Disquiet – Page 793 – Listening to culture. Playing with audio. Sounding out technology. Composing in code.

If You Meet “Six-String Buddha” on the Internet

Remix it

August 16, 2015August 8, 2018 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Yesterday [I posted a short piece of music](https://disquiet.com/2015/08/15/six-string-buddha/) that I recorded for this week’s Disquiet Junto project, which involves layering tonal material into a dense, rich whole. Mine, [“Six-String Buddha,”](https://disquiet.com/2015/08/15/six-string-buddha/) made entirely on guitar with live looping, takes the form of a short Buddha Machine loop. Within 24 hours, two musicians I admire had recorded revisions — remixes, reworkings — of my track. It’s one of the great pleasures of life to hear your own work refracted back through someone else’s imagination.

Rupert Lally, whose advice on using volume to reduce the percussive attack when hitting a string, mixed my piece up with his own “Sediment Layers”:

Lally describes his process as follows:

>A mashup or “a synthesis” of Marc Weidenbaum’s piece for disquiet 0189 (“Six-String Buddha”)and mine (“Sediment Layers”). Marc’s piece is processed via my modular synth: Make Noise FxdF and RXMX into Mutable Instruments Clouds Parasite and looped once. Some reverb was added in Ableton Live.

Lee Rosevere’s reworking consisted entirely of my piece, repeated to nine times its original length, and then enhanced with segments extracted from the original:

<a href="http://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/album/remixes">Remixes by Lee Rosevere</a>

Writes Rosevere of his process:

>I edited the original loop just slightly so it had a natural loop point (there was a tiny little click at the original end) and loaded into Ableton Live sampler. I played the original loop with reverb for 9 mins, then went back and played extracts of the loop at different pitches with different fx/eq, and then did it a third time. I had to be careful with the 2nd and 3rd sample passes, as I was trying to add little colours here and there, and not oversaturate the original.

Lally piece originally posted at [soundcloud.com/rupertlally](https://soundcloud.com/rupertlally/a-disquieting-synthesis). Rosevere piece originally posted at [leerosevere.bandcamp.com](https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/track/varah). The work originated as part of [the 189th weekly Disquiet Junto music project](https://disquiet.com/2015/08/13/disquiet0189-tonelayer/).

“Six-String Buddha”

A looped ambient guitar track I recorded for the 189th weekly Disquiet Junto project

August 15, 2015August 8, 2018 / By Marc Weidenbaum

I set out to make my own version of a Buddha Machine loop: a short phrase that loops over and over, yet is “ambient” enough that it can settle into the background. This one-minute track was recorded on my electric guitar, with no effects except for a little delay that’s built into my amplifier. I used the guitar’s volume knob to remove any sense of the attack when I hit the string: I hit the string with the volume at 0, and only then began to turn the knob up slowly to 10. I also nudged the volume control from 10 back down to 0 to accelerate the end of the tone, but sometimes I let it fade out on its own. The whole thing is comprised entirely of single extended notes, probably 20 separate instances in total. I lost count. There is no evidence of the accrual process in this recording. That is, no notes are added as it proceeds. I didn’t hit “record” until the full set was layered and complete, and then I just let it play on repeat. The looper is the introductory-level Ditto from TC Electronics. The amp is a Roland Micro Bass Cube. I used a Zoom H4N to record it, with the mic about a foot from the amp. I edited it in Audacity simply to trim the length and introduce a gentle fade-in and fade-out at the beginning and end. The guitar is a 2005 Fender Stratocaster (made in Corona, California) that I bought for myself last week as a birthday present, after playing ukulele for five years.

Thanks to Disquiet Junto regular Rupert Lally for advice on the volume control, advice that contributed to the development of this project.

This was recorded for the 189th weekly Disquiet Junto project. Though I created the Junto series and moderate the projects each week, this is only, I believe, the second or third project I’ve actually contributed a track to.

More on this 189th Disquiet Junto project (“Create a dense stack of attack-free tonal material from one audio source”) at:

Disquiet Junto Project 0189: Tone Layer

Disquiet Junto Project 0189: Tone Layer

Create a dense stack of attack-free tonal material from one audio source.

August 13, 2015August 14, 2015 / By Marc Weidenbaum

20150813-0189

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group on [SoundCloud.com](https://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/) and at [disquiet.com/junto](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.

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

This assignment was made in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, August 13, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 17, 2015.

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 0189: Tone Layer

Create a dense stack of attack-free tonal material from one audio source.

This project involves layering loops, or a loop of layers. It’s preferable that you do so with live looping, allowing the layers to accrue in real time. However, if live looping is not a capacity of yours, then feel free, certainly, to layer them in Audacity or by some other means.

These are the steps:

Step 1: Choose an instrument that can create extended tones.

Step 2: Record a short loop of a single held tone on that instrument. Use a volume pedal or other tool to eliminate the attack at the start of the tone.

Step 3: Create many more such loops, all with the same instrument, and layer them atop the original loop.

Step 4: Record a document of these layered loops lasting approximately 1 minute.

Step 5: Upload your completed track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.

Step 6: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This assignment was made in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, August 13, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 17, 2015.

Length: The length of your finished work should be roughly one minute.

Upload: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, only upload one track for this assignment, 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.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0189-tonelayer”in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.

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, please be sure to include this information:

More on this 189th Disquiet Junto project (“Create a dense stack of attack-free tonal material from one audio source”) at:

Disquiet Junto Project 0189: Tone Layer

An Archival (1999) Road Excursion from Emma Hendrix

Courtesy of the galleries at Simon Fraser University

August 12, 2015 / By Marc Weidenbaum

20150812-sfu-emmahendrix

The word “rhythmanalysis” is from the work of Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991), who explored — and forgive my poor paraphrasing, as I’m still learning about the topic — the role of rhythm in the social construction of urban environments. The theme of “rhythmanalysis” provided a structure to an exhibit earlier this year at Simon Fraser University, reflecting on a half century of artistic activity at the school. The exhibit, *Through a Window: Visual Art and SFU 1965-2015*, was in the Audain Gallery and Teck Gallery at SFU between June 3 and August 1. It is archived on the school’s [website](https://www.sfu.ca/galleries/through-a-window-public-projects/audio-archive.html) and [SoundCloud page](https://soundcloud.com/sfugalleries).

One of the earlier works in the overview is by Emma Hendrix, “Horizon,” dating from 1999. The piece mixes found audio of transportation sounds into a rhythmic excursion: the underlying churn of a bus en route, the beeping of a signal, the enclosed acoustics of vehicular space.

Writes Hendrix of the piece:

>The title of this work refers to the imperceptible and unacknowledged loss of the acoustic horizon within the urban sonic environment. Horizon was completed in 1999 in SFU’s Sonic Research Studio using analog tape loops of field recordings taken along the Hastings corridor, bus route #135, between Commercial Drive and SFU’s Burnaby Mountain campus. Soundmarks that comprise this work evoke the university/city commute and the deserted, last bus’ nightly departure from campus.

Track originally posted for free download at [soundcloud.com/sfugalleries](https://soundcloud.com/sfugalleries/horizon). More from Hendrix at [twitter.com/Irezicle](https://twitter.com/Irezicle) and [emmahendrix.com](http://emmahendrix.com/). More from the Simon Fraser University Galleries at [sfu.ca](https://www.sfu.ca/galleries).

A Climatic Chorus

A little mist music by Marti Epstein

August 11, 2015August 12, 2015 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Classical composer Marti Epstein has produced a series of choral pieces, each of which takes as its theme a different weather pattern. The quintet of segments includes “Snow,” “Heat,” “Tornado,” and “Rain.” The second movement in this micro-suite is “Mist,” which layers, true to its climatic conceit, vocal utterances in a shifting, gentle, lightly flowing manner. They combine with a cello, here played by Rhonda Rider. The vocalists are the Master Singers of Lexington. The text, not that my ear can make out the words, is credited to Jonathan Eichman. According to the “works list” on her website, [martiepstein.com](http://www.marti-epstein.squarespace.com/works-list/), it dates back to 2009.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/marti-epstein](https://soundcloud.com/marti-epstein/weather-patterns-2-mist).