Negentropical Paradise (Disquiet0226) by ikjoyce

This week's Disquiet Junto project, to create music for an imagined second volume of electronic music composed by R. Buckminster Fuller. I am already familiar with his work, but read around to reacquaint myself with the man and his ideas. One of the key concepts he introduced was Synergetics - the interactions of multiple simple systems that produce complex outputs that were not expected given the simple inputs. Another word for Synergetic is Negentropic (i.e. the opposite of entropy) - which made me think of "Entropical Paradise" by Douglas Leedy, hence the title even though the music is not similar.

I created two systems on my modular synth - one comprised of three LFOs that are interacting (A controls the speed of B, B controls C, and C controls A) to create a complex output, and a second comprising of two sequencers clocked by prime number divisions of the clock, with one sequencer feeding into the other, and vice versa (only with an inverted signal). I had them set up so that they are 'self limiting' - as the output rises, more and more negative feedback is added. Each system is also linked to the other, so that the output of the sequencers controls the speed of the LFOs, and the output of the LFOs is mixed in with the sequencers.

These two interacting systems were used to generate pitch information in various ways for three oscillators which are used as three different voices. I used quantisers to impose limits on the system that represent the elements of human control. A third sequencer is then used to transpose the quantisers, to give a more pleasing melodic shape to the piece.

R. Buckminster Fuller died in 1983, so I felt that any music would have to be appropriate for his time - As this is 'Volume 2', I wanted the music to be something 'late' in his career, maybe a 'lost tape' - so I deliberately gave it the feel of a late 1970s interlude for Schools programming - the type of music that was played between programmes on the BBC while a clock counted down the next show (those from the UK and of a suitable age will know exactly what I mean!). To further add to that feel, I recorded to Tascam 4 track to give some warmth and saturation.

More on this 226th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose music for a fictional greatest-hits collection of the electronic music of R. Buckminster Fuller”) at:

http://disquiet.com/0226/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Project inspired by a dream that C. Reider of Vuzh Music had:

http://vuzhmusic.com/

Image of album cover created for this project is by Brian Scott of Boon Design:

http://boondesign.com/