Click Nilson's text piece

An Instructional Game for 1 to many musicians (Click Nilson, 1975)

Each performer maintains one or more lists of instructions: they begin with just the one below. Each minute, as reckoned by their poor sense of human long-term timing, they must follow one instruction per list in their possession.

1. (CHANGE) You may add a new instruction to your list or modify an existing one. 2. (DELETE) You may delete one instruction from your list. 3. (EXCHANGE) Exchange one instruction list with another player of your choice; they must defer but may choose which set to exchange with you if they have more than one. 4. (PROLIFERATE DUTIES) You may make a copy of an existing instruction set and henceforth proceed with this set too at the next calculation stage. 5. (SONIFICATION). During the next minute using your instrument or voice you may play the musical phrases embodied by instructions on one list in your possession. You will utilise timing, pitch and timbre as best you can to convey the spoken form of the instructions. 6. (TERMINATION). If you have four instruction sets or have exchanged four or more times you may finish playing the game.

Notes- modern versions of this game may find a photocopier or computer assistance helpful for copying and exchanging. It has also been found propitious to utilise projection of instruction sets to enable an audience to see the state of play- alternatively, the audience may wander amongst the perfomers and act as observers and arbiters of disputes.

Computer modeling of the game itself has been successfully demonstrated by some advanced performance groups.

Performers may wish to set a practical time limit too- rumour has it that Nilson is still playing after losing instructions 1 and 6.