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.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, May 3, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, April 29, 2021.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0487: Carillon Quotidian Assignment: Turn a recurring sound from your life into music.
This project was developed by Marty Petkovich (aka K Joule) as part of the celebration of the upcoming 500th consecutive weekly Disquiet Junto project.
Step 1: Identify a recurring sound in your daily life that isn’t generally considered musical. Try to locate a sound that you would normally ignore: the hum of the dryer, or the way the car trunk resonates when you drop it closed, the sound your boots make on certain stairs, the sound of the water coming out of the kitchen tap, etc.
Step 2: The goal is to explore the innate musicality of the sound you identified in Step 1. When recording the sound identified in Step 1, please keep in mind the effort may require some production techniques, because you want to try to isolate it as best as possible.
Step 3: Make an original piece of music employing the sample you recorded in Step 2 of the sound you decided upon in Step 1. Transpose the recorded sample and compose a short theme to use as the central voice in your composition. Complete your piece with other instrument lines as needed.
Background: Invented almost 500 years ago, the carillon is one of the first attempts to take a quotidian sound, the bell, and transpose it into a scaled instrument (which comprises a keyboard that mechanically works 23 bells of different sizes). It is also one of the loudest instruments, designed to broadcast music across an entire village. Before the carillon, the most important role of the bell was to announce the hour (functioning at its most basic level) or the beginning or ending of some event, spiritual or otherwise. The carillon instrumentalized the bell, much as samplers can instrumentalize any recorded item. In honor of the impending 500th Disquiet Junto project, this week’s challenge is to revisit the 500-year-old process of taking a common sound that resonates in your life and instrumentalize it in order to craft a piece of music. Your “carillon” should be the central voice in your piece which can then be embellished as you wish with other instrument lines.
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0487” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.
Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0487” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.
Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.
Step 4: Post your tracks in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0487-carillon-quotidian/
Step 5: Annotate your tracks with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #disquietjunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.
Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Additional Details:
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, May 3, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, April 29, 2021.
Length: The length of your finished track is up to you.
Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0487” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, 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 always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).
For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:
More on this 487th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Carillon Quotidian (Assignment: Turn a recurring sound from your life into music) — at: https://disquiet.com/0487/
This project was developed by Marty Petkovich (aka K Joule) as part of the celebration of the upcoming 500th consecutive weekly Disquiet Junto project.
More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0487-carillon-quotidian/
There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
The image associated with this project is by Jade, and used thanks to Flickr and a Creative Commons license allowing editing (cropped with text added) for non-commercial purposes: