A Day in the Life of a Jellyfish
Objective: Compose a piece of sound/music that summons up what a moment, or an instance, or a day in the life of a jellyfish is like to the jellyfish.
Process: Set the scene by building vast openness. Long, slow evolving notes. With long attack times on the volume envelopes. No one is in a hurry here.
Project bpm set to: 8.000.
Add subtle water sounds to give the feeling of being submerged.
With the atmosphere set, time to add the jellies. They mainly open and close while drifting along.
So I added constant side to side panning drift to my top layer synth. And a filter that slowly opens and closes as the note sounds.
Then added another layer over that with different notes and panning. Sometimes one jelly passes by. Sometimes a few.
Sometimes they’re in unison.
And sometimes they’re not.
Discovering Disquiet
Last week I discovered and subscribed to the Disquiet Junto Project. Then I get the first prompt and it’s to channel my inner invertebrate. Such moments are the definition of the word serendipitous.
This project is exciting in several ways. Getting a writing prompt externally instead of digging one out from within is a big change of process for me. I like the idea of having a topic to make a sound sketch on every week. The condensed timeline keeps the pressure down on the spontaneity up. Whatever happens happens. I imagine if I keep at it there will be times when I fail completely and that will be just fine.
I’m used to building ideas off of improv. Playing around until I hear something I like and then running with it. Having a prompt given to me gave me stops and starts that I don’t usually experience. I’d write a part with jellyfish in mind, but when I played it back it wasn’t quiet right. But I also had limited time to work on this song this week. The deadline forced my focus. And no time for perfecting. Endless tweaking? Not an option.
If this project gives me practice working with such focused forward momentum, then it’s worth it for that alone.
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Learn More about Disquiet Junto
More on this 455th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Inner Invertebrate (The Assignment: What does a moment (or a day) in the life of a jellyfish sound like to a jellyfish?), at: https://disquiet.com/0455/
More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0455-inner-invertebrate/