Play the games

Psappha Ensemble has worked closely with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies to create a new way of interacting with his iconic work, Eight Songs for a Mad King, through a 3D gaming environment

Welcome to this new way of experiencing a piece of music. Psappha ensemble has worked closely with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and the University of Salford’s ThinkLab in developing this 3D interactive environment for Sir Peter’s iconic work Eight Songs for a Mad King.

The environments have been created using a gaming engine that is simple to use and will be very familiar to our younger audience.

When you move, the music will begin and you can start exploring the environments and more than 70 clickable objects.

You can listen to the music whilst moving around the environment. When you move closer to the birds you will hear the instrument represented by that particular bird more clearly.

There is a box in each of the scenes with the letter ‘W’ on it. If you click on this box the words to the song will pop up and you can follow them whilst listening to the music.

When you click on another object the performance will continue to play in the background but will be muted whilst the pop-up film plays. At the end of the pop-up film, click on the object again to close it and the music will resume from where it’s up to at that moment. If you want to listen to the music in its entirety wait until the end of the song before you click on an object!

There are many ways to experience the environment and we hope you will find your own way to enjoy what’s on offer.