Inspire cards

Start » Glossary » Inspire cards

This glossary entry is a draft. You can help by editing it or discussing in the comments

Deck of cards that show images to interpret musically.

Usage

Generally an inspire cards deck can be formed of any images. There are many approaches to making an inspire deck as for complexity, ambiguity or theming. Consider adding your thoughts on this in text or in the comments!

Practical tips: You can put all cards in sleeves for better shuffling and dealing. Repetition of images spoils some games, but is a feature in others, so this usually requires some testing.

Local downloads

Here we present a pre-made sets that were tested with different games. The cards are to be beginner friendly so they usually have an association with the real sound. The parameters of those sounds are diversified in the set.

Inspire deck No 1 (pdf) — historical example, inspired mostly by notrightmusic's 15 cards (small sized).

Dynamic Inspire Deck — inspire cards in the system as individual scalable CC0-licensed silhouettes (http://svgsilh.com).

Musical Dixit

Dixit is a popular "boxed" board game sold in many countries. Drawings for the game are quite evocative and give great results for musical activities. In the game players give each other suggestions as for which picture was chosen with the aim that the suggestion is not successful for each and every player. Suggestion is usually spoken, but humming is allowed by the rules too.

For especially good experience when playing with instruments we recommend small ensembles giving suggestions (musical in this case) together. If player count suits (7+), when choosing the card to guess, show it to your neighbors in the circle and you all score points together as a trio of "narrators" for this round.

External games

🔗 🔗

Music Doctor Improv Cards and Picture Prompts	Jim Oshinsky	2021 sold	Educational cards with instructions on the fronts and images on the backs
Cute Comical Creatures	Bez Shahriari	2022 sold	A redrawn Wee Whimsical Creatures
Music Bravo	Rrrrrose Azerty	2022 free	Rule cards and inspire cards combined
Muse	Jordan Sorenson	2017 sold	Beautiful set of inspire cards; one of inspirations explicitly tells to hum a melody
Improvisation & Composition Inspiration Cards	Joy Morin	2011 free	A set of clip-arts for piano teaching studio
Wee Whimsical Creatures	Bez Shahriari	2021 sold	In full: "A game about WEE WHIMSICAL CREATURES and trying to identify them after someone makes noises", 80 pictures
Images	Peter Brötzmann	2002 rare	Integrates with the game Signs (visual cues)
Signs	Peter Brötzmann	2002 rare	Abstract inspire cards designed specifically for musical improvisation
Dixit	Jean-Louis Roubira	2008 sold	This game, and extensions, is a huge set of inspire cards, rules focus on speaking but allow musical play