The Immersion Composition Society is an organization for songwriters and composers who think too much. One could almost say (as long as they laughed afterwards) that the ICS functions as a kind of Tortured Genius Anonymous for musicians – an eye-twitch inducing subculture of musical games and songwriter ‘lodges’, providing support and assistance to “talented basket cases and unmotivated visionaries” everywhere..

An Overview:
An especially desperate attempt to explain everything about the ICS really fast might read like this…
Ready?

-------> lodge
The ICS is a ring of songwriter lodges, which is sort of like a small, local secret society of musicians. 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 so that while the lodge members are busy making as much music as possible, they can also feel especially free and uninhibited about it, in the manner of a person who knows that nobody is watching (except friends). The members of an ICS lodge have sworn to support and encourage each other completely. So, that’s nice.

 

-------> game
The main thing that ICS lodges do is coordinate regularly to play their central speed-songwriting game, which takes place over the course of a single day.

It is called the “20-Song Game”.

It works like this:
1) Everyone who is playing the game wakes up on the same day, and, while remaining split up for most of the day, all of the players individually attempt to write and record as many new songs as possible before the day is over. In theory; they are all aiming for twenty songs. In practice; absolute chaos generally ensues.

2) At the end of the day, everyone in the lodge puts their session on a CD or cassette, and after pausing at a store to procure treats (very important) they all descend on a common location, where they have a lodge meeting; which is to say, a listening party where everyone listens to all of the music that everyone made, while braying in the manner of wild beasts.

-------> more games
After a couple years of existence, an interesting thing happened to the Society... (keep reading)

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