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, April 18, 2022, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, April 14, 2022.
Tracks will be added to the playlist for the duration of the project.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0537: Penitent Honk
The Assignment: Do sound design for “a missing gesture” of vehicular life.
Step 1: Consider the sounds drivers make using their car horns. A firm, accusatory blast. A short, sharp alert. A held tone of vein-popping exasperation. What the horn isn’t easily capable of, however, is apologizing. If you make a mistake, and you want to signal your chagrin, there’s no button for that. The writer Rob Walker files such a concept under the heading of “a missing gesture.” Think about that for a moment.
Step 2: For more context, read the issue of Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing newsletter in which a subscriber suggests the following: “We have so many rude gestures, many of which we use while driving. But we don’t have a good gesture to say ‘I’m Sorry!’ If we accidentally cut someone off, we should be able to indicate it wasn’t intentional.”
https://robwalker.substack.com/p/around-the-block/
Step 3: Think about what a car horn would sound like if it were apologizing for the driver’s actions.
Step 4: Record the sound you thought of in Step 3.
Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0537” (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 “disquiet0537” (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 track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0537-penitent-honk/
Step 5: Annotate your track 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.
Step 8: Also join in the discussion on the Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to [email protected] for Slack inclusion.
Note: Please post one track for this weekly Junto project. If you choose to post more than one, and do so on SoundCloud, please let me know which you’d like added to the playlist. Thanks.
Additional Details:
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, April 18, 2022, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, April 14, 2022.
Length: The length is up to you. Don’t hog the road.
Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0537” 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:
This project was proposed by Rob Walker.
More on this 537th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Penitent Honk (The Assignment: Do sound design for “a missing gesture” of vehicular life) — at: https://disquiet.com/0537/
More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0537-penitent-honk/