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The Exquisite Corpse (EC) might be the best known game that comes from the Surrealists. It is played in two versions: sentence-based and image-based. In the first variant, related to an earlier parlour game Consequences, you fill in a prescribed sentence structure with "random" words from each player. The name of the game comes from the very first achieved result: The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine. , 25). The visual version is a multiplayer drawing, where each partaker makes a section without seeing the context of what is already drawn, which is achieved by folding the paper.
On this page you'll see projects where this premise was applied to music. Such an adaptation might be done in different ways. The most basic approach which lends itself well to live performance is to make sounds independently, like in Piece for Any Number of Vocalists by Alison Knowles.
Each thinks beforehand of a song, and, on a signal from the conductor, sings it through.
Studio techniques might be used to apply a more elaborate sequential process.
Unconnected Composition (Bent Knee)
The principle of simultaneous action was for example realized in a YouTube video "5 Composition Games" from Adam Neely done together with the Bent Knee band.
Weird Combinations
The Think Jar Collective made a series of pieces by: first selecting a random theme, then setting a general frame (folded paper used), and then having participants working independently on each track with the roles of tracks in the piece established (bass, etc.) The process is described in detail for each result: https://thinkjarcollective.com/projects/exquisite-corpse-music-project
The Same River Twice
This ambient album available on Bandcamp was done by 50 electronic musicians, each given 1 minute of runtime. At every stage each composer was tasked to start with the last sounds of the previous material in the chain. Youtuber Hainbach participated and made such a video:
The Whisper Game
At https://whispergame.bandcamp.com/ you can see the results an in-pandemic initiative from Leif Jordansson, inspired by another parlour game ("Chinese Whispers"), that also results in mini exquisite-corpse-like duets. A freely improvised track is recorded, then another improviser adds the second layer played by reacting to the first (no prior peeking!). The combined result is published, but then that second layer is taken for another improviser to build upon.
References
📜 Brotchie, Alistair. 1995. A Book of Surrealist Games. Boston & London: Shambhala Publications.
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