Slide vs. the Cupsong; where’s Agôn?

Last week I’ve read an article about a patty cake game written by Kyra D. Gaunt called “Slide. Games as Lessons in Black Musical Style” from the book The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop published in 2006. I don’t want to take up the subject about the Afro-American characteristics found by Gaunt in the game or why the game is mainly played by girls, but compare the ludomusical elements with the game of the ‘Cupsong’ made famous through the movie Pitch Perfect (2012). But first I’ll start with giving the play elements of Slide and the Cupsong so the comparison of game elements is made more easy.

The basis of Slide is really simple; you and your friend clap each others hand together which would create a certain rhythm. There is an accompanying song to sing together on this beat. The specific algorithm of the game makes it playful. The hand movements work as followed, after the start of the game with a slide:
Cross-clap (left) – clap
Cross -clap (right) – clap
Backhand-clap (both hands) – palm-clap (both hands) – clap
This is done ten times with every repeat adding plus one at every movement. Every time you repeat this ‘ritual’ you’re supposed to sing or count up to the number of the movement. This would mean that you ‘win’ the game when you and your friend managed to count up to ten without making mistakes in the singing or hand movements; so ‘completing’ the algorithm. This results in a sliding back and forth between meters which creates syncopation and metrical play of cross-rhythms.

The Cupsong is similar to patty cake games, because you create a rhythm by using your hands. However, the name of the song or game tells it; you use a cup also. When you repeat this ‘ritual’ with the cup you’ll create a rhythm which you can sing a song on. This would be the first difference in comparison with Slide. You are not counting up, but singing a song with two couplets and a repeating chorus. While the movements of Slide make the counting sound like a song; the counting in reality is just a handhold to remember where you are, while the Cupsongs lyrics have no other function than playing with the rhythm and putting up a mimicry of a performance. This has a connection with the games’ algorithms. The algorithm of the Cupsong requires just repeating the pattern, while Slide requires attention to know at which point you are of the pattern to know which movement to make next.

The games are based on ludus principles; because you ‘lose’ when you make mistakes in the structure of the song. The only agôn, for that reason, to be found, is in who made the mistake or in finishing the song. Besides that you could also find the aspects of ilinx and mimicry in the sense that you mimicry some percussion instruments with ilinx in the form of embodiment. Your hands (and cup) are a mediation of rhythmical instruments with different kind of pitches and timbres influenced by the way your hands (and cup) clap together. Both games do have a form of repetition in them. This repeating element makes it a sign of the magic circle from Huizinga’s ‘toovercirkel’; this means that time and place are loosened from reality when you are playing. The rhythms almost have a hypnotizing effect which could create the feeling of immersion and flow by the physical movements.

I think the playing part of Slide for that reason would be the danger of losing yourself to much into the embodied immersion. This could result in forgetting where you are and losing the game. You would have to start over again. For the Cupsong this embodied flow and losing your attention would, I think, benefit the play; your hands will move automatically and you can focus on the singing part. On the other hand it also means that the Cupsong, apart from the more ‘difficult’ lyrics, is easier to embody, so easier to play. So while Slide sticks with the element of agôn in who made the mistake, the Cupsong has found other ways to implement competition.

The agôn element for the Cupsong is usually found in performing the game with a group of people. When you follow the correct algorithm of cups’ play you could pass the cup forward to the person next to you, and, when sitting in a circle, this would create a literal ‘magic cup circle’. This is done in extreme forms, especially by schools, to implement musical games by schoolkids in which they can learn to work together and create some musical senses. The one who makes a mistake in passing the cup, so the one who suddenly has two cups in front of them, is game over. There is also a form of agôn by changing the rhythm as a musical passage between choruses. Again, the one who makes the mistake is game over, while the rest would continue with the game by starting the algorithm from the beginning until only one person is left. This gameplay could be derived from the Latin-based game ‘Acitrón de un fandango’ where they pass an object on a particular song while fastening the tempo. They play until one winner is left. Besides complicating the algorithm by passing the cup or complicating the movements, there is also a possibility to just increase the amount people who try to keep the same metre. The record of biggest Cup Percussion Ensemble, on this specific algorithm, is by Albania with 2016 people. But also when you are just with two persons you could higher the level of agôn by adding a second melody to sing over the same lyrics; the question is if this is a fair competition though.

So you could say that the rules the game is based on are operational rules, but that the constituative rules change, most of the times, by the size of the group. The implicit rule then would be that you quit playing when you make a mistake, but most of the times the focus is laid on the mimicry or ilinx aspect instead of agôn which results in putting up a performance. The surroundings are changed by the play, especially if 2000 people are playing at the same time, so you could call it appropriative. It is also disruptive, because it breaks the rules of how to use a cup and for the people who heard it in their youth, the rule ‘don’t play with your food’. Besides it would be autotelic and creative, while it unites people and creates new social and physical structures. Where Slide is mainly played by children, the Cupsong is done by people of many ages.

Yours Sincerely @inMusicalTerms