5 Composition Games (to play with your musical friends)
Adam Neely
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I hung out with my buds in the prog rock band Bent Knee and we played some composition games together – fun rainy day activities that help to inspire musical thought!
BENT KNEE
Bent Knee is (in order of appearance)
Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth – drums
Ben Levin – guitar
Jessica Kion – bass
Courtney Swain – lead vocals & keyboards
Chris Baum – violin
Vince Welch – sound design/synth/guitar
A big thanks to Brad Krieger, Chaimes Parker and BIG NICE STUDIO! The studio was both big, and nice. Definitely on-brand.
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Peace,
Adam
01.09.2021
that chopped vocals thing was sick
7am and still awake watching these videos!
3:25 damn, thats the freest jazz I ever heard.
9:23 nvm, that is even more free jazz, just more athmospheric.
I need to find a better crowd. The people I'm with rn are too "artsy" to follow generic guidelines of music theory.
we want Echo the cat pls
we want Echo the cat pls
Every few months some friends and I who all produce electronic music will do what we call the "20 Song Game"
Rules are simple, write as many tracks as you can in 12 hours, then meet up and listen to what everyone makes. Usually we'll spend 10am-10pm producing, grab some snacks and beer, make a playlist of everyone's music in the order it was made and give feedback and critique each other's work.
It's spawned some very interesting production techniques, one time someone used a bunch of sample pack clips, threw a track together and exported it without listening to it. Once around 9pm I was out of ideas so I sampled a bagpipe, put it in a sampler, threw a midi scale effect on it and just bashed my head against my midi controller for 45 seconds and called that good.
All in all, it's a ridiculous game that really pushes you to your limits and I highly recommend you try it sometime
Dude that first shit is so awesome make a song please using that games rule
Good vibes… loved it.
So the last game is… recreating trout mask replica?
Neat
Number from one to ten
Guitarist 11/8😂
Wouldn't the last game be better if you could only hear the piece of music written right before you? That way you play accompaniment to one person but could be going in a totally different direction from the person 2 people before you. Idk, just an idea.
4:35 & 5:15 has it's damn groove
What bass are you playing?
3:25 Pink Floyd Vibes
Short question, maybe someone knows this. At 8:08 min Jessica plays a whistle that produces a sort of eerie sound.
Does anyone know, how its called?
Thx, great Video!
As I dont have musical friends, I had to Jam along the first one with the vídeo 🙁
Jokes on you I don't have any friends
“Rich ppl are dumb!” – Vince, 2019
Peavey t-40? Well.. I take back all the bad things I've said about you
Jessica's game sounds like any At The Drive In song
Bruh, I still come back to this video for that one song in the beginning! Post that shit on spotify!
Great content, Adam
What about composition games to play with yourself 🥺
Is that the violin guy from Video Game Orchestra?
"It's another day! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAHHHAHHHHHHHH!"
(Light riffing in background)
-Ben
You should release the first improv, it's amazing
7 musicians 3 of which are playing bass
Lamest groove is actually 1-3-9 kick, 5-13 snare, 2-4 hi hat on every measure in 4/4 time
Does anyone else play "Try to explain basic theory concepts to your friends"?
Anyone?
Is that just me?
The FlyLo dig from Ben is spot on
There's an interesting texture coming from the 2-3 bassists.
There couldn't be a more Ben Levin thing than being told to pick a number between 1 and 10 and choosing 11. What a visionary.
Bold of you to assume that i have friends.
That studio looks nice and big.
I wish I have musical friends or just friends hahahahah
I’ve come back to this again….. I loved that first music so much that I wanted it to never end.
Up next: 5 Composition Games (to play with your enemies)
Thank you
Love this!
I really like the bass Adam uses in this video, it's gorgeous.
That looks like so much fun haha
9:07 "It's another day! *screams*" Relatable lol
stank face at 5:23 like DAMNNNNN
The first step is to have musical friends.
The first step is to have friends
The first step is to have
The first step is to
The first step is
The first step
The first
The
T
This nothing like what I expected for “composition games” and really only seem geared towards experimentation and improv. Not bad skills, but not really what I’d call helpful for “composition”. When my friends or myself discuss “composition games”, it’s usually in the form of puzzles built out of obligation and limitations. For example, did one a few days ago where the challenge was 12 bars of 3 phrases, 4 bars each. The first phrase had to be in a relatively common key and and cadence (we chose a I-bIII-bVII-IV loop in Am). Second phrase had to modulate to near key in a different mode (we chose B Dorian), and the last phrase had to be a transition looping back to the first phrase. This set of boundaries was to puzzle to work out and how we typically approach trying to write something that stands out against standard fare. I guess that’s what I think when I think “composition game”, setting parameters to write something you wouldn’t normally and break from rehashing the same stuff that’s easy for you. The stuff in this video was fun, but didn’t really seem like more than the musical equivalent of icebreaker games. Good to gel everyone playing together but not anything you’re actually going to work with unless your whole thing is loopy experimental washes.
Why did you put 5 people in a small room when you could have had people record there one by one?
that last bit totally could have a been a pink floyd intro
Whats the name of the song that plays during the intro?
That first one… Is a full version available somewhere?