ABCOIR112-126 AB=Alan Brett. Compositions or Improvisation Rites.
ABIR127 Improvisation Rite from Psalm 100 verse 1.
ABP128 Piece
ACSRS64 Alvin Curron: Sitting Room Song
BGRIR63 Bob Guy: Red Indian Rite
BHBR140 Bryn Harris. Battle Rite. Father: Beethoven. Ancestry: Military music.
BHDIR62: Dessert Island Rite. F: C. Hobbs. A: spelling mistakes and forfeits.
BHPRR136 Polysterene Rite Revisited. F: "Make sounds with Polysterene …" (etc. as Wolff's "Stones"). A: wrongdoings
BHSGR33 Stirring Guitar Rite. A time limit for each person should be set before commencement and if the task has not been successfully completed within the time limit, that person must leave the group temporarily to contemplate his lack of dexterity.
BHSR49 Solitude Rite. F: BHDIR62. A: Human endeavor.
BHTOOB93 The Oozalum Oozalum Bird. F: the Wild West Show. A: Rugby Songs.
BHUSR36 Unwritten Score Rite. F:BHWSR35. A: Every score never written.
BHWSR35 Written score rite. F:CC. A:Every score ever written.
CCAMMR129 Cornelius Cardew. AMM Rite. Adamski also related.
CCAOR23 Absent Object Rite. Conceived originally as introductory to CCTG22
CCAR17 Accompanying Rite F: Scratch Music
CCC131 quoted from Confucius, Analects BkIII sect.23. translated by Soothill. The section begins: "the Master discoursing to the state Bandmaster of Lu on the Subject of music said: "The art of music may be readily understood. The attack … etc." " Ezra Pound's rendering: "One can understand this music: a rousing start in unison, then the parts follow pure, clear one from another, (brilliant) explicit to the conclusion". This text may be used as a variant rite.
CCCMR74 Conceptual Mountain Rite. The ancestry have being the continuity of history, little importance is attached to the mechanisms chosen for beginning and ending. A simple solution: the silent one is seen to be waring a hat; the rite ends when the hat is no longer in evidence.
CCCMR75 'Concerte' Mountain Rite.
CCDCR132 Daisy Chain Rite. A: Regeneration and the end of a dynasty. Maxim: In general keep 'imaginaries' to a minimum. The situation: After the initial couple, there are always 2 pairs coupling, both under scrutiny. The rest are playing either a) the covering sound (if they have not yet been in a coupling chain) or b) other improvisation (if they have). Each person (except the initial couple) is involved in sequence in: 1) thick covering sound, 2) two couplings (one only if you are the last in one of the chains)(in the first you are chosen, in the 2nd you choos), 3) improvisation.
CCEFUIIRR107 'Elements for use in Improvisation Rites' Rite. F: George Brecht. A: Ritual.
CCFR102 Filler Rite. A: creating and filling empty space.
CCHAC61 Hot and Cold. A: entropy
CCIR2 Improvisation Rite. F: 'Games for Musicians' by Richard Reason. Groups of two or more late-comers may use the same rite to join in an improvisation that is already in progress.
CCIR24 F: Eddie Prévost's 'Mystery'
CCIR42 Interest Rite. F: MC ("interest serves to stabilise the situation") A: GEM, Jealousy, Jewellery, Greed, Stockpiling, the arbitrary attachment of permanent (permanently increasing) value to objects). Note: In this rite, stability equals silence, I guess, since infinite interést takes infinite time to accrue.
CCIR71 F: Guerilla warfare. A: Animal behaviour. Possibility notes: a) many people, b) short time, c) hudde.
CCIR149 A decadent variant: Provide an improvisation with something the absence of which has struck you.
Ode: Water in desert sand / Love in an estranged marriage / Silence at the seaside /
(space for more lines).
Water in desert sand can be exposed by constructing a 'solar still': Dig a hole in the sand and place a cup in the bottom. Cover the hole with a plastic sheet weighted with stones around the edge, then place a stone in the centre of the sheet so as to draws it down in the shape of a cone whose apex is just above the cup. Sunshine is needed, and this is the kind of thing the improviser may have to provide. (In the decadent variant he would have the much easier option of simply making water in the sand.)
CCIRTSOW25 Improvisation Rite "The sheet of water".
CCLR67 Lovers' Rites. F: untraced. The 3 rites may be played separately &/or together. Footnotes:
1) This could mean 'internalise it'
2) If this proves impossible artifice may be employed.
CCPR16 Poem Rite, derived from 'Poem' by LaMonte Young.
CCQR133 Quiet Rite. F: a composition by Margery Wardle.
CCR72 Rite. F: Keith Rowe
CCRR66
CCSBR7 Stupid Book Rite. To end, stronger measures may be necessary, eg. Destruction of the SB.
CCSR18 Soloing Rite
CCSR26 Song Rite. Variants:
1) At some point in on improvisation one or more should sing a song (if more than one, sing in unison).
2) Before imporovising, each person plays an accompaniment. Over this combined accompaniment one or more should sing a song (if more than one, sing in unison). (see CCAR17). 'Unison' may be taken to mean 'all in the same key'.
CCTG22 Tender Glances. F: Janet Robertson.
Ode:
On receipt of a tender glance, play melodically, straight from the heart./
Look around. What does your eye light on?/
On receipt of a glare, protest dramatically and waste no time./
Look around. What does your eye light on?/
On receipt of the straight gaze, gaze back and keep in tune./
Look around. What does your eye light on?/
On receipt of an enquiring look, answer as best you can./
Look around. What does your eye light on?/
On receipt of a surreptious glance, look the other way and keep moving./
Look around. etc.
(space for more lines).
CCTGRFT73 Tender Glances Rite for Two.
CCWR150 Wand Rite. F: 'The Music of the Arabian Nights' (in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Soc.). A: obvious. Variant rite (eg. all start with one representative and more to another one individually chosen) may be freely devised.
CFEOIR147 Carol Fyner. Exchange of instruments Rite
CFIRNTFM145 Improvisation Rite No 2. Flower Music. Alternative ending: When a player wants to stop, he collects as many of his original pieces as he can recognize and lays them out in an orderly fashion. Any other pieces in his possession can be left in a heap ready for other players to reclaim when they choose to.
CFIRT146 Improvisation Rite 3. Suggestions for playing: Play it straight through as if one was actually reading it. Play the pictures only. Play the headlines only. Play the captions only. Play the punctuation only. Play one news item only. Play the white space around the print only. Etc., etc.
Alternative version: Each player has a previously agreed upon distinct part to play (eg. one of the above, etc.). Ending can still be at a given time or whenever players feel they have finished.
CFS32 Stillness. A: ΨΨ vegetation. A second version is the same, but no instruments to be used. Sounds may be made in any other way. À pair of useful rules:
1) Notice the last person to start playing before yoru.
2) While playing, notice when he stops, and thereafter you stop when the next person starts.
Variant (for easier recognition when there are many):
While playing wear a hat; doff it on stopping.
CFSNAP!R148 SNAP! Rite (or is it a composition?) Standard snap rules. Cards are all dealt out, beginning at dealer's left; there should be none over (some players will have an extra card — this does not matter). Each person puts his cards face down in a pile in front of him. Person on dealer's left commences by taking the top card from his file and putting it face up in front of his pile. Other players do the same in rotation until 2 cards of the same value appear face up. At this point anyone may 'sound' SNAP! Whoever 'sounds' first takes both the piles headed by the same value, and puts them face down at the bottom of his pile. The game goes on like this. If face-down cards run out, the pile of face-up cards is turned over and used again.
If a player runs out of cards he is out of the game. The player who gets all the cards is the winner. Any player 'sounding' SNAP! in error has his face-up cards taken from him and placed in the centre. Anyone may claim them when the top card is matched by 'sounding' SNAP-POOL. "Naturally the excitement of the game, in the case of young children, is apt to lead to certain irregularities and these should be watched for by grown-up helpers". I would suggest that members of the audience, or any non-players, or those groups who finish their game quickly should keep a watchful eye on players for, these "Irregularities" and may shout (or 'sound'?) Cheat! whenever they see an irregularity.
CH27 Christopher Hobbs. F: CCTG22. Grandma: 'The Rite' (Ingmar Bergman). Granddad: 'Film' (Samuel Becket). This rite is circular (ou reaching the end return to the beginning. Commentary: An audience often looks, sometimes watches, rarely perceives.
Glossary 1.
1) Always watch what you are doing. 2) There are three types of activity, all of fairly short duration:
a) Play, b) Watch someone else, c) Do nothing (ie. anything that is not a or b). 3) Begin with periods of c) alternating with periods of b). If during b), the person you are watching looks back, go to a). If, during c), you get the impression that someone is watching you, either go to a) or look up and check. If your in impression was correct, go to a). If incorrect, resume C).
Glossary 2.
Do nothing — watch someone — no response from person you are watching — do nothing —.
Do nothing — watch someone — the person you are watching looks back — play — do nothing —.
Do nothing — you feel that someone is watching you — play — do nothing —.
Do nothing — you feel that someone is watching you — look up — someone is watching you — play — do nothing —.
Do nothing — you feel that someone is watching you — look up — no-one is watching you — do nothing —.
CHGR91 Gramophone Rite. F: Psi Ellison. A: returning one's source. Notes: 1) Possibly study enlarged photos of record grooves, observing the typical move ments of the needle. 2) The needle travels further to complete one revolution at the start of the record than at the end (i.e its speed in relatin to the groove is decelerating). 3) Aspire to the hole at the centre of the record,
CHHR9O Heavenly Rite. F: Swedenborg. A: Relativity, Religion.
CHIR83 Improvisation Rite. F: Keith Rowe. Family: Buddhist practice. A: Communication.
CHLR87 Lunar Rite. F: untraced. A: Subjugation of the female.
CHMR89 Military Rite. F: Napoleon. A: Military strategy. Note: An army Marches on its stomach.
Variant rite: Play, lying full-length on your stomach. Your sounds are bullets. Protect yourself against the sounds fired by the other players. If you get up, you're dead. Your participation in the rite then ceases. You may, however, begin playing the … (CHHR90).
CHRR88 Reluctance Rite. F: untraced. A: the ending of improvisation rites.
CHSBR19 Small Brush Rite. Alternatively from end of line 9: When the second player finds the stroking intolerable he gets up and stands idle, waiting for someone else to do the same. When someone does, these two change places and start stroking their new partners' lips. Note: If it becomes plain to a player that he will never find the stroking intolerable, it would be courteous at some point to pretend to find it intolerable. Indeed, not to do so could under some circumstances. be considered cruel.
CHSTBOR15A Supplement: The Broken Object Rite.
CHTHOR15 The Hidden Object Rite.
CHTIGR20 The Island Game Rite. F: Evening Standard of 14.5.69.
CJ81 Chris Jones
CMH-CR135 Chris May. Hand-Cuff Rite
CMPR111 Play-Rules. From 'The Naked Ape' by Desmond Morris, paperback edition p 121.
DDNWO110 David Dixon. Novelty Wears Off.
DJ68 David Jackman
DJ69 Note: Use kapok or some such soft, loose material. Try playing harmonica.
DJACR92 A Caucus-Race. From 'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll.
DJCR78 Colours Rite. F: Emulsion paint. A: Ugly wallpaper.
DJFR77 Firefly Rite
DJTBR98 Three Bird Rites. F: Perry Eduards. A: Solitude, St Francis
EFMO95 Ed Fulton. Music 1
EFPR138 Primaeval Rite. F: Nature Study Notes. A: ee cummings, set theory. The rite is cyclic.
You may make sounds when you are contemplating your havel. The rite concludes when all are participating with each other.
EFPR139 Petal Rite. F: CCTGRFT73. Midwife: 'Stereoscan' electron microscopy.
FRFRR6 Frederic Rzewski. Fund-raising Rite.
FRLMDP47 Les Moutons de Panurge. F: Rabelais. A: mainly sheep. Suggested theme for non-musicians: "The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. For Frans Brüggen, iii.69.
FRMEVR4 Musica Ellettronica Viva Rite. If conflicts arise, a jury decides the issue. The jury is made up of those who do not wish to play the game.
FRR8O Rite
FRTSP65 The Sound Pool.
HMS85 Hugh Shrapnel.
HMSBR45 Beethoven Rite. F: BHWSR35. Son: HMS Variation: Substitute any other composer.
HMSCR104 Commentary Rite
HMSIR5 Improvisation Rite. Variant: Replace first 12 lines with :- Any number of people making any sounds. Perform in a large area, as widely separated from each other as possible. Performers stay in the same place throughout, keeping physical movement to a minumum.
HMSIR43 Improvisation Rite. Variation: Substitute any other area, but for the purposes of an improvisation players must use items from the same area.
HMSIR44 Improvisation Rite. F: the White Queen. Godfather: Lewis Carroll. Variation : Substitute for "impossible", any other word with a negative prefix, eg. improbable, unimaginable, immoral, unedifying, unforeseen, undesirable, unusual, unlovely, incorrect, unenjorable.
HMSSB141 from Samuel Beckett, who also said "Silence once broken can never be mended"
HMSSR94 Smiles Rite. F: Smile / No Smile / Smile by Chieko Shiomi; Marcel Marceau. A: Humour.
HMSUR103 Unknown Rite
HMSVR48 Vodka Rite. Father: Clement Freud. Son: HMS. Holy Spirit: Vodka.
HS58 Howard Skempton. F: Choir experience. A: Parades, processions, old films, etc.
HSBR34 Breathing Rite. F: Public Speaking. A: Alleviation of nervousness.
HSDNO1 Drum No 1
HSDNT152 Drum No 2
HSIR8 Improvisation Rite. Conventions:
1) Any challenge must first be announced.
2) It is generally accepted that the challenger always wins.
3) Nobody is allowed to become BIG LEADER more than once.
HSIRNF28 Improvisation Rite No 4
HSIRNT13 Improvisation Rite No 2
HSIRNT14 Improvisation Rite No 3
HSOR53 Orphan Rite
HSOR59 Opera Rite. F: klinokinesis (a feature of invertebrate behaviour).
HSPR55 Puberty Rite
HSSR51 Swimming Rite. F: swimming instruction. A: General education
HSSR56 Shaving Rite F: MC10. A:Cleanliness.
HSTPR41 Three-part rite. F: Aristophanes. Ancestry.
HSTROJ52 The Rite of Jokes. F: conjuring. A: all those blokes who got their girl friends into a good humour.
HSWR54 Wheel Rite. A: Clockwork.
HSWR57 Weather Rite. F: the principles of rainmaking. A: Man / Nature relationship.
JHBBCOR130. Jane Hare. BBC Orchestra Rite.
JNWWR37. John Nash. Winning Word Rite. F: Mornington Crescent. A: Party games, Magic.
Note: A genuine winner who decides he is fraudulent plays softly. The same goes for a fraudulent winner who decides he is genuine. Decorum should be preserved.
JTDR82 John Tilbury. Dress Rite. F: Liberace. A: Fig-leaves, "I danced with the winds in my maiden form bra", Moss Bros.
Appendix: If a garment in the pile takes your fancy, ask the owner if you might have it. This rite in dedicated to Michael Chant.
LHUR84. The bright-eyed Laura Holmes. Um Rite. F: The inarticulate Michael Chant. The father also acted as midwife. A: time to think.
MC9. Michael Chant. A: Poverty. I originally meant loudly and continually.
MC11 A: Measured up music.
MC12 Appendix: There are no penalties for hitting an improviser or damaging an object, as it is assumed this will not occur.
MCAvMOSS&AFvMcC&OR70 Argent v. Minister of Social Security & Another Fuge v. McClelland & Others Rite. (ovum: reading of Taxation 28.vi.69). F: Christopher Hobbs (sperm: discussion of employment). A: subsisting, permanent, substantive positions, or otherwise.
MCICR60 Immaculate Conception Rite.
MCTR:A134 The Rite: Advice. Sex: Uncertainty. Performance Suggestion: the text should be prominently displayed.
MNBBSSR50 Maggie Nichols, Bob Brown. Single Sound Rite. Father: Buddha. Son: John Stevens. Children: Maggie and Bob.
MPEPR144 Michael Parsons. Egg-pushing Rite.
MPIR106. Improvisation Rite. F: ACSRS64. A: watching, waiting, listening.
MPJR143 Jumping Rite. F: Michael Chant
MPNR21 Night Rite. Variant: it could also be done in the afternoon (MPAR21)
MPPAYPR46 Pay-As-You-Play Rite. F: Boats for hire in Regent's Park. Other relatives: juke boxes, slot machines, other leisure amenities for which payment is made by time. Also related to FRFRR6, and more remotely to 'Poem' by LaMonte Young. Variant: The rates may be varied to suit the occasion (eg. more on Sundays and Bank Holidays. A cheap day once a week).
MPR109 Rite. An example: there are 20 players and 10 minutes available for the performance: then each person plays for a total of 30 seconds during the 10 mins. (Not necessarily all at once. It may be 1 duration of 30 secs, or 30 durations of 1 sec. or any other way of dividing the 30 secs., and he may play at any time during the 10 mins., but not more than 30 secs. in all.)
MPSACR142 Solo and Chorus Rite. F: Antiphonal singing.
MSCR108 Mike Smith. Conversation Rite.
MSIR96 Improvisation Rite. Traditional, arr. MS
MSIR97 Improvisation Rite
MSIR105 Improvisation Rite. (To be played immediately after wars)
PD31 Philip Dadson
PDIR3 Improvisation Rite. Note: the fraction in line 4 may be adjustee. Variant for last paragraph: When the leader in touched he forfeits his role, and so doing shouts "Porridge". All participation is interrupted for a fraction at "Porridge" and then resumed. Each person's first participation (coming 'in' from 'out') after "Porridge" should be the same as new leader's activity. Suggested closing rite: When a leader considers the performance has gone on long enough, he screams a different word (not "Porridge") when touched. Whereupon all cease finally.
PDIR29 Improvisation Rite. Pedigree: Father. Note: be free at any point to calm whomever you feel is in struggle of some sort; but do so unobtrusively, without making your presencé felt.
PDPTR30 Passing Time Rite. A: boredom.
PIIRNO100 Paul Irvine. Improvisation Rite No 1.
PIIRNT99 Improvisation Rite No 2. Variant: Substitute 'sound' for 'noise'.
RSIRNT101 Roger Sutherland. Improvisation Rite No 3
RSRIV137 Rite IV. Variants: in 1) substitute 'on' or 'on and around' or 'just below' for 'just above'?
TM40 Tim Mitchell. F: Jasper Johns' Make something, find a use for it.
TMCR39 Cards Rite. F: George Brecht. Pedigree: the emperor S'eun-ho & Thomas de la Rue.
Note 1. For Red Cards play 'good' sounds. For Black cards play 'bad' sounds. The higher the number the better/worse the sounds. jokers are jokers are jokers.
Note 2. Diamonds are a girl's best friend.
TMSR86 Scratch Rite. F: Striptease. Pedigree: Barnham Circus. NB. If no fleas are available play as if there were.
TMTTR38 Tube Train Rite. F: Treatise. Pedigree : William Caxton, James Watt, George Stevenson. Note: Colour code maps are useful, in case you get lost.