Games library

Free-form

Free-form activities are highly customisable and can be adjusted to many numbers of players and skill levels, but they will require you to pick exact ruleset yourself.

Latest
3-split Share the spectrum and find creative ways for swapping it's areas.
Balloon Stomp Legacy A variation on a noisy classic.
Bounce-the-sound Hot potato for music. You don't have to play much at once, but you can make something collectively.
Dice Contract Get out of your comfort zone into the uncertain — this might get awkward.
Diced Events A fun free improv game that uses dice to control how many people will participate, what kind of atmosphere is to be played, and special ways to use instruments.
Djent Game For Players that play rhythmic music, Conductors that show what to play and also for one drummer responsible for not making the piece too long.
Draw It Yourself First draw it, than play it. The rest is free-form. Playful approach to a milestone experimental invention.
Entitled Piece One of the least restrictive activities that you may find on this wiki and the one that may spawn new games during playing.
Event Lists Game Template The Lego blocks (or Minecraft) of music games! Improvise by choosing lists while playing. One by one players quit until no players are left. A game that has endless possibilities in gameplay!
Evolution of music The music of this game gradually develops whether you believe it or not.
Fairy Tale Guide your music with emotions from childhood. Easy first step toward free improvisation.
Fluxfestkit Legacy A basic kit to make a Fluxus festival. A workshop proposition for a historical overview of this artistic movement. Possible Fluxconcert.
Follow the Images A family of games based on image interpretation. Good usage for inspire cards.
Générique An engaging way of seeding the constraints for the improvised piece.
Into the Labyrinth Change aspects of your improvisation to navigate through Dungeon Master's maze.
Melody-Go-Round A great little game for anyone from kids to seasoned musicians! The first player plays something, then the next person plays a variation of that, and it continues until it reaches the leader. A new leader then comes in and continues the fun!
Mood Guessing Everyone thinks of a mood. Keep the moods secret. Improvise together. Everyone playing their own moods. At the end try to guess each other's moods.
Movement for Ears Every instrument interprets movement to sounds, a simple idea suitable for large groups.
Musical Chairs This is a live-music variant of a classic children's game
Nightlife of Machines Shorten your riffs in sync for fun that sounds like prog-rock or minimalism.
Phrase Dealer An open call-and-response activity with a little attention-grabbing twist.
Room Score Turn your room into one big graphic score! The conductor points to shapes around the room in a continuous line and the players react to it musically as if they were reading a graphic score. A fun little game for everyone!
Rotary Jam Jamming, but only two people play their main instrument.
Stones (C. Wolff) Not many rules, but an idea: have fun with stones.
The Impersonator Impersonate someone. The band interprets your impersonating movements into music. After one minute people try to guess who you were impersonating. Create interesting music and enjoy impersonating to have someone guess who it is. Fun for the whole world!
This Instrument is Not What it Seems Secretly think of a musical instrument different than the one you have in your hand. Somehow play your real instrument as if it was the instrument you're thinking of. The audience has to guess the secret instrument.
Trading Fours Battle A game-like spin on the timeless trading fours that has been passed around and used since the early days of bebop sessions.
Two-headed Soloist Two musicians are given the task of jamming over the accompaniment in a specific way. Quite difficult, improv-inspired, insertable game.

Well-defined

In this section you can find a sortable list of tested games. Some have specific requirements (like time, players, instruments) and all require some discipline to follow the rules.

Players Time(') Lvl Latest
15 Cards 15 index cards with various images on them are ordered to create a narrative. Players then go through the cards musically improvising what they see. 1 to 5 ? intermediate.png
Agents Decide if someone's music suits your picture or, if you are an Agent, try to say what two sounds don't suit together. What's easier? 7 to 11 10 intermediate.png
Animal Sounds Choose an animal. Play an interpretation of it. Others try to guess what it is!
A simple, but an extremely fun game that can be enjoyed by everyone from kids to adults!
4 to 8 30 easy.png
Apocalypse Travel the apocalyptic connotations in this free improvisation game. 1 to ? 5 intermediate.png
Attack of the Rhythm Dancer Surrounded by improvising Musicians sits The Prize. The Dancer has 2 minutes to reach it and win, but she also has a Weakness that will kill her. Will she make it on time? The Musicians play a Weakness to attack The Dancer, but only one attack is not enough… 3 to 6 10 hard.png
Bees Three teams of bees hunt for pollen, armed only with kazoos and bouncy head boppers. 10 to 40 40 easy.png
CCQR133 Quiet Rite. Scratch Orchestra's improvisation rite with a bit of math at the start. 3 to ? 20 hard.png
Circle of 5 Set collection game of cards to play music by. Strategizing results in changing musical cues for you and others. 3 to 7 20 intermediate.png
Conductor's Remote A conductor sets gestures to control musical aspects such as dynamics and tempo of a small playing ensemble. Styles can be pre-set, or improvised. Lots of chaotic fun! 4 to 7 5 intermediate.png
Convergent Ostinato Modern composers struggle "between cliché and gibberish". This game is a trip from gibberish to cliché for three or more people. 4 to 4 5 intermediate.png
Game Over Very rich game that is perfect for workshops. With it's many variants it can be adjusted to work with children or even with semi- or professional musicians. 4 to ? 20 intermediate.png
Hand Piece (With Memory Function) When time comes, will you be able to recall what you were playing? 4 to 10 3 hard.png
Into The Labyrinth, lvl 1 Change pitch range and density of your improvisation to navigate through Dungeon Master's maze. 2 to 10 5 easy.png
Loop Cycle A game easy to teach and play. One player improvises a repeated loop. Other players join one by one, adding to the loop. The last player gets to do whatever s/he wants. Repeat with a different player. 4 to 10 7 easy.png
Motive A match-two card game in which players compete to earn the most melodies matched. 3 to 10 10 hard.png
Musical Brouhaha Look for your team in the crowd and make some noise! 32 to 140 20 easy.png
Musical Tetris Like in Tetris players must carefully fit sound between other sounds that drop into a pre-planned number of measures. No overlapping! Quick game that requires focus, tight rhythm and a bit of musicianship. 2 to 6 15 intermediate.png
Musical Tetris, lvl 1 Easier version of Musical Tetris which can be attempted also by non-musicians. 2 to 8 15 easy.png
Mutual Prescriptions series This series deals with music materials, parameters and dimensions and with changing them. 4 to ? 3 intermediate.png
Perception 4 This game for sustaining instruments is the first entry that uses perception and dexterity tests in the gameplay (not a game based on decisions nor on chance). 2 to 2 3 intermediate.png
Polyfill Fast composition and an algorithm to apply. The result is a short rhythmic break from improvisation for three people. 3 to 3 10 hard.png
P-S-Rock Two teams, three moods. Musical rock-paper-scissors. 6 to 12 10 intermediate.png
Rhythm Ball A cross between handball, basketball and a hip-hop concert. 5 to 50 20 intermediate.png
CMH-CR135 Scratch Orchestra's hand-cuff rite. 3 to ? 3 intermediate.png
MPIR106 Scratch Orchestra's improvisation Rite. Watching, waiting, listening. 10 to ? 15 easy.png
Sea-game game A game where you play over a piece of modern music. That score surely looks like a game board… 3 to 10 5 intermediate.png
Shogi Composition A recipe for collaborative composition among various people with different musical backgrounds. Players compose short passages one after another. The composition and performance are two separate phases. 2 to 10 60 easy.png
Sound Collage Game Board Individually travel around a colorful game board filled with various images and abstract designs that guide players to improvise a sound collage piece. 4 to 10 20 intermediate.png
Staircase Simple game for tonal instruments that are able to sustain a note for some time (or at least do tremolo). 3 to 10 4 intermediate.png
Stay In Character Pick a Character with specific limited musical skills. Choose your skill paths wisely and experience the creative mysteries of this musical adventure! 1 to 12 10 intermediate.png
SyndaKit An algorithmic piece with 144 cores on 12 separate sheets divided among 12 players. The cores are run through a set of rules creating an ever-changing organic flux of sound. 12 to 12 15 hard.png
Textmusic 3 One of Carl Bergstrøm-Nielsen's chance compositions based on traditional playing cards. 2 to ? 5 intermediate.png
The Audition Quick solo improvised performances are auditioned to create 3 duo sets. The duos compete against each other to win the best performance.
All conducted within a seamless stretch of music.
7 to 10 15 easy.png
The Freemasons "Of the various clandestine rites of Freemasonry this musical ritual, which dates back to the very earliest lodges, has been guarded with perhaps the greatest secrecy - until now! ..." 6 to 12 20 intermediate.png
Travel Routes A musical play with common theme of games - geography. 1 to ? 5 intermediate.png
Trigger Cards A set of cards to trigger events, but especially suited to riff jamming. 2 to 5 3 intermediate.png
Volume Waves A game based on emergence with unique musical effect and challenging gaming task for any instruments that can play dynamically. 7 to 7 7 easy.png
Where Are We? Create a sound environment from a chosen location while a listener sits in the middle blindfolded and listens. The listener must guess what location is aurally being created. 5 to 20 30 intermediate.png
Winking Murderer: The Musical Someone in the group is a murderer. When he winks at the improvisers, they die (stop playing). But a detective is also at work, investigating, and ready to catch the Winking Murderer. Will he catch him in time, or will the bad guy prevail? A fast-paced, yet extremely fun music game. Based on the traditional kids game "The Winking Murderer." 5 to 10 5 easy.png
The Songwriter's Notebook You've let 4 days of this month go by already, but it's time to get to work! The record label you're signed to has demanded a charting song by the end of the month or you'll be dropped from the label. Can you write a song that pushes past 800,000 streaming listens? Time to pull out your trusty notebook and find out! 1 to 1 15 intermediate.png

Alternative lists:

And please remember that you can always contribute your games!

Included in Play set/collection.

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