Disquiet – Page 678 – Listening to culture. Playing with audio. Sounding out technology. Composing in code.

Disquiet Junto Project 0276: 808 Blockchain Beats

The Assignment: Make 808-style beats based on the blockchain.

April 13, 2017April 14, 2017 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Each Thursday in the [Disquiet Junto group](https://disquiet.com/junto/), 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.

Tracks will be added to this playlist for the duration of the project:

This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 17, 2017. This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, April 13, 2017.

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

Disquiet Junto Project 0276: 808 Blockchain Beats

The Assignment: Make 808-style beats based on the blockchain.

Many thanks to Jon Phillips for proposing and helping to develop this project.

Step 1: This week we’re making music informed and inspired by blockchain. If you’re not familiar with blockchain, this concise summary might be of use:

>The Blockchain is a distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of ordered records called blocks. Each block contains a timestamp and a link to a previous block. The most well known and original implementation is the Bitcoin Blockchain which is often described as a peer-to-peer (p2p) public ledger of all transactions. Blockchain technologies offer a consensus mechanism of indirect coordination, which provides the ability to achieve large-scale and systematic cooperation in an entirely distributed and decentralized manner. Blockchains can be considered as hyper-political and global governance tools, capable of managing social interactions on a large scale and dismissing traditional central authorities. Specific uses include accounting, identity management, record keeping systems,
voting, and land registries.

The source of the summary:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain

Now, if blockchain is too technical and you aren’t using bitcoin as the new gold ;) then use the images that come to mind: block & chain, and use 808 sounds to make some beats.

Step 2: Make a beat informed by blockchain that uses or is in someway inspired by the 808 drum machine.

Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: If you hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0276” (no spaces) in the name of your track. If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to my locating the tracks and creating a playlist of them.

Step 2: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.

Step 3: In the following discussion thread at llllllll.co please consider posting your track:

http://llllllll.co/t/808-blockchain-beats-disquiet-junto-project-0276/

Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 17, 2017. This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, April 13, 2017.

Length: The length is entirely up to the participant.

Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0276” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and 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 preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track online, please be sure to include this information, and if possible link to the original track:

More on this 276th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “808 Blockchain Beats: Make 808-style beats based on the blockchain”— at:

https://disquiet.com/0276/

What Sound Looks Like

An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt

April 11, 2017 / By Marc Weidenbaum

If you look just below the image’s center you’ll see dots, four small indentations in the painted exterior wall. They’re at odd geometric relations with each other. Several subsets of the dots suggest the beginnings of a square, but all together any hope of true squareness collapses, like a cardboard box after the rain. At some point in the past the doorbell was modernized. The doorbells were, plural, that is, since both a knocker and a twister greet visitors. The long-gone upgrade was likely battery operated, since there is no fifth hole for wiring, though perhaps wiring explains the asymmetric lower right. This upgrade, like so many doorbell improvements, came and went and left a reminder that it had failed. The plaster and paint expose the difficulty in righting the wrong. Take a moment to zoom in on the uneven surface, with its stuffed moats and hardened streams, the topology of domestic futility.

An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.

“Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet” Live

The 1975 composition performed late last year by Psappha

April 10, 2017 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Following perhaps intentionally on the warm reception received by that recent posting of a three-part video showing Gavin Bryars’ *Sinking of the Titanic* being [performed live](https://disquiet.com/2017/04/02/the-sinking-of-the-titanic-live-2017/) at the Big Ears festival, we now have the other half of that very same record album, the first from Brian Eno’s Obscure label back in 1975. This is the ensemble Psappha on October 12, 2016, at the RNCM Theatre in Manchester, U.K., conducted by Clark Rundell. (The group’s general manager and artistic director is Tim Williams.) The work is “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet,” which takes the melody inherent in a creaky recording of a homeless man singing a hymn in a painfully sweet and wavering rendition and renders it in a gentle, sensitive setting that suggests a heavenly chorus if not outright beatification. Emphasizing the group’s attentiveness is how serenely they sit for the four full minutes before they actually join the nameless singer, whose verse is heard as a recording to which they eventually play along.

Video originally posted at the ensemble’s [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfT3njX2FLU) channel. More from Psappha, presumbably named for the Xenakis composition, at [psappha.com](http://www.psappha.com/).

What Sound Looks Like

An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt

April 10, 2017April 10, 2017 / By Marc Weidenbaum

It’s comforting when Scholastic, the elementary school paper of record, is aligned with one’s household curriculum. Inside is a full spread on seasonal weather sounds, including foley instructions for simulating Mother Nature: “Do you want to make a sound like hail? Tap your fingers on the floor or table.” The back page introduces the useful term “onomatopoeia,” and asks young readers to single out examples from the sentences in which they appear. This is a nice contrast with a music textbook we encountered a year or so back. It sought to distinguish musical sounds from noises. Why introduce judgement and hierarchy at such an early age?

An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.

Disquiet Junto Project 0275: Revisit Something

The Assignment: Make a track all over again.

April 6, 2017April 7, 2017 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Tracks will be added to this playlist for the duration of the project:

This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 10, 2017. This project was posted in the evening, California time, on Thursday, April 6, 2017.

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

Disquiet Junto Project 0275: Revisit Something

The Assignment: Make a track all over again.

Step 1: Consider pieces of music you have completed in the recent past.

Step 2: Select one — perhaps you weren’t happy with it, perhaps it felt unfinished, perhaps it took too much time, perhaps you wish you’d spent more time on it.

Step 3: Do it all over again, from scratch — preferably from memory (that is, don’t go back and listen to it).

Step 4: Then compare the two. When uploading the track you completed in Step 3, please where possible include a link to the original track so other people might compare the two as well.

Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: If you hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0275” (no spaces) in the name of your track. If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to my locating the tracks and creating a playlist of them.

Step 2: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.

Step 3: In the following discussion thread at llllllll.co please consider posting your track:

http://llllllll.co/t/revisit-something-disquiet-junto-project-0275/

Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 10, 2017. This project was posted in the evening, California time, on Thursday, April 6, 2017.

Length: The length is entirely up to the participant.

Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0275” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Download: It is preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track online, please be sure to include this information, and if possible link to the original track:

More on this 275th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Revisit Something: Make a track all over again.”— at:

https://disquiet.com/0275/