This paragraph appears in the Disquiet Junto email newsletter that will go out shortly after midnight, Pacific time, via juntoletter.disquiet.com
The short version of this is that if you have subscribed to this email list for some time and have yet to do a Disquiet Junto project, then this one, the one starting on April 23, 2023, is one to consider doing. The gist is this: this week you record a solo piece of music, not a complete piece, but a piece that will be added to, potentially, by other musicians over the following two weeks. Next week, many if not most of the tracks recorded this week will become duets, thanks to the additions by musicians other than yourself — again, with space left intentionally. Then finally two weeks from now, other musicians will add something else, completing a trio. The process can feel magical, especially when the same solo becomes numerous duets, and the same duet, multiple trios — which does happen sometimes. But what really happens is simpler: by recording music that leaves room for other music, you learn something about constraints, and listening, and sharing. And when you fill that space in a subsequent week, you learn the same things, from a radically different perspective.
This feels very familiar to me from working with long-form ambient and synth-based pieces. Space, restraint, and listening can become part of the composition itself. :)
Wonderful concept.