100 Events For The Guildhall School Of Music And Drama

100/events/GSMD dedicated to Guildhall composers and professors past, present and future Matthew Lee Knowles September 2008

1. Find someone, dance around them for about eight seconds then run away.

9. Choose a location and look at it. Imagine walking over to that location.

2. Find a medium sized/weighted object and drop it, pick it up with your left hand, drop it again then pick it up with your right hand.

10.Close your eyes and jump in the air. If you come back down again, give yourself a prize.

3. Say the alphabet out loud in many different voices.

11.Throw something across the floor, walk very slowly to pick it up.

4. Whisper the alphabet, but shout these letters: A, C, E, G, H, J, N, O.

12.Stand still, close your eyes, imagine whatever you wish.

5. Eat this piece of paper.

13.Collect together a handful of keys shake them vigorously for eight seconds.

6. Screw up this piece of paper and throw it to someone, so that they can catch it. 7. Shred this piece of paper into many pieces and drop it to the floor. Pick up all the pieces apologetically. 8. Using your hands, create sound.

14.Obtain a hot tea or coffee, explain to someone how hot it is then pretend to drink it. 15.State your name, sex, occupation and age in as regimented a voice as you can manage.

16.Walk up to a wall so that your face is almost touching it: sing and sustain a note for at least twenty seconds.

22.Empty the contents of your pockets or bag onto an open surface. 23.Do something for eight seconds.

17.Walk up to a wall so that your face is almost touching it: choose any number and say it out loud. Then add five to the number and say the resultant figure. Keep doing this until you want to stop. 18.Walk. Each step you take should be bigger than the previous.

24.Make loud sounds for eight seconds. 25.Put your right arm down by your side, close your eyes, move your right arm up, stretched above your head. Without opening your eyes, look at where you think your hand is. At this point you may choose whether or not you wish to open your eyes.

19.Share a bag of crisps/sweets/grapes with friends.

26.Walk up a flight of stairs very slowly.

20.Hug someone, for just a little bit longer than is comfortable.

27.Walk up a flight of stairs two at a time.

21.You are going to be executed. You are allowed to sing one final piece of music before you die.

28.Walk up a flight of stairs three at a time.

29.Walk up a flight of stairs - clap your hands at every new step and clap excitedly when you get to the top. 30.Close your eyes and walk up a flight of stairs. 31.Sing a duet with a hand drier in the toilets. 32.Go to the café bar and sing your order to the person serving you.

33.Walk down one set of stairs leading to the café bar and up the other. Repeat this as many times as you wish.

34.A group of people gather round a table without speaking. At the same time they all start banging rhythms with the palms of their hands. They stop as soon as one other person stops.

35.One person in a group says a word beginning with the letter ‘a’, another person says a word beginning with the letter ‘b’ - this continues, in no particular order. Letters can be repeated, only when it is their time to occur (example: a,b,c,d,e,f,f,f,g,h,i,i,j,k,l) 36.Read the last text from your phone out loud to as many people as you can find. 37.Gather as many people as you can around you, shouting that there will be a performance. When everyone is ready, tell them that the performance is over. 38.Find a soprano singer and ask them to perform Mozart’s ‘Queen of the Night’ aria. 39.Make one high sound, then one low sound. Now make two high sounds and two low sounds. Continue this pattern as long as you wish.

40.Take a pen and paper. Write something on the paper. Say it out loud. 41.Take something out of your pocket, hold it In front of you and walk slowly, mumbling to yourself. 42.Your knees fail you! 43.You hold your breath for twenty to thirty seconds. 44.Imagine a woman giving birth. Choose one of the sounds you might expect to hear and repeat it as many times as you wish. 45.Sit on the floor. 46.Choose a page of a book/diary/leaflet etc and read one sentence out loud.

47.Go to the library, find a book about Chopin and open to page thirty−nine, read aloud the last word of the page or the first word of the next page. 48.Go to the library and ask the person working there if they have any books on Palestrina or Debussy. 49.Take a newspaper and screw up every page into a ball. Put all of this in your pockets, down your top and trousers. 50.A person sees something they like. 51.A person participates in an action which creates sound, however minimal or conceptual. 52.You empty a small packet of sugar into the palm of your hand and squeeze. 53.You think long and hard about becoming a ghost.

54.You very carefully demonstrate the act of loving oneself.

63.Find some text and sing or speak it.

55.A man walks past a woman. A woman walks past a man.

64.Speak in a language you do not know or understand.

56.You pick up a piece of paper the paper weighs more than you do.

58.If you can whistle, do so.

65.If you are gay say the word: “Vrantybaraniantz”. If straight, the word: “Grantabaristihsianq”. If bisexual: “Banqsthisqrantianshah”. If transgender: “Cranthiqzaranthss”. If unsure: “Prantharhsitharyz”. If you believe such categories should be avoided, say nothing.

59.Do something for eight seconds which makes you happy.

66.Speak a sentence, with each word being in a different language.

60.Do something which lasts between eight seconds and three years.

67.Say out loud the longest word you can think of.

57.Make five different sounds with your hands over your face.

68.Speak only using vowels, as quickly as possible. 61.Move backwards, with heavy footsteps. 62.Stand on one leg and sing any national anthem.

69.Tell a beautifully absurd joke, in the direction of a month.

70.Emulate a mule drinking a latte, late at night, sat in yoghurt, singing a single pitch, reading cartoons.

71.Consider the downside of an outsider shooting an Arab man, whilst eating chips and having fully protected sex under a red light, keeping distance from anyone wishing to learn their identity.

72.Discuss sports, In particular - school ground bullying and blowing onto printed words moving across a smooth surface.

73.Participate in creation, French cuisine, geography, microscopic organisms, traditional Indian instruments and the praising of very young children.

74.Think about writing, whilst at war in Helsinki, greeting kings and standing on your legs. 75.Close you eyes, imagine something nice happening. Open your eyes - repeat until something nice happens. 76.Find a friend and use them as you might use a musical instrument. 77.If you wish to know the age you will die at, calculate the following: Take away your current age from 1000. 78.Go to the toilet to piss or shit. 79.Take off one shoe and fill it with love.

81.Drink something traditional.

88.Make a call on a mobile phone, if the person answers, ask them if it is raining, then hang up immediately.

82.Mock someone, then apologise and touch them gently. Mock them again.

89.Put your hands in your pockets. If you do not have any, put your hands in someone else’s pockets.

83.Compete, complete and compartmentalise.

90.Shout “Eureka!” then start crying.

84.Oscillate between a high sound and a low sound.

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85.Take a book and exclaim loudly that you have read it several times.

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80.The realisation that the music in these events starts in the mind and ends in the mind.

93.Tie something to nothing using anything. 86.Imagine a mountain and then a hill. Is your life really that bad?

94.Consider knowing that you are insane, then consider what it means to be insane.

87.Look into something reflective. 95.Introduce some vegetables to a fisherman who stands on them clumsily, twice.

96.Take a sudoku puzzle, fill in the gaps with random numbers, quickly and excitedly. 97.Quote any part of any religious text, then laugh. 98.Say hello to someone you don’t know. 99.Make an anagram out of your name. 100.Put some food on your face and test how long it takes for someone to notice and tell you.

Matthew Lee Knowles (2008)