David Bedford - An Exciting New Game

16mm Film - David Bedford - An Exciting New Game - BRD 1973

Direction: Jörg Schwenk

Script: Manfred Peters and Jörg Schwenk

Camera: Karl Koch, Axel Schramm, Georg Theilacker

Music: David Bedford

Cast: Students of the Staatliches Leininger-Gymnasium, Grünstadt (New Music Study Group, directed by Manfred Peters)

The British composer and musician David Bedford interprets the concept of 'aleatorics' literally: in his piece, each player uses a die that signals the start and determines the course of play. A playing field with 64 squares serves as the basis, in which the 'actions' are indicated, e.g. '4 short notes, long notes pp'. The player has extensive freedom and needs neither music-reading ability nor playing technique. A kind of random music emerges using all kinds of sound generators, most of which can be found or built oneself. The player selects and employs them personally. The human voice is also used.