#disquet

decided to use u-he zebra 2 as the main instrument for this. the document I was reading when I received the djunto mailer was about the high potential of edible insects as a way to solve many starving problems. legislation works has to be done. wanted to give an "insect-vibe" to the track, not quite sure I did succeed. I think that 4/4 kick gives it a groovy feel. this was a nice challenge. those disquiet junto works are fun to do !

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Dear Members of the Disquiet Junto,

I hope this note finds you all well. This week there is a series of events in San Francisco, where I live, celebrating Oulipo, the literary form and society that explores "potential" (or experimental) writing.

Oulipo was, along with the Fluxus art movement, a significant source of inspiration in the founding of the Disquiet Junto, and I am excited to be running a workshop this Saturday, November 9, as part of the week's Oulipo events. More on the event here: subtlechannels.tumblr.com/saturday

This week's Junto project has a vaguely Oulipian approach, in that it applies a rigorous set of rules to pre-existing text, in this case to turn that text into music. The ur-text for the project is a quote from Ford Madox Ford. The instructions are below.

Thanks, as always, for your participation and creativity.

Best wishes,

Marc

. . . Disquiet Junto Project 0097: Ford Madox Ford Page 99 Remix

This week's project takes as its source a comment attributed to the author Ford Madox Ford: "Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you." We will convert text from page 99 of various books into music.

Step 1: Pick up the book you are currently reading, or otherwise the first book you see nearby.

Step 2: Turn to page 99. Confirm that the page has enough consecutive text in it to add up to 80 characters.

Step 2a: If the page is blank or otherwise has no text, turn to page 98. Continue this process of moving backward through the book until your find an appropriate page.

Step 2b: If you are reading an ebook that lacks page numbers, or a book that happens to lack page numbers, then use the first page of the main body of the book (i.e., not the Library of Congress information or the table of contents) or flip to a random spot/page in the book.

Step 3: When you have located 80 consecutive characters, type them into a document on your computer or write the down on a piece of paper.

Step 4: You will turn these characters into music by following the following rules:

Step 4a: The letters A through L will correspond with the notes along the chromatic scale from A to G#. To convert a letter higher than L, simply cycle through the scale again (i.e., L = G#, M = A, etc.). Capital letters should be played slightly louder than lowercase letters.

Step 4b: Any spaces and any dashes/hyphens will be treated as blank, as a silent moment.

Step 4c: A comma or semicolon will signify a note one step below the preceding note.

Step 4d: A period, question mark, or exclamation point will signify a note one step above the preceding note.

Step 4e: All other punctuation (colon, ampersand, etc.) will be heard as a percussive beat.

Step 5: Record the piece of music using a digital or analog instrument.

Step 6: Set the pace for the recording to between 160 and 80 beats per minute (BPM). In other words, the track should be between 30 and 60 seconds in length.

Step 7: Add any desired underlying music or sound bed, and any additional instrumentation, but the melody resulting from Step 6 should be the most prominent sound.

Deadline: Monday, November 11, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Length: Your track should have a duration of between 30 and 60 seconds.

Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, 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. Name the book and share the 80 characters that were the source of your melody.

Title/Tag: Include the term “disquiet0097-page99remix” in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.

Download: Please consider employing a license that allows for attributed, commerce-free remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track, be sure to include this information:

More on this 97th Disquiet Junto project, in which music is decoded from a phrase in a book, at:

disquiet.com/2013/11/07/disquiet0097-page99remix/

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

Groups – Disquiet-junto

started out as nothing. just that first sketch.

never even made it to the third sample....

More on this 68th Disquiet Junto project, the intent of which is to draw attention to the benefits of a Creative Commons license allowing for derivative works, at:

disquiet.com/2013/04/18/disquiet0068-deriv/

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

Groups – Disquiet-junto

Marc Weidenbaum is the disquiet (and disquiet junto) mastermind. He does work really hard to cover lots of musical outputs and activities on his amazing webiste Disquiet.com. He is also the curator of the disquiet junto challenges, you might have heard from them if you're a regular on the arbee tumblr. These challenges are nice and entertaining for the musicians and also for the listeners. I do like to participate when I can, I did 12 disquiet junto tracks during 2012.

On december 21st, Marc did a post about the opening track of my latest album. The track is called Par manque de temps. Marc is really good at puting music into words as he's being doing this for years. Here is what he had to say:

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http://disquiet.com/2012/12/21/arbee-monkey/

In “Par Manque de Temps” by Arbee Monkey, beat and melody play a cat and mouse game. There’s a deep synth tone, like something that might not have been out of place from a mid-1980s pop group, but it’s used for if not dirge-like effect, then certainly something atmospheric, even maudlin. It plays against a beat that’s only slightly more fleshed out than a click track. But as the piece proceeds, the roles change. At first the tone exerts a rhythmic intent, suddenly pulsing, and then the beat dissolves, eventually flanging and losing itself in its own atmospheric foray.

The piece is the opening of Arbee’s Libre Arbitre, released on Recycled Plastics. The full album is at recycledplastics.bandcamp.com, there’s a suite of remixes (by Darren Harper, among others) at soundcloud.com/recycledplastics, and a CDR atmilieu-music.com.

Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/arbeemonkey. More from the musician, who is based in Québec City, Canada, attwitter.com/arbeemonkey.