Disquiet Junto Project 0698: Second Third
Dear Members of the Disquiet Junto,
Last week was so great. We had over 40 musicians contribute a track as the starting point of this three-week process of collaboratively recording original trios. This week is the second part. Below are the instructions. But first ...
First, there’s something I want to mention. You may have read about SoundCloud’s terms regarding artificial intelligence. If you haven’t, a quick search will yield coverage of it from a variety of perspectives. I have conversed with some longtime Junto members about this recent development, and one member wrote me directly to discuss it, as well.
There have been several junctures over the course of the Disquiet Junto’s history when I’ve considered cutting ties with SoundCloud. The first was in 2016, four years after the Junto was founded, when almost overnight SoundCloud eradicated its Groups functionality, which had allowed for discussion boards on the site. We had some great chats back then. The only reason I even knew the change was coming was because at the time a couple SoundCloud employees were super supportive of the Junto, and one graciously called me to let me know. (Speaking of which, if you know someone who works at SoundCloud, please put me in touch with them. I wonder if they might be interested in helping note the upcoming 700th consecutive weekly Disquiet Junto project, which is due to happen in two weeks from today, on May 29.) Anyhow, since then there have been a few other such moments.
I’ve already written more in this email than I care to on the subject, because I don’t want to bore, burden, or discourage anyone. SoundCloud isn’t necessary to participate in the Junto. It’s just where we started, and to a good degree activity in the Junto was shaped by some aspects of how SoundCloud functioned.
Over the years, on several occasions, I have gathered minds from the Junto membership to discuss other ways to host the activities. If it isn’t clear already, I think now is a good time to at least begin such a conversation again. If you’re interested in plotting a potential course off of SoundCloud (or at least less dependent on SoundCloud, perhaps even entirely agnostic as it regards platforms), send me an email at marc@disquiet.com.
While I’d like to say anyone can participate in this planning, I would like to narrow the field a little. If you have participated in 15 or more Junto projects, then please do feel free to join in. If you have participated in fewer than 15 projects, but know that you have technical (or otherwise online-community-informed) experience you believe would be especially valuable to the discussion, then certainly, please feel free, as well — in that case, just let me know a bit about your background when you get in touch.
And that about covers it. Thanks, as always, for your generosity with your time, creativity, and curiosity.
Best from San Francisco,
Marc Weidenbaum
marc@disquiet.com
. . .
Disquiet Junto Project 0698: Second Third
The Assignment: Record the second third of a trio.
There are two versions of the instructions for this week’s project — one very short, the other very long.
Very short version (about 25 words): Select a track from last week’s project (disquiet.com/0697), pan it to the left, and add your own line to the right, leaving room in the center for someone to eventually turn it into a trio.
. . .
Very long version of the instructions (about 600 words):
While this is the second part of a three-part project, you can participate in one, two, or all three of the parts, which will occur over the course of three consecutive weeks, starting last week. You needn’t have done last week’s to do this week’s.
Step 1: This week’s Disquiet Junto project is the second in a sequence intended to encourage and reward asynchronous collaboration. This week you’ll be adding music to a pre-existing track, which you will source from the previous week’s Junto project (disquiet.com/0697). Note that you aren’t creating a duet, precisely — you’re creating the second third of what will eventually be a trio. What that means is: Leave space for what is yet to come.
Step 2: The plan is for you to record a short and original piece of music, on any instrumentation of your choice, as a complement to a pre-existing track. First, however, you must select the piece of music to which you will be adding your own music. There are tracks by numerous musicians to choose from (over 40 as of last count). All but a few are in this playlist:
https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0697
One additional track is on the Lines discussion board:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0697-first-third/71838/19
And very short one is on Mastodon:
https://ioc.exchange/@philsawa/114504063097101750
(Note that it’s possible another track or two will pop up in — and some may disappear from — that playlist and discussion. Things are fluid on the internet.)
To select a track, you can listen through all those and choose one, or simply look around and select, or you can come up with a random approach to sifting through them.
Note: It’s fine if more than one person uses the same original track as the basis for their piece (more on this in Step 5 below).
It is strongly encouraged that you look through the discussion thread for the previous project on the Lines forum because many tracks include additional contextual information there:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0697-first-third/
Step 3: Record a short piece of music, roughly the length of the piece of music you selected in Step 2. Your track should complement the piece from Step 2, and leave room for an eventual third piece of music. When composing and recording your part, don’t alter the original piece of music at all, except to pan the original fully to the left if it hasn’t been panned left already. In your finished audio track, your new part should be panned fully to the right.
To be clear: the track you upload won’t be your piece of music alone; it will be a combination of the track you selected in Step 2 and yours.
Step 4: Also be sure, when done, to make the finished track downloadable, because it will be used by someone else in a subsequent Junto project.
Step 5: You can contribute more than one track this week. In normal circumstances, Junto projects have a one-track-per-participant limit. You can do two this time. For the second, it’s appreciated if you try to work with a solo that no one else has used yet. I will keep an updated list in this Google Drive document of what has been utilized:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dSDNhH5KnB2YlSlmBQiuhKTpAQ0Ijl391OnSUE8r4SI/edit?gid=0#gid=0
The goal is for many as people as possible to benefit from the experience of being part of an asynchronous collaboration. That, foremost, is the spirit of this project.
Tasks Upon Completion:
Label: Include “disquiet0698” (no spaces/quotes) in the name of your track.
Upload: Post your track to a public account (SoundCloud preferred but by no means required).
Share: Post your track and a description/explanation at https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0698-second-third/
Discuss: Listen to and comment on the other tracks.
Additional Details:
Length: The length is up to you. Stick close to the length of the track yours adds to.
Deadline: Monday, May 19, 2025, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.
About: https://disquiet.com/junto/
Newsletter: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/
License: It’s preferred (but not required) to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., an attribution Creative Commons license).
Please Include When Posting Your Track:
More on the 698th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Second Third — The Assignment: Record the second third of a trio — at https://disquiet.com/0698/