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Aleatoric music (or aleatory) is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer(s). The term became known to European composers through lectures by acoustician Werner Meyer-Eppler at Darmstadt Summer School in the beginning of the fifties. According to his definition, "aleatoric processes are such processes which have been fixed in their outline but the details of which are left to chance". Chance music is preferred by some composers. Music is conceptual time expressed in the structures of tones and silence. ...
Musical composition is: an original piece of music the structure of a musical piece the process of creating a new piece of music // A musical composition A piece of music exists in the form of a written composition in musical notation or as a single acoustic event (a live performance...
Chance can be used in any of the following contexts: Probability Luck Randomness Chance is also a 2002 film starring Amber Benson. ...
Acoustics is a branch of physics and is the study of sound, mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids. ...
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland (federal state) of Hessen in Germany. ...
The term—deriving from the Latin word alea, meaning "dice"—has come to be associated most often with procedures in which the chance element involves a relatively limited number of possibilities. The French composer Pierre Boulez was largely responsible for popularizing the term, using it to describe works that give the performer certain liberties with regard to the sequencing and repetition of parts, an approach pioneered by avant-garde American composer-theorist Henry Cowell. The term was intended by Boulez to distinguish his work from pieces composed through the application of chance operations by John Cage and Cage's aesthetic of indeterminate music or indeterminacy. Cage's Music of Changes (1951) is the first piece to be conceived largely through random procedures (Randel 2002, p.17). Pierre Boulez Pierre Boulez (IPA: /pjÉÊ.buËlÉz/) (born March 26, 1925) is a conductor and composer of classical music. ...
Henry Cowell (March 11, 1897 - December 10, 1965) was an American composer, musical theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. ...
John Cage For the character of John Cage from the TV show Ally McBeal see: John Cage (Character) John Milton Cage (September 5, 1912 â August 12, 1992) was an American experimental music composer, writer and visual artist. ...
Indeterminate music was a form of music pioneered by the late John Cage. ...
Among examples of aleatory music, Klavierstück XI by Karlheinz Stockhausen features a number of elements to be performed in changing sequences, certain orchestral works of Witold Lutosławski contain music where the orchestral ensemble is not precisely dictated, and in some works by Krzysztof Penderecki characteristic sequences are repeated quickly, producing a kind of oscillating sound. Karlheinz Stockhausen (born August 22, 1928) is a composer. ...
Witold LutosÅawski at his home. ...
Krzysztof Penderecki. ...
An early genre of composition that could be considered a precedent for aleatoric compositions were the Musikalische Würfelspiele or Musical Dice Games, popular in the late 18th and early 19th century. (One such dice game is attributed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.) These games consisted of a sequence of musical measures, for which each measure had several possible versions, and a procedure for selecting the precise sequence based on the throwing of a number of dice. Typical role-playing dice, showing a variety of colors and styles. ...
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart; January 27, 1756 â December 5, 1791) is among the most significant and enduringly popular composers of European classical music. ...
In musical terminology, a bar or measure is a segment of time defined as a given number of beats of a given duration. ...
There has been considerable confusion of the terms aleatory and indeterminate / chance music. One of Cage's pieces, HPSCHD, itself composed using chance procedures, uses music from Mozart's Musikalisches Würfelspiel, referred to above, as well as original music. He also generally used coin-tossing and other procedures depending on designs involving a pre-defined number of choices to be made. Still, both the aesthetic aims as well as the number of elements controlled by chance make the two methods clearly different. Douglas Hofstadter, writing in Gödel, Escher, Bach, thus punningly characterises some of the musical compositions of John Cage by using the acronym CAGE to stand for Composition of Aleatorically Generated Elements, in contrast to a Beautiful Aperiodic Crystal of Harmony (or BACH). Coin flipping or coin tossing is the practice of throwing a coin in the air to resolve a dispute between two parties. ...
Aesthetics (or esthetics) (from the Greek word αισθητική) is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty. ...
Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is an American academic. ...
GEB cover Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (commonly GEB) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Douglas Hofstadter, published in 1979 by Basic Books. ...
John Cage For the character of John Cage from the TV show Ally McBeal see: John Cage (Character) John Milton Cage (September 5, 1912 â August 12, 1992) was an American experimental music composer, writer and visual artist. ...
Bach redirects here. ...
Some aleatoric music, such as that of the Mangabros, is inspired by the book The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart. The Dice Man was published in 1971 by George Cockcroft under the pen name Luke Rhinehart. ...
Luke Rhinehart is the pen name of the author George Cockcroft (see that entry for a biography). ...
One of the most striking modern examples of aleatoric music occurs during Eric Whitacre's piece Cloudburst. The song uses aleatoric music to evoke a storm; singers repeat certain words at random through several sections. Eric Whitacre (born 1970) is an American composer of choral and wind band music and electronica. ...
Most modern software and hardware music composition tools, synthesizers, and signal processors ("effects") provide "randomization" features to foster aleatoric composition within specified parameters. In some synthesizers, signal processors, and sequencers, randomization can be applied to almost any parameter of sound synthesis, signal processing, or scoring. This technique is employed frequently in modern electronic music. Open form and mobile form musical forms where the order of movements or sections is indeterminate or left up to the performer. Roman Haubenstock-Ramati composed a series of influential "mobiles" such as Interpolation (1958). The term musical form is used in two related ways: a generic type of composition such as the symphony or concerto the structure of a particular piece, how its parts are put together to make the whole; this too can be generic, such as binary form or sonata form Musical...
In music, a movement is a large division of a larger composition or musical form. ...
Section can be: A cross section (in the common sense or the physics sense) In mathematics: A conic section A section of a fiber bundle or sheaf A Caesarean section In UK law, Section 28 In the fictional Star Trek universe, Section 31 A military unit A section (land) is...
Indeterminate music was a form of music pioneered by the late John Cage. ...
A musician is a person who plays or composes music. ...
See also
Aleatory (or aleatoric) means pertaining to luck, and derives from the Latin word alea, the rolling dice. ...
Algorithmic composition is the technique of using algorithms to create music. ...
Ambient music is a loosely defined musical genre that incorporates elements of a number of different styles - including jazz, electronic music, new age, rock and roll, modern classical music, reggae, traditional, world and even noise. ...
Generative music. ...
Stochastic, from the Greek stochos or goal, means of, relating to, or characterized by conjecture; conjectural; random. ...
Source - Randel, Don Michael (2002). The Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and Musicians. ISBN 0674009789.
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