It’s been a solid five weeks since I logged off social media, and it’s been a good five weeks. It took two weeks before I really felt not just off but off off, and since then I’ve been enjoying the more insular than usual mode. I found I had approached, if not achieved, a kind of observational homeostasis, where I was still noting — and notating — things, even when not sharing them publicly. I always say my social media accounts are, collectively, my public scratch pad, which is distinct from my personal scratch pad. I do look forward to getting back online solidly by the first full week of January, in part because I miss some of the interaction, but also because it’ll be interesting to see how my off time has informed my next phase of on time. I do subscribe to the idea that being primarily offline, and seeing online activity as a break, is a potentially healthier and more productive approach than the obverse.
Author: Marc Weidenbaum
Disquiet Junto Project 0678: Commonplace Playlist
The Assignment: Create a sonic diary of the past year with a dozen (or more) super-brief segments.
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have five days to record and upload a track in response to the project instructions.
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. The Junto is weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when your time and interest align.
Tracks are added to the SoundCloud playlist for the duration of the project. Additional (non-SoundCloud) tracks also generally appear in the lllllll.co discussion thread.
Disquiet Junto Project 0678: Commonplace Playlist
The Assignment: Create a sonic diary of the past year with a dozen (or more) super-brief segments.
As has become the tradition at the end of each calendar year, this week’s Junto project is a sound journal: a selective audio history of your past 12 months.
Step 1: You will select a different audio element to represent each of the past 12 months of 2024 — or you might opt for even more elements, choosing a segment for each week, or each day, for example. 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, your own devising, and not drawn from third-party sources.
Step 2: You will then select one segment from each of these (most likely) dozen audio elements. If you’re doing a dozen items, one for each month, then five-second segments are recommended, for a total of one minute. Ultimately, though, the length of the segments and of the overall finished track are up to you.
Step 3: Then you will stitch these segments together, equally weighted, in chronological order to form one single 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.
Tasks Upon Completion:
Label: Include “disquiet0678” (no spaces/quotes) in the name of your track.
Upload: Post your track to a public account (SoundCloud preferred but by no means required). It’s best to focus on one track, but if you post more than one, clarify which is the “main” rendition.
Share: Post your track and a description/explanation at https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0678-commonplace-playlist/
Discuss: Listen to and comment on the other tracks.
Additional Details:
Length: The length is up to you. How many samples will you use, and how long will they be?
Deadline: Monday, December 30, 2024, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.
About: https://disquiet.com/junto/
Newsletter: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/
License: It’s preferred (but not required) to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., an attribution Creative Commons license).
Please Include When Posting Your Track:
More on the 678th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Commonplace Playlist — The Assignment: Create a sonic diary of the past year with a dozen (or more) super-brief segments — at https://disquiet.com/0678/
Holiday Content
'Tis the season
This household has a lot of holiday albums, boxes of CDs accumulated over the years, among them a ton of mixes by Eddie G. If I had to select my three favorite records for this time of year, they are:
- Ella Fitzgerald’s 1960 Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas
- Low’s 1999 Christmas
- The 2004 various artists compilation Where Will You Be Christmas Day? (on the great Dust-to-Digital label)
Sound Advice
Four wheels good
Sign on the floor of a car wash in town
Caveat DIYer
All the circuit boards fit to print
Note to self, should I pursue soldering in 2025