Musical Jenga
March 1, 2022 3:51 AM   Subscribe

Musical jenga is when strangers on the Internet take turns adding another level of music to each other’s creations. Sometimes they sing about muffins or procrastination. Sometimes they duet with frogs or dryers. Sometimes the original participants know they’re leaving space for a duet partner to join in… and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they’re short and sweet. Often, they’re original, but occasionally they cover John Williams or Nirvana. If you aren’t on TikTok, where many of these originate, Mimo on Youtube sometimes edits together the best TikTok jengas.

Previously on MeFi: Individual jengas including Ratatouille The musical and Leo the Cat, and perhaps the most famous musical jenga of all.
posted by yankeefog (13 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
(Oh, and a warning: a few of the above lyrics contain swearing, in case you're listening at work.)
posted by yankeefog at 3:52 AM on March 1, 2022


Ahhhh Disco Frog!!! ❤️
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 4:18 AM on March 1, 2022




Wouldn’t they also have to remove a track from the middle of the stack before adding one, for it to be Jenga?
posted by eviemath at 5:00 AM on March 1, 2022 [3 favorites]


I'm sure it's the curated nature but these are generally quite wonderful.
posted by abulafa at 5:09 AM on March 1, 2022


This is one of my recent favorites, sitting squarely at the intersection of two of my favorite TikTok genres: cross-genre rap mashups and musical Jengas. There were many more layers added on after this one, but everything after it just seemed to muddy up the perfect "high lonesome" harmony that @okayjaymyria floats over the top to seal the americana feel.
posted by drlith at 6:43 AM on March 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


Brilliant! Dryers OMG, blown away at creativity!
posted by esoteric things at 7:30 AM on March 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


Eviemath, you are absolutely right that "jenga" is a less-than-perfect name for this genre. And just to be clear, it's not the universally accepted name, either. I don't know if it's even used outside one subreddit dedicated to it. But it's the best name I've seen so far! Other naming suggestions are more than welcome.
posted by yankeefog at 9:58 AM on March 1, 2022


Is "Musical Exquisite Corpse" already taken?
posted by zoinks at 12:12 PM on March 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


That's not quite right either, I know. Just sounds good. "Collaborative Additive Synthesis" has a rather different feel.
posted by zoinks at 12:13 PM on March 1, 2022


"Crowd-sourced Additive Synthesis"?
(I'll stop now.)
posted by zoinks at 12:14 PM on March 1, 2022


I guess whoever named this jenga thought the fun part was setting up the tower
posted by plasmatron7 at 12:48 PM on March 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


Sometimes the added layers are not musical but visual: So seductive.
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:34 PM on March 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


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