About Procession

A walking band of reeds. There are 53 short phrases and everyone plays them in order, but nobody is told when to move on, so the music is made of where everyone is.

• Sweep through the line and every player you touch moves on to the next phrase.
• Right-click a player to send it back one.
• Drag one up or down to change its reed. Low is a bass harmonium, high is a melodica.
• Spread is the sound. All on one phrase is bare unison. A few phrases apart and the band opens up and the hall brightens. Strung out too far and the stragglers thin out.
• A ringed player is ready. After a few turns round its phrase a player rings and leans forward, asking to move on. That is your queue of decisions. Ignore it long enough and it goes by itself, but the band is yours to move.
• The phrases travel. Plain C at first, then an F sharp tilts the whole thing toward G, then a B flat darkens it, then it comes home.
• The pulse is the puff of air on every eighth note. It is the only thing everyone shares.
• Gather pulls the band back together. Back to one starts the walk again.

The rules are Terry Riley’s, from In C (1964): short cells, played in order, each player moving on when it feels like it. The 53 phrases here are written for this toy, not his.

Changelog

• Initial release