Disquiet Junto Project 0565: Musical Folly

DeDe · 2022-10-28T14:00:51.376Z

I always thought that “jolly” came from the French word “Jolie” and I recently learned that it doesn’t really.
So I assumed that “Folly” comes from the French term “Folie” , again it doesn’t.

So @disquiet your emails are sometimes very instructive, thanks for that.

So Jolly, ornamental … with no practical purpose right? Yes, that my music. Easy challenge this week I could share anything I do.

But I had time this morning and spent a few hours developing this, I’m still infatuated with the sound of my upright piano with different microphones and some reverb (and some hand muting…)
Overdubbed vibraphone, and the rest is synthesizers.

the cover photo is mine (a ceiling in an old apartment in Buenos Aires.

ray_cobley · 2022-10-28T14:21:31.176Z

xiiixxi · 2022-10-28T14:39:23.993Z

String quartet created with 4 x 3 track euclidean sequencers each driving a step sequencer triggering VSL solo strings through an instance of Replica XT and all fed through the fantastic Atlantic Dual Chambers Reverb from Softube.

PopGoblin · 2022-10-28T15:27:58.498Z

The whole piece has been centered around a “folly” constructed with arpeggios on toned percussion, appearing in the middle of the piece. I started building this - using the ever-great Chordimist maxforlive plugin - and then started adding and building around it… to try to “prop it up” somehow. I’m not sure I succeeded - but it was great fun trying…

Appearing in the piece - which is made completely “in-the-box”, are EarthMoment, Arturia, Spitfire and U-HE VST’s of different sorts.

Hugh_Prat · 2022-10-29T01:40:12.324Z

Hey All,
@DeDe beat me to the punch on all my own music being folly. But as Billy Blake once said
“A fool who persists in his folly will become wise.”
The image for this prompt made me think of an old Ink Spots song. I used the midi from that slowed way down and used only the Emulator soft synth for sounds. I thought that synth would be appropriate for the theme. Hope all are well.

Peace, Hugh

Aethyr · 2022-10-29T08:23:59.545Z

hello.

i liked the concept of this project but initially i didn’t have a clear idea of what to do for it. i ended up checking wikipedia, and the list of characteristics of follies was quite helpful. a few parts stuck in my mind: no purpose other than an ornament, eccentric in design or construction, and with an element of fakery.

with these ideas in mind i thought it might work to make something with some traits of a classical piece (as apparently a number of follies were made in the style of classical greek or roman architecture) but which was also very clearly not actually classical in origin.

i initially was going to incorporate snippets of classical pieces with my own twist into a broader medley. however, i did a search for ‘baroque midi’ to see if i could find a good starting point, and came across this ancient site which had numerous midi versions of pachelbel’s canon in d major, a piece which has become rather clichéd by its overuse; among the versions on the site, bizarrely, were both a disco and a carribean rendition, which amused me greatly so i decided i would use one or both of these as the basis for my entry.

i brought the midi into bitwig studio and tried to figure out what sort of sounds would fit each track. i ended up making it a bit weirder than originally intended, but i feel like that fits with the spirit of the prompt and adds interest to a composition that’s been rather worn by repetition.

for the main melody i used ds thorn with a patch that sounds (to me) somewhat like a guitar; on two bass(?) parts i used waves’ bass fingers and the bleass alpha synth respectively, putting the former through guitar rig 6 and the latter through a compressor and eventide’s physion mkii (the first tendency towards glitch/idm in this piece). a track with only chords got played by arturia’s analog lab v with uvi’s dual delay x as the effect, then three tracks of held notes met with two instances of arturia’s synclavier v (an excellent recreation) and one of bleass alpha. these met with various effects and added to the glitchy/idm aspects of the track.

i added the usual kinds of plugins to the master in order to widen the stereo field and polish up the sound a bit. i also included audiothing’s reels to add just a touch of vintage character to the piece.

for the title i simply combined the name of this week’s project with the name of the original composition. the artwork was created by putting the title and various other terms into nightcafe studio, then i used ai upscaling in photoshop and lightroom to make it a larger image without losing too much detail. i feel like the resulting artwork is rather fitting.

ossimuratore · 2022-10-29T17:41:34.471Z

Here intentionality is rhythmic density, intonation and symphonia, whereas contrasting nature is inharmonicity and arhythmic oscillations. A folly theme emerges and grows out of inharmonic plasticities.

Made with NI Maschine+.

SussMusik · 2022-10-29T17:47:12.875Z

The word “folly” is an English term to mean foolish or lacking good sense. In French, the word “folie” emphasizes aesthetic beauty over practicality to the point of being extravagant, whimsical or silly. This is an egregiously unfair way to denigrate the need to enliven our surroundings with objects and structures that enhance one’s life experience.

“Humankind needs structures and tools that are enriched beyond the severely utilitarian,” wrote Victor Papanek in his timeless book Design for the Real World. “Delight, balance, and that pleasing harmony of proportions that we project outward into the world are psychological necessities for us.”

For this piece, Suss Müsik took inspiration from the contemplative “stone face ruins” of Chanticleer’s public gardens. The “ruins” are not ruins at all, but rather a hardscape of three ornamental ‘rooms’ evoking a sense of mystery. One room in particular warrants mention: from the bubbling, deep black depths of a 24-foot reflecting pool surrounded by lush succulents, polished marble faces gaze upward in repose.

Suss Müsik created a soundscape using custom devices built from the “ruins” of old computer hardware. Two contact mic-inputs are passed through a Meng Qi Wingie2, which was controlled by a handmade MIDI input. One channel was refactored as an arp sequence; the other provided a vaporous coloring agent when passed through heavy reverb. A fourth device controlled three synth voices with grain modulation playing the same arp sequence. Here’s a video of the performance: Papanek [Disquiet0565] - YouTube

The piece is titled Papanek and was recorded live in October 2022. The image is taken from a summer 2022 trip to Chanticleer.

bassling · 2022-10-30T02:22:36.281Z

In my more cynical moments I wonder if all of my musical activities are folly.

It sometimes feels as though I collect a lot of instruments and gear, then do little with them.

So I took the prompt this week as an opportunity to use my most recent purchases, the Zoia Empress pedal and the Organelle – since I hadn’t tried the latter as an effect.

fakeg3nius · 2022-10-30T13:27:22.821Z

Read an article about tuning and barbershop quartets singing chords. Using the new tuning device in Ableton together with several variations of “strings”, I set up one chord with two strictly different melodies that only come together after 2 minutes or so. For extra folly and the elements of fakery, I had the strings consist of actual orchestra mixed with synths.

derangement · 2022-10-30T13:53:51.255Z

On a eurorack modular system, polyphony is sheer folly - costly, ornamental, with little practical purpose.

RandomShuffle · 2022-10-30T17:39:20.360Z

disquiet:

disquiet0565

our little town is full of follys
weather is really beautiful
packed my bag and just played a folly

Spanneut · 2022-10-30T18:06:27.816Z

Hello, a vision of a little folly in a percussive architecture… Modular synthy Moog, Doepfer, Mutable.

El90 · 2022-10-30T22:54:05.602Z

I made this track using my Reiffel & Husted slide saxophone, which is quite a literal example of a musicial folly. The instrument is over 100 years old, it is not clear what purpose it served even when it was first being made in the 1920s, and the fact that they’re so rare and hardly used today suggests that they’re still a bit of a curiosity! Essentially it has the same shape and mouthpiece as a modern soprano sax but the pitch is controlled by a slide like a trombone. Here is a photo of the same model I have, to give a sense of it:

Reiffel1024×769 152 KB

Anyhow, to make the track I first played two phrases on the slide sax (one sliding up and other down). I then put these phrases into Simpler in Ableton and played chords with them. I made a B section by resampling the slide parts and reversing the audio. Finally I improvised a solo over the top using my electronic wind instrument (EWI) to control my DSI Prophet Rev 2.

This was my first go at one of these, I hope to do so again soon!

RPLKTR · 2022-10-31T01:17:48.458Z

The folly as described by the assignment is an ornament that is trying to mimic a classic style piece.

My folly is called “Another October” and mimics the opening track of Harold Budd’s classic album “The Pearl”. There’s a shimmery reverb, there’s a lilting lead piano. The piece is but a poor imitation so it obviously goes its own way. Therefore, “Another October” skips the FM bird tones, but instead invites an FM bassist and a drummer to form an ambient jazz trio.

weeklybeats.com

Another October

A short meditation on passing time. What if shimmery Harold Budd but as part of a jazz trio? The piece is obviously inspired by Brian Eno's production of "The Pearl" by Harold Budd, and in particular its shimmer reverb. My version of the effect was...

This time the track is hosted on Weekly Beats.

DeDe · 2022-10-31T07:26:21.096Z

Never heard about that instrument, amazing rare bird, you did a nice , use of it.

cjm · 2022-10-31T14:43:17.397Z

Very cool. It looks more like a weapon than an instrument! Getting some great fourth world vibes here

and mine:

I used 2 different ideas from the wiki on folly as the seeds for this piece:

An element of fakery: using physically modeled instruments which pretend to be their real life counterpart. I used SWAM string instruments and Pianoteq.
No purpose other than as an ornament: I initially set out just really thinking about atmosphere and texture, and not about a full composition.

The result ended up as another characteristic of folly- “parts of buildings” as I find this sounding like it is a lost piece of a larger composition.

RabMusicLab · 2022-10-31T18:22:29.173Z

Thank you @disquiet for bringing up this great concept! I learned about Follies during my 2018 holidays in the Cotswolds. We stayed near Faringdon, former home of Lord Berners (“the last English eccentric”) and the Folly Tower (“the last major folly to be built in England”).

I started with the piano as base (simply my favourite at the moment), then added a lead sound following a recent Cubase tutorial of Dom Sigalas (building lead sounds from vocal samples). Building on this piano/lead base created by improvisation I added further instruments and tried to create an “eccentric” selection.
Other elements like the part in 5/4 beat, pitch modulations on a certain percentage of the piano output etc. are not intended to make the track exaggerated, but to add small parts of “eccentric behaviour”, sometimes not obvious on .first glance.

lazenbeeindustries · 2022-10-31T20:20:58.729Z

My attempt involved the use of a meandering theme, topped with dramatic chords and towards the end a little vocal bit.

I made use of a few new plug-ins, notably Deelay, Filterstep, Gatelab and Panflow.

disquiet · 2022-10-31T20:32:05.008Z

Just a note that I’m taking a bit of a Twitter break. I’ve never been interested in setting up a Facebook presence for the Junto. I’m on Mastodon at @disquiet@post.lurk.org (and Instagram at instagram.com/dsqt). I think between those two locations, plus the Tinyletter list, and Lines, and the Junto Slack, and disquiet.com/tag/junto, I’m pretty well covered for getting the word out. Just wanted to mention my Twitter pause in advance of this Thursday.