DONT DEAD OPEN INSIDE (a musical/compositional puzzle)

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Tristin Bailey

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Published on January 1, 2024 5:55:58 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcDIrSJcmL8

Duration: 0:45

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The voice leading between measures 2 and 6 suck, but by the time I really noticed that I had already spent ~75 minutes rendering the video and I don't have the willpower to restart. I also forgot the key signature, but let's pretend that was intentional.

I'll probably flesh out this idea more in my freetime, as this attempt was pretty poor and a lot of the "harmony" is unison and minor seconds.


Alright, I should probably explain what the gimmick actually is now:
The idea is that you have a piece where two players share the same sheet. One player reads the sheet normally (i.e. DONT OPEN DEAD INSIDE), while the other player reads the sheet from top to bottom, left to right (i.e. DONT DEAD OPEN INSIDE). So the second player is to read the measures in this order:
1x1 = measure 1. (Trivial case)
2x2 = mm. 1, then 3, then 2, then 4.
4x3 = 1, 5, 9, 2, 6, 10, 3, 7, 11, 4, 8, 12.

This will mean that, in the 4x3 example, while the first player is in measure 3, the second player is in measure 9.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1 5 9 2 6 10 3 7 11 4 8 12

This gives the composer the challenge of having the music read logically both ways, and the harmony making sense while the two players are in different spots.
There is a pretty strong argument for saying I failed to so this in this video.


Of course, this also means you can have even larger "puzzles" to work with, such as a 5x5 grid. I'm not sure how achievable this process is on larger grids, but it was interesting enough for me to waste a few hours on.

I also considered trying out variants where a third voice is present and plays along the diagonal line, or reads the sheet in a spiral pattern (3x3 grid would be needed for these), but after messing around with two voices for awhile I think I'm done for the time being.


Of course, the interesting part about this isn't what I wrote. It's writing a piece yourself using the same ruleset. One player reads left to right, top to bottom. The other player reads top to bottom, left to right. Have fun.