Each Thursday at the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com 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.
This assignment was made in the early evening, California time, on Thursday, February 14, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, February 18, 2013, as the deadline.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0059: Vowel Choral Drone
This week’s project involves the human voice. You will create a choral drone from three samples that you will create with your own voice. This project requires a single die, or the digital equivalent.
Here are the steps in the project:
Step 1: Roll a die three times (or three dice once) to determine which vowels you will use. Depending on your luck, you may end up with two or even three of the same vowel.
1 = A (“a” as in “yay”)
2 = E (“e” as in “bee”)
3 = I (“i” as in “die”)
4 = O (“o” as in “yo”)
5 = U (“u” as in “you”)
6 = Y (“y” as in “Sylvia”)
If you don’t have access to a die, you can use various digital equivalents. This link, for example, will roll three dice simultaneously:
Step 2: For each vowel that you have been assigned by the dice, record a 10-second sample of you holding that vowel as a constant tone (volume, timbre, note, etc.).
Step 3: Create a choral drone that utilizes only these three sources of audio. You can treat them with effects lightly, but they should be recognizable as the human voice throughout the duration of track.
Deadline: Monday, February 18, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.
Length: Your finished work should be between 2 and 5 minutes in length.
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.
Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0059-vwls” in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.
Download: Consider setting your track in a manner 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 59th Disquiet Junto project at:
More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
Image up top from phonetics.ucla.edu.