Music's games list

Here is a list of games to make experimental music happen I thought about during my residency in Aix en Provence in 2024, and some that I created during my International Musical Games Workshops. Feel free to play them, remix them, do whatever you want with them. Don't hesitate to give me a feedback if you tried some !


On Listening :

Game of restraint : Have a groupe of one or several people, yourself included. In a temporality decided with a beginning and an ending, do the softest actions possible, taking all the time in the world to exist. Do not hesitate to shut yourself.

Modulated echo : Have a group of several people, forming a circle, decide of the direction of the wind. A designated person will create a sonic pattern they will repeat, then the person in the direction of the wind will try to reproduce that pattern by ear the first one doesn't stop playing). If an error is done, that person will need to repeat the pattern with the error. The person in their wind direction will have to try to reproduce the new pattern, and so on, until everyone is trying to reproduce the pattern of the last person playing, until the first person have to reproduce the new pattern. Do a loop of people trying to reproduce everyone. Stop the game when spring is near. This game is even better when nobody have the same instrument.

Listening cards from AWESOME MUSIC BOARD GAME  : When you are bored, take a listening card from AWESOME MUSIC BOARD GAME. Do the action until you are bored again. When boredom is too strong, draw a new card. When you are bored again, redo the first card.

Game on time, still to developp : Core idea, alone or multiplayer, where you randomly draw an element from your surroundings, a random "passive" action and a temporality. The game is structured on temporality definition and the amount of things we can attribute to it :

Can be built in a computer application or a card game.


On musical limits :

Music Bravo

The Revenge cycle game : Make two groups ranodmly (they don't need to be equal). Will be randomly chosen an instructor group and a performer group. The instructor group will deliberate to give instructions to the performer group. Those instructions can gave different forms and shapes (writings, drawings, things, sculpture, songs...). The performer group will then deliberate on defining an interpretation process. When the deliberation is done, the instructor group watch the interpretation of the performer group and makes a judgement on the performance. Then the performer group become the instructor group and the instructor group become the performer group. After one or several rounds are done, it is possible to podify the composition of the group by doing a new random choosing.

Exquisite Corpse : Make a group of several people. Every person receives a blank piece of paper on which they should write instruction (words, drawings, music notation, colors...) then need to transmit it to their next comrade clockwork wise. On the new paper given by their comrade, they should write an instruction, then give the paper clockwork wise, until every piece of paper has an instruction written by everyone on it. Then, assign randomly a paper to someone, draw a temporality, and every person need to interprate their assignated paper during that temporality.


On killing the star within you :

Survival and humility game : Make a group of several people. That group will define rules and instructions for the performance taht will happen. Thou one rule is fixed : They should only have one last person standing. The group compose their set of rules and begins the performance. The performance ends when everyone has decided voluntarily to stop playing.


On time :

Music Bravo without 95% of action cards

Counting game : Count the birds in a street. Count them really slowly, don't hesitate to turn over to lose none. If there is a doubt on the number counted, start over. If no bird, count humans. If no humans, count stones.


On Silence :

The wave : Make a small group of people and talk/make noises together. When you perceive one of the group is going silent, go silent yourself until everybody is silent. Break the silence whenever you think it's important to. Can be done en masse, in bourgeoise receptions to scare them.


On perfect tonality :

Nivarna : Do a cover of a popular song, but not quite the same. Take a guitar with a floyd with an other person. One will play the cover song, the other one will push and pull the floyd whenever they want.

Joe Dante : Improvise music only by citing sonically popular music, or give it a strong impression of it.


On sacralisation of music instrument :

Painting become vibration : Amplify an instrument loud enough to make it go near the feedback loop. Sit with several people around the instrument and draw on the instrument to cover it entirely with ink and paint.


On boredom :

Overtime repeatition : play the same sonic pattern and repeat it. Whe you are bored of it, continue for five minutes. When time is over, continue.

The break : in a rushing situation, sit on the floor whenever you see a number and wait the here the time in second with the number indicated. If the number is less than 10, consider it's minutes.


On musical space :

Here and maybe now : Define a space that is not made for that that from a specific hour to an other specific hour, a super cool music club exist and every person on that space is a member and can have influence on its existence.

Walls vibration : Find a stone or a brick wall. Define a MIDI music sheet or create an abstract music sheet from that wall. Play it.


On imagination :

Distorsion on the existing : Listen really loudly what exist around you and tru to bend it with your mind or by adding some sonic significant to the non existing like birds chipping, dogs having fun or babys crying.

Far beyond : Imagine and write a lore about a sonic recording.


On copyright and listing :

Secret Playlist and variations :
« Secret Playlist from Heart ❤️ » : like a Secret Santa, we create a playlist to offer it to someone in the optic to make them discover some stuff. Can be listened privately or add some rules. Like every playlist need to have the same number of titles, the titles need to have a certain duration, or accessible on a specific platform.

« Secret Playlist from Chaos🔥 » : like a Secret Santa, but there are some specific rules and a moment of collective listening.
The idea of the game is to all have a different plalist and to listen to it collectively and react collectively. Everyone listen to their own gifted playlist, and it will create chaos and fun. I hope.
Playlist design is submitted to collective decision before hand, then it's possible to choose a specific number of tunes with a precise duration for every track. A tracklist cof ten songs can be listed like that :
3m30
3m
3m30
7m
2m20
4m
3m30
5m
3m30
2min
Final lenght : 37:20

Songs can be whatever, the important part is to follow the specific duration. Seconds can differ a bit but should equilibrate in the end to have the final lenght quite similar. You should decide if trolling is allowed like sabotaging a song, bend the song in duration, adding white noise or silence.

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