The Refraction Context

When open source means open-ended melodies

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Tired: album liner notes.

Wired: a link to the GitHub repository where the open-source software used to record the music is housed.

Case in point: Ambalek’s track “Lofi Snowflakes,” a sedate sequence of tones that follow a pace seemingly static but varying regularly throughout. The melody alters just enough to feel of a piece, but in fact it shifts continuously, effortlessly, notes occasionally warped in a manner that echoes the open-ended refraction context. The script, titled [Raindrops](https://github.com/ambalek/raindrops), was written for the Norns, a device from Monome (see: [monome.org/norns](https://monome.org/norns/)).

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/ambalek](https://soundcloud.com/ambalek/lofi-snowflakes). Github at [github.com/ambalek](https://github.com/ambalek/raindrops).

Disquiet Junto Project 0502: Global Swarming

The Assignment: Create a swarm of imaginary insects.

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

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, August 16, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, August 12, 2021.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):

**Disquiet Junto Project 0502: Global Swarming**
The Assignment: Create a swarm of imaginary insects.

This project is the third of three that are being done over the course of as many months in collaboration with the 2021 Musikfestival Bern, which will be held in Switzerland from September 1 through 5 under the motto “schwärme” (“swarms”). For this reason, a German translation is provided below. We are working at the invitation of Tobias Reber, an early Junto participant, who is in charge of the educational activities of the festival. This is the third year in a row that the Junto has collaborated with Musikfestival Bern. Select recordings resulting from these three Disquiet Junto projects will be played and displayed throughout the festival.

Step 1: You’ll be creating the sound of a swarm of insects. First, select the insect sounds from sets that resulted from two previous Disquiet Junto projects:

[https://we.tl/t-pKgdA5pNcH](https://we.tl/t-pKgdA5pNcH)

Step 2: Create the sound of a swarm of insects approaching, gathering mass, and then passing you by, utilizing some of the sounds you selected in Step 1.

Background: Selected results of this assignment will be played at the festival center and on the local alternative radio station Radio RaBe. The participants whose work is included will be listed by name.

**Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:**

Step 1: Include “disquiet0502” (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 “disquiet0502” (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:

[https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0502-global-swarming/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0502-global-swarming/)

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 and #musikfestivalbern 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.

Note: Please post one track per 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, August 16, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, August 12, 2021.

Length: The length of your finished track is up to you.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0502” 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 502nd weekly Disquiet Junto project — Global Swarming (The Assignment: Create a swarm of imaginary insects) — at: [https://disquiet.com/0502/](https://disquiet.com/0502/)

Thanks to Tobias Reber and Musikfestival Bern for collaboration on this project. More on the festival at:

[https://www.musikfestivalbern.ch/](https://www.musikfestivalbern.ch/)
[https://www.instagram.com/musikfestival_bern](https://www.instagram.com/musikfestival_bern)
[https://www.facebook.com/musikfestivalbern](https://www.facebook.com/musikfestivalbern)

More on the Disquiet Junto at: [https://disquiet.com/junto/](https://disquiet.com/junto/)

Subscribe to project announcements here: [https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/](https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/)

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: [https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0502-global-swarming/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0502-global-swarming/)

There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to [email protected] for Slack inclusion.

The image associated with this project is by David Hoffman, and used thanks to Flickr and a Creative Commons license allowing editing (cropped with text added) for non-commercial purposes:

[https://flic.kr/p/aePCyj](https://flic.kr/p/aePCyj)

[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/)

Continue reading “Disquiet Junto Project 0502: Global Swarming”

Disquiet Junto 500 Roundup

Coverage and related material

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Since the first week of January 2012, a music composition prompt has been sent out each Thursday to a growing and ever-changing assortment of musicians and sonic experimenters around the planet. The name of the group is the Disquiet Junto. Two weeks ago, the group marked its 500th consecutive such project. Here is a roundup of coverage and related material. If I’ve left out something, please let me know.

▰ An article by Colin Joyce at [hii-mag.com](https://hii-mag.com/allposts/colinjoyceprescriptiveartpractice).

▰ An interview I did with Peggy Nelson at [hilobrow.com](https://www.hilobrow.com/2021/08/05/eye-candy-49/). A few additional notes [here](https://disquiet.com/2021/08/08/loner-versus-plus-joiner/).

▰ An interview I did with Lee Rosevere at [the CBC](https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-130-mainstreet-pei/clip/15859116-disquiet-junto?fbclid=IwAR2g6yw3uqUKBZ-YcItlVbWYTCBKKivM9z_Fci9QMyWAvj-13tW6IJaVGAg). A few additional notes [here](https://disquiet.com/2021/08/08/cbc-radio-on-the-disquiet-junto/).

. . .

▰ [Four observations](https://disquiet.com/2021/08/03/rhythm-approaches-publishing-and-unlike-minds/) made by Marty Petkovich on the occasion.

. . .

▰ The [500th project itself](https://disquiet.com/2021/07/29/disquiet-junto-project-0500-humming-to-your-selves/), the assignment being: “Play a tune by yourself and as if by two people whom you invent.”

▰ The project discussion thread at the llllllll.co](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0500-humming-to-your-selves/) message board.

▰ The project playlist at [soundcloud.com/disquiet](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0500).

. . .

▰ Some favorite projects from [the first 499](https://disquiet.com/2021/07/26/favorites-junto-projects-from-the-first-499/).

▰ What [preceded](https://disquiet.com/2021/07/25/what-preceded-the-disquiet-junto/) the Disquiet Junto.

▰ How Junto prompts [originate](https://disquiet.com/2021/07/28/how-junto-prompts-originate/).

▰ Thoughts on why [work is more important than inspiration](https://disquiet.com/2021/07/27/junto-work-is-what-is-important/).

. . .

▰ A [full list](https://disquiet.com/2012/01/27/the-disquiet-junto/) of the prompts to date, since January 2012.

Reviewed “Seeing Sound” @ Kadist SF

For The Wire

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Ah, it’s that font I love to be published in. I have a new article in the latest issue of The Wire. It’s a review of a group show at the Kadist gallery in San Francisco. The show, titled Seeing Sound, featured work by the artists Marina Rosenfeld, Aura Satz, and Samson Young, and was curated by Barbara London. (This is the new issue with Grouper on the cover.) I posted a bit about the exhibit here previously.

When the Doorbell Tolls for Itself

A domestic requiem

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

You don’t miss you water ’til your well’s run dry, and you don’t miss your doorbell until it’s no longer capable of being rung. But before the doorbell gets to such a state, there is, apparently, a death rattle, as I’ve now learned firsthand.

In the case of the doorbell in the home where I have lived for nearly 13 years, this rattle took the form initially of a long held note, and a dense one at that — not so much handfuls as bushels of overtones. The doorbell was rung one recent afternoon, and many seconds passed before I realized it wasn’t receding. It wasn’t quieting. It rang, and then it held, like a violin played with an endlessly long bow — or to borrow a term from synthesizers, as if some tiny, granular segment of it had been captured and then looped so as to give the illusion of an extended pause. I was caught within a frozen, eternal moment of doorbell-ness. Part of me didn’t want it to ever end. Part of me feared it never would. Part of me knew this was the end, or close to it. This was the sound of a doorbell when it tolls for itself.

I woke from the spell when I recognized that while the doorbell may be on a kind of held pause, whoever had cause it to ring was outside the time-loop bubble, or at least outside the front gate. I opened the door to receive the inevitable package, and then headed back upstairs. There, at the end of the hall, above the entrance to the kitchen, the doorbell continued to ring. It was such a strange presence, this all too familiar sound — even when I knew someone was due by for a visit, it would shock me and send the hair of my arms up on end — heard in a new way.

As it played on, and on, my sense was this was no mere blip. This was the end. It was the end, but it just wasn’t over yet. The ringing was orchestral. It felt like it can be to watch ocean waves churn over and over: in constant motion, yet in many ways never really changing, and all along giving only a hint of the depths they cover.

And then the drone of this former bell, the held tone of this former terse chime, began to settle, like a balloon deflating, like ice melting, so slowly that there came a point when I couldn’t tell if it was still ringing, or if I was just remembering the impression of its ring.

And then briefly it surfaced again, fading in, rising to a substantial volume, though with none of the strength it had moments before, only to fade out with an unambiguous finality. This fade was the end. There was a memory, but there was no illusion of presence. No pressing of the buzzer outside could revive it.

When someone rings it currently, if the house is quiet, there is a distant buzz. There is, of course, no ring. A replacement needs to be selected, and installed, but there’s time for that. Replacing it too soon feels a bit like replacing a recently deceased pet. A respectful void is necessary before one truly moves on. For now there’s near silence, and I could get used to it, impractical as it may be.