Exquisite Corpse - 2021

“Exquisite Corpse” refers to a technique used by the surrealists of the early 20th century. The technique is very similar to “Mad Libs” and an old parlor game called “Consequences,” where participants write down sentence fragments on a piece of paper, conceal what they’ve written, and pass it down for the next person to write on. Something important to mention is that each game has a rule for how each person constructs their sentence fragments (e.g., the second player must have an adjective). The game ends with the entire passage read aloud for people to bask in its strangeness together.

There is also an illustrative version of “Consequences” called “Picture Consequences.” You can imagine how that would go. So, perhaps an equally fitting title for this piece might be “Auditory Consequences.” In any case, my goal in writing “Exquisite Corpse” was to take on the role of three participants and imagine how each one of them might create their own soundscape if they were only allowed to listen to the end of the previous soundscape. Each section does not necessarily have its own rule, but you can certainly imagine that they do! I hope you enjoy my brief (but fun) exercise in surrealism.

Instrumentation 

8 channel (stereo realization)