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’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, March 20, 2017. This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, March 16, 2017.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0272: Exoplanetary Intervals The Assignment: Use music to express the relationships between planets.
Recently, scientists announced the discovery of a nearby star system, TRAPPIST-1. Orbiting its ultra-cool dwarf star are seven planets, three in the habitable zone. Remarkably, six of the planets form the longest known chain where each orbits at a resonant frequency of it’s neighbor. From the slowest, the planets orbit at: 1x, 4/3x 2x, 3x, 5x, 8x. If you think of those as vibrating strings, they form a chord or scale: the slowest planet is the root, then fourth, octave, octave and fifth, two octaves and major third, three octaves. Major thanks to Junto participant Mark Lentczner for having taken the lead in proposing and developing this project.
Step 1: You’re going to record a composition employing these ratios, as a scale or chord — or a polyrhythm for that matter — as a means to express a sense of these newly discovered planets. Keep this in mind.
Step 2: Consider those intervals, play with them a bit, and think about how they can be employed to represent independent yet interdependent bodies in motion.
Step 3: Review the information on the relative orbits of the TRAPPIST-1 planets here:
http://www.ozonehouse.com/mark/dj/trappist.html
Step 4: Create an original musical composition that explores the exoplanets’ relationships based on Steps 1, 2, and 3.
Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: If you hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0272” (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/exoplanetary-interv-disquiet-junto-project-0272/
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’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, March 20, 2017. This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, March 16, 2017.
Length: The length of the finished piece is up to you. Three to five minutes feels about right.
Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0272” 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, as well as the identity of the source track that yours accompanies:
More on this 272nd weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Exoplanetary Intervals: Use music to express the relationships between planets” — at:
Major thanks to Junto participant Mark Lentczner for having taken the lead in proposing and developing this project.
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
http://llllllll.co/t/exoplanetary-interv-disquiet-junto-project-0272/
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Image associated with this project is from NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, T. Pyle (IPAC):
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/6266-ssc2017-01a-TRAPPIST-1-Planet-Lineup