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Many Worlds Game – Spoon (2011)
for toy piano, toy xylophone, toy percussion, and optional tape
This piece was composed for the 4th UnCaged Toy Piano Competition. I started work almost immediately after I saw the call for
scores, excited by the opportunity to write a piece for the instrument. Particularly inspiring was the notice that the use of other
toy instruments was encouraged. Eventually I realized that games were the most natural medium for toy instruments. I came up
with four games for two performers, then selected the most complex one and spent a few months working on it. Everything was
going well until, just a couple of weeks before the deadline, I reread the rules to check the submission guidelines. I found out
that I have misread an important detail – the call was for scores for one performer, whereas my game could not function without
two performers. Not willing to compromise the integrity of the game, I decided to come up with another idea; it was almost too late
when it finally materialized. The piece had to use graphic notation, so I had to sketch all movements on paper first, then produce
larger, cleaner pencil versions on A4 sheets, and then my wife, during the last two days before the deadline, made the manuscript
on A3 sheets using those pencil versions.
The piece is essentially a videogame for toy piano and other toy instruments. The performer is required to improvise short melodic
and noise fragments in sequences and layers defined by the score; any mistakes they make may either interrupt a performance and
force the performer to restart playing a level, or simply are incorporated into the piece as necessary details. At times, the performer
is instructed to play one or more of six fully notated melodies.
PDF scores:
– Many Worlds Game – Spoon: Instructions and Melodies
– Many Worlds Game – Spoon: Score
Many Worlds Game – Spoon spawned a number of satellite pieces. The simplest one is Many Worlds, in which the melodies
of the original are performed separately, and numerous opportunities to ignore or re-interpret the existing notes are given. The
second piece, Beaters, also treats the melodies of MWG–S, but builds a whole game—with several gameplay modes—out of them.
It can be performed by one or two players.
PDF scores:
– Many Worlds
– Beaters (A3 format)