Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Semih Firincioglu <>]

The three terms being discussed have been pretty much defined, as Rob has indicated in his last post: as he has explained in his Darmstadt manifesto (Composition in Retrospect), John used the term "chance" mainly when referring to his compositional procedures. He introduced the term "indeterminacy" after he was disturbed by the inflexibility of a finished score (even if composed through chance) and, from my point of view, he began looking for forms of notations that would give flexibility to the performers (and to the performances), without allowing them to improvise or do whatever they want. Those indeterminate notations constitute a big part of his creativity. 

I think one sentence in Bill's post is terribly important and should not go unnoticed: "It is certainly wrong to disregard his instructions!"

Regarding "aleatoric": I have never seen John use this term in anything I've read. What Charles has said is quite right: "I think "aleatoric" sprang from the need for the Europeans to have their own fancy name, and to use Cage's word would have made them look weak." It was a bit of a face-saving term they came up with when they decided to use chance themselves, after criticising John's approach in the beginning. And, what Boulez et al used it for was a very limited, simple idea: you shuffle five parts of a five-part piece before performance and perform them in that order, for example.

Best,

Semih

On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 10:23 AM, Rob Haskins <> wrote:

I'd like to weigh in on the question of bias. I would guess—though I'm not sure—that before Cage started using IC (the computerized I Ching developed by Andrew Culver), any bias introduced within a series of chance operations would itself be determined by a chance operation. Certainly after he started using IC, that software itself could be used to create a bias, or indeed a changing number of biases, throughout the process. (This much, I know, is true from talking to Andrew about the IC utility he's made available online.) So it might be worth distinguishing between kinds of bias (chosen from chance/chosen from taste), and further exploring whether Cage ever chose a bias out of taste. 

As far as the larger question is concerned, Cage distinguished between chance composition and indeterminacy as follows: in the former, chance operations are used to make a score that is fairly precise and repeatable (for instance, Music of Changes, Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra, Freeman Etudes, Hymns and Variations), whereas indeterminacy allowed for radically different interpretations in terms of order, meaning assigned to types of notation, sound sources chosen, etc. to be determined by the performers (Concert for PIano and Orchestra, Variations III, Variations V, Sculptures Musicales, One3). He did not use the words "aleatory" or "aleatoric," for the reasons given previously. The distinction between his understanding of chance composition and indeterminacy seems useful to me, especially when—as in his late music—he aimed specifically to effect a reconciliation between the two possibilities.

Thanks,

Rob 

On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 9:44 AM, Ben Judson <> wrote:

So a simple way of saying it would be -- indeterminacy includes both chance-based techniques for composition and performance, and also improvisation in the performance.

On Feb 13, 2013, at 1:09 AM, Russell Goodwin wrote:

I would echo David Miller's position (posted in response earlier) that Chance enters as an approach to Indeterminacy, although Indeterminacy does not have to include chance. Most (if not all) examples of Composer Indeterminacy rely on some form of chance operation or chance determination. In fact, it is hard to envisage one that does not require chance (now, there's a challenge!). Regarding performer Indeterminacy, chance is not a necessary requirement because performer choice may indeed be just that, a deliberate act of choosing.

--
Rob Haskins, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Music, College of Liberal Arts
University of New Hampshire
M-105, Paul Creative Arts Center
30 Academic Way
Durham, NH 03824
603-862-3987 (office)
603-862-3155 (fax)
<http://unh.edu/music/>
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<http://musicandmiscellaneous.blogspot.com/>

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Semih Firincioglu