2G
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/