#21

I love this 18th century ink painting by an artist called Ito Jakuchu. Jakuchu left a large margin at the top of the screen, but now a poem by the singer Kagawa Keiju is attached in a separate sheet. It roughly translates to:

never darkening,
constantly it shines, this moon
and if it is so, there will surely be no one that sleeps through the night of this world

Such a gauche move to add something to someone else’s painting , but I can’t say I don’t love it.

jakuchu
jakuchu426×646 62.6 KB

One width paper ink painting Kansei 6 (1794) 100.8 × 58.3cm Saifuku-ji Image courtesy of Kyoto National Museum

11 Likes
#22

Process was fairly on the nose with a literal interpretation of the assignment - three separate oscillators, each going through its own envelope, manually triggered to create overlapping sequence 1-2-3-2. Manually playing the filter in accordance with general brightness level increasing from 1-2-3 then back down from 3-2 again. Some randomly phasing modulation and soaked in resonating feedback.

Had some ideas to program the entire thing using clever timing and triggering envelopes but pragmatism won in the end and ended up playing it manually instead, probably for the better.

9 Likes
#23

I’ve always been intrigued by how the moon affects the Earth’s tides, so when this prompt came up, I started looking into how I could sonically represent this. I went down multiple rabbit holes and learnt about tidal bores - spectacular expressions of the moon’s effects on the tides of a river, where a wave [or series of waves] rush upstream against the current.

I found a study by Hubert Chanson on the acoustic properties of a tidal bore, and used those figures to create my own.

9 Likes
#24

This weeks topic didn’t get me until I found some NASA Goddard Lunar phase footage. Sometimes I just need a visual to connect me to something.

6 Likes
#25

This track is based around a number of sine curves representing the 29.5 day synodic period of the moon and the Earth day. The majority of the sounds are based on sine curves with some manipulation. In addition, a recording from the first moon landing is used as a source for granular synthesis.

This track includes a sample courtesy of NASA: www.nasa.gov/mp3/569462main_eagle_has_landed.mp3. The associated image was rendered using lunar surface displacement map also courtesy of NASA.

8 Likes
#26

Surprisingly I came up with a lot of ideas for this when I heard the prompt but only ended up using a couple. Moreover I made it over the last 3 hours based on a structure I just thought of. In the end I feel like my structure was too prescriptive resulting in something that was more intellectually interesting to make (changing time signatures, poly meters, shifting modes) than to listen to. Beyond that, it doesn’t evoke the moon phases in the way I intended.

As for process, melodically it is very simple consisting entirely of fixed tones from modes acting as chords and arpeggios. It contains 7 phases each of which differs slightly (intended to represent a transition from new moon to full and back again). Beyond the composition I decided on long linear automations spanning the track to add some slow movement. Atypically for me I also did a little work in the mastering phase in terms of adding some more EQ motion to try and keep the tone changing. This definitely helped it along.

The sounds were all from synths (despite my plans to use more acoustic instruments sounds) and all sequenced from the MPC with effects from my usual delay+reverb. Atypically for me I also automated some of the effect parameters to try and keep things evolving. Another interesting project, but I feel like I didn’t make the most of it.

9 Likes
#27

Really love this idea!

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#28

Welcome to the Disquiet :slight_smile:

I really like the atmosphere you’ve created here - listening sent a shiver up my spine, very haunting as you say

1 Like
#31

The phases of the moon, as are the phases of life. The seasons of the year, so also the seasons of life. The only constant is perpetual change.

Although slightly melancholic perhaps, this piece has a positive, upwards moving continuum, towards its subtle and peaceful finale.

First the Moog One was recorded in one take, through two Roland Space Echos, one each for left and right channel. Then, with quite an amount of knob tweaking, the shimmer and playfulness of the Waldorf Quantum was added, also in one take, through the tape echoes.

7 Likes
#32

Disquiet0420
Goddess Tapping
• Key: C pentatonic BPM: 120 Time signature: 4/4 DAW: Reaper
• Instruments: Violin, string ensembles, cello, synth pad, soundscape
• Plug-ins: Ozone 8 elements, Kontakt 6, Spitfire labs, Aria player, Cinematique landscape
• https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/phases/
• The concept is that there are 4 major moon phrases(1st quarter, full moon, 3rd quarter and then the new moon)
• Used one instrument type for each phrase of the moon
• Six tracks total

5 Likes
#33

I want to film a lunar western, just to get you to write the soundtrack!

5 Likes
#34

got a cello sample
duplicated and pitched one +4 st
paulstretched a couple of times.
in audition used doppler shifter to go through 12 revolutions
(one for each month)

5 Likes
#35

Thank you! looking forward, that could be the ultimate road movie! Sergio Leone meet Kubrick…

2 Likes
#36

Really pleased I made the deadline because I had such a blast with this one:

Though… First the confession: That’s not really my submission. It’s an excerpt of the proof-of-concept I put together to try and figure the real one out. I uploaded it because I wanted to make sure I uploaded something immediately listenable and that could be shared.

This is the real one: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ph6WGUFrZxgFomguFU_p2xvb0G6b9kBc/view?usp=sharing

It’s a piece of programmed music that lasts for a sidereal month and is set to change roughly coinciding with the passing of the phases of the moon. I uploaded the Csound file because I’m still waiting for the score file to compile, as I haven’t actually heard the final completed version outside my various tests to make sure things were working as I planned them. Also, I don’t know if it’s really useful to upload a 27-day audiofile somewhere.

I came up with the idea sitting at the piano trying to think of something to represent the different phases and my mind just kept wandering. I’m not an experienced programmer by any measure, and I’m even still just starting to learn Csound. Also, I do realize that CsoundAC exists for stuff like this, but I don’t feel comfortable enough with Python (or Csound, for that matter) to have figured something out with it in time. Anyway, the basic idea is that I put together a simple instrument in the orchestra file (which you’ll see in the file), and then (where the bulk of the work went) writing a program that would output the score file. I was going to program it in C as I’ve done a couple simple programs that output text-based files that way, but I decided to do it in Processing because I wanted to use its noise and random functions to control instrument arguments. Also, I programmed in different scales for each phase. It starts with the full moon at F# in A440 and then the rest of the scale was calculated from simple ratios, then the next phase takes part of the previous scale and calculates a new one based on that. So, the new phase “obscures” the last one like the shadow passing over the moon.

Anyway, yeah… I don’t know what else to say about it, but phew… what a ride :laughing:

5 Likes
#38

It has been far too long since I last contributed – I am very grateful for these challenges - thank you to Marc and George Kelly. So for this piece, the phases of the moon, I was thinking about what this interaction between the sun, earth and moon must look like from space. As an observer, imagine flying past the earth and moon or between the earth and sun in a non-linear manner faster than the speed of light. To depict the “sound” of flying past these objects (of course there is no sound), I used a swoosh of a handful of clothes hangers. The sound was then slowed, looped and filtered in Supercollider. The low rumble depicts the sun and was generated similarly, but using the swoosh of a large plastic bag played back at slower speed. I added a short introduction using Spitfire Symphonic Organ and assembled the final piece in Ableton Live 10. Cover photo courtesy of NASA.

7 Likes
#39


I decided the full moon was the circle of fifths and accordingly each phase of the moon would contain a proportionate number of the twelve pitches. So here I start with New Moon (no pitches), Waxing Crescent (5), First Quarter (7), Waxing Gibbous(9), and Full (12), and then descend accordingly. Worked in Logic with Alchemy, Drummer, and percussion samples.

5 Likes
#40

Volca Keys (manipulating tempo/delay feedback) to Audioshare via iRig2. AUM with K7D tape delay on an old iPad.

I thought about this one a lot but ran out of time to fully realize. Image is from a book I made about the moon.

Thanks!

3 Likes
#41

The picture was taken Jan. 10, 2020 around 5:30 p.m. in the Presidio of San Francisco near the entrance to Fort Point.

I sat at my electric keyboard a few days ago, turned its metronome on and improvised on some chords before recording with my phone Then I dragged that recording into my MacBook Air’s copy of GarageBand, where I filtered it before layering on some synthesized strings, bass and electric piano.

As always, I’m awed and envious of the tremendous energies, talents, perspectives and sounds this group generates. Cheers, and happy (lunar) new year!

3 Likes
#42

Once again, had lots of different ideas and ended up going a completely different direction. Really enjoying that aspect of working on these projects.
All synth all day, some pitched and slowed down.

3 Likes
#43

Hey All, I went with panning representing the phases of the moon with silence being the no moon phase on the first track. I then decided that was too tedious so I just used knobs to make phases in no particular order. Zombies on the Moon just came to me for some reason. Sometimes I wonder if I myself.am a zombie.

Peace, Hugh

3 Likes