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Included in Play in a band set/collection.
For Players that will play rhythmic music, a Conductor to show what to play, and a drummer responsible for not making the piece too long.
Setup
Choose the drummer-accompanist and the conductor for the game (these two roles will be quite restricted).
The drummer may use body percussion and should have good rhythm skill as they'll set the tempo for the whole group.
Players should have instruments with clear attack and not blending with the sound of the drummer. Place yourself so every player sees conductor's hand. It's best when Players agree to play one note each (although quieter unamplified instruments may opt for chords). Players might agree on notes to play (for example with a fitting harmony) or decide to play by ear. This is up to participants as the rules of this activity regulate only the rhythm of music.
Gameplay instructions
Accompanist (role) — Participant that plays music during the game but doesn’t have to follow the rules.
Drummer (accompanist):
During the game, play a clear rhythm in 4/4. Start with pattern exposition and then make a clear fill-in to lead others' entry. At the beginning of the game the tempo might be quite slow, and then if no mistakes are made, you may speed up until it's hard for players or the conductor.
Conductor:
Conductor (role) — Participant that makes music without producing sounds directly.
You will indicate numbers for players to play — n = 1-5 (one hand). Change the number only at the time when players are not playing it.
Players:
Player (role) — A participant that takes full part in the game. The most important player role.
You will play sounds that always fall on one of four quarternotes in the bar set by the drummer. Starting with the beginning marked by the fill-in, play groups of n quarternotes separated by single quarternote pauses. n is a number shown by conductor's gesture, so it's always between 1 and 5.
Game end
Up to the drummer: You should be able to either lead to a chaotic fall-apart finale or signal an orderly ending of the piece.
Variants
A considerably more difficult variant is with adding eight-note pauses between accent groups instead of quarternote pauses. This makes more rhythmic shifts.
If the skill lets you, you can reduce the number of players by merging the roles up to the point when it's a nice drumming practice of comping quarternote groups with a 4/4 beat. You may roll dice to replace a gesture.
Further variants were tested with more than one conductor, when you read the gestures one by one in order.
Examples
Here's a recording of the basic, acoustic version suitable for community music gaming meetings:
And here is a 3-player, eight-note pause variant with mixed roles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW7u6dpfnfA
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