Immersion Composition Society

The Immersion Composition Society (ICS) is a network of speed-composers, organized into independent groups, called lodges. [http://www.eastbayexpress.com/music/american_idles/Content?oid=284098]

History

The ICS was started in Oakland, California by a pair of obsessive and frenetic songwriters named Nicholas Dobson and Michael Mellender. They had noticed that they were spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about music, and waiting for inspiration to write music, instead of actually writing the music. This led to an interchange of emails trading ideas for a new songwriting method that involved as little thinking as possible. ["The Frustrated Songwriter's Handbook", Backbeat Books (ISBN 0-87930-879-6) 2006, p.5-16]

In early 2001, Dobson proposed a recipe for a songwriting "game" that took place over the course of a single day. They both began to play it compulsively. Within a year, Mellender and Dobson had formed a society of songwriters, and this game - which came to be called the "20-Song Game", was it's central activity. [The Frustrated Songwriter's Handbook, Backbeat Books (ISBN 0-87930-879-6) 2006, p.55-62]

ongwriter lodge

The ICS is made up of local chapters, called "lodges". An ICS lodge is not unlike a small, local secret society of songwriters. The lodge exists as a way for all of the members to force themselves to write as much music as possible. The privacy and secrecy of a lodge are there to create a "safe" environment for musical experimentation, free of criticism and negative social pressure. The members of an ICS lodge have sworn to support each other completely, and each member is encouraged to indulge any musical whim or subject matter - no matter how ridiculous or questionable it may seem to the songwriter at the time. [The Frustrated Songwriter's Handbook, Backbeat Books (ISBN 0-87930-879-6) 2006, p.41-64] Each lodge has a "lodge head", and any number of members, up to 12 or so.

Game rules

The 20-Song Game works like this: [The Frustrated Songwriter's Handbook, Backbeat Books (ISBN 0-87930-879-6) 2006, p.17-26]

# The members start the day split up, working in their separate homes or studios. Each member of the lodge member then attempts to conceive, write and record as many new songs as possible before the day is over.
# In theory; they are all aiming for twenty new songs. In practice; chaos generally ensues. Naturally, getting twenty is not the real point. The game is more about breaking free of inhibitions, playing and exploring, and entering a state a complete creative frenzy. The members do not use previously written material in their session.
# In the evening there is a lodge meeting, where the lodge members get together (having first stopped by a store to purchase treats) and everyone takes turns playing the CD or cassette that they made that day for their gathered lodge, and swapping session stories.
# This game can also be played alone. A common method for solo players is to keep an online journal of one's sessions, or to interact with other users on an internet forum. The ICS Forum was created for this purpose.

Regional rules and special games

As more lodges were formed, ICS members from all over began to create regional rules and variations, as well as new games. These new games had names like "Hat-Lib", "Spooling", and "Composer Tennis". [The Frustrated Songwriter's Handbook, Backbeat Books (ISBN 0-87930-879-6) 2006, p.17-26] It was also becoming a common practice for Society members to personalize the 20-Song Game over time, cycling through periods with higher and lower volume goals. This was the point when ICS methodology started to evolve into a larger system for songwriters that could be used to tackle more or less any goal that the user wanted, including low-volume goals such as developing production, arrangement and craft.

Books

The overall ICS method is detailed in a book called "The Frustrated Songwriter's Handbook" (ISBN 0-87930-879-6), written by Nicholas Dobson and Karl Koryat and published by Backbeat Books. The book refers to the ICS system as "Immersion Music Method".

Lodge list

As of July,2008, there are approaching 30 active lodges worldwide (not all are not listed here): [cite web |url=http://www.circusmusic.com/ics/hub/lodges/index.html |title=ICS official lodge page |accessmonthday=July 29 |accessyear=2008]

References

External links

* http://www.ics-hub.org/
* http://www.eastbayexpress.com/music/american_idles/Content?oid=284098