Talk:Aleatoric music

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Aleatory vs Aleatoric[edit]

I just checked a couple of reference works and they rather snottily inform me that "The adjective `aleatoric' is a bastard word, to be avoided by those who care for language" (Oxford Dict. Mus.). I think that's probably true, although I'd been making links here rather than to aleatory music because "aleatoric" was a more familiar term to me. I think that in a musical context "aleatoric" is more common than "aleatory" (although in other contexts, this isn't so), so I'm going to leave the article here, and make "aleatory music" a redirect. --Camembert

Why can't it just be redirected to "stochastic music" (of which there is no article despite the "see also section, which just links to the "stochastic" article.)--Brentt 23:18, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

You're right, there should be a separate article for stochastic music, but I'm not sure what you're suggesting should be redirected. There is a remarkable degree of confused terminology in this area, with no clear distinctions between aleatoric, aleatory, or indeterminate music. However, while all of these are composed or performed with some element of chance, stochastic music is created using probability, etc. So, stochastic music is its own thing. JonathanDS 23:37, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
All stochastic means is "some element or variable is governed by chance" which seems to be the definition for aleatoric music. I don't see the difference, unless stochastic music is something entirely different and just misnamed--or the definition for aleatoric music given in this article is wrong. --Brentt 00:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
The definition of aleatory music isn't wrong per se, but I think that the structure of the article could be much clearer, with subsections for different degrees of chance in composition and performance. (It could be argued, by this definition, that all notated music is aleatory.) My dictionary defines "stochastic" as "having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely". A composer of stochastic music, like Xenakis, composes a general structure, with broadly defined formal shape, density, etc, and then uses statistics (usually with the aid of a computer) to generate the details (i.e. the specific pitchs and rhythms) that will create that structure. This is quite different from Boulez or Haubenstock-Ramati's mobile forms or Cagean nonintentional composition, which both undermine preconceived structure. Stochastic music does involve chance, but to a comparatively limited degree and on a very local level. It also results in more traditional, determinate scores, without room for performer choice, and has a mathematical, formalistic approach which is perhaps closer to the aesthetic of integral serialism (Xenakis did study with Messiaen). In any case, all stochastic music is aleatory to some degree, but not all aleatory music is stochastic. I guess it could be included in this article, but it would need a clear subsection to show how it's unique. JonathanDS 11:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Common usage decides what a word means. 'Aleatory' hardly counts as a word if it's archaic. I think the page is best here, anyway. Good call. JamesMcGuiggan 22:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Inventor?[edit]

Contemporary aleatoric music was popularized by John Cage, but probably invented by Henry Brant.

Any effort to pin the "invention" of aleatoric music down to one person is probably doomed to failure. What aleatoric techniques did Brant use, exactly, and when? --Camembert

The article cites various "early" examples of this genre from the 1950's, yet the article for Alan Hovhaness, specifically with regard to his piece Lousadzak, which debuted in 1944, is not mentioned. Wouldn't it be more accurate to cite the earliest examples? --Bitterblogger64.171.242.194 (talk) 17:27, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Tomatoes[edit]

Actually aleatoric means new music, so i guess catsup is the new ketchup - 81.79.133.110 (signed by Hyacinth)

Popular Music[edit]

I'm not an expert in this, by any means, but shouldn't there be a section about popular music which has some aleatoric elements? I know that the Beatles experimented with it to a certain extent, and I'm think Zappa did as well (though I'm not a huge Zappa fan, so I can't really say for sure), but are there others? If so, I think it warrants inclusion. Isquitenice 05:17, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Aleatoric and other concepts; performance criterion[edit]

Let's keep it sharp, even if there's no denying that misunderstandings and mixing ups have flourished here. Aleatoric procedures should refer to a certain limited use of chance. Let's not forget the etymology: alea means dice in latin, the number of sides is limited. Some good recent sources that make this clear are Cox: Audio Culture. readings in Modern Music (Continuum, 2004) and Feisst: Der Begriff 'Improvisation' in der neuen Musik (Sinzig, Studio Verlag 1997). Stochastic music, as pointed out below, and also those of chance music and indeterminate music follow distinct, historically different methods.

I am, to say the least, into real doubt how much music, if any, could be called 'aleatoric' without having this realized in the performance process itself. All the important examples stated in the article have this as a main characteristic, and in this way it could be said to be closely related to open form (it is definitely so, in its historical spirit), although of course by no means just the same.

This is also why I don't know examples of popular music using aleatoric procedures. It would be most interesting if such a thing existed. But the use of limited chance procedures to determine the outcome of the composition is not enough, they should also be presented as open to the performers. So the tape running beautifully backwards in Beatles' "In the beginning", collage things of Zappa and Grateful Dead etc. may be very interesting, but belong somewhere else. (Intuitive 10:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC))

Hi there. I don't want to weigh in on the distinction between aleatory, stochastic music, etc. but I think it's crucial to this article that the distinction between random elements in the course of composition be distinguished from random elements in performance. That is, both are examples of the composer giving control (over the final musical product) away: the first is to the dice (or the I Ching or whatever) and the second is to the performer. They are separate strands and I think should be shown to be so in the article. I'll do some research and see where we are. JH(emendator) 07:27, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, this was an important distinction made by John Cage, for example, who I believe called these two kinds of "chance" composition "indeterminate with respect to composition" and "indeterminate with respect to performance". This terminology is found in one of the earlier items in Silence—the lecture in which he discusses amongst other things Stockhausen's Klavierstück XI and works by Morton Feldman—if that helps you to narrow your search. I'm sorry I don't have a copy of the book handy at the moment, or I could give you a more precise reference.--Jerome Kohl 18:43, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Ockeghem[edit]

It says that Missa cuiusvis toni by Ockeghem could be considered a precedent for aleatoric composition. I know you can pick what mode you sing it in, but if you have a book of different masses and you just pick out which mass you want to sing, that is a choice too but I do not think it is aleatoric. Or if Ockeghem wrote out his mass in each mode on different pages you would just tell the choir what page to turn to and that wouldn't be very aleatoric either. I only read about it in Reese's book about Renaissance Music and it doesn't say very much there, but I thought you pick what mode you want to sing, and it tells you what key signature and what clefs you have to use to sing it in the mode you picked, and then you just sing what it says. There isn't any choice or any dice is there? This article is not about Renaissance music so I wish it would say some more about why it is like aleatoric music. Teenly (talk) 20:38, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is a position held by Konrad Boehmer, as cited at the end of the paragraph (Boehmer 1967, 9–47). The difference between a catholicon and choosing one mass out of several is that in the former case there are different versions of the same composition. The choice is in the version to perform, and this much, at least, could be done with a throw of a die (well, a four-sided die, anyway). I will grant you that this does not really amount to aleatory, and a much better example might be the suites of late-17th-century composers like Marin Marais, who may offer five or six of each type of dance, and a selection of three or four preludes to go with them. The performer must make a selection from among these (it would be absurd to play four preludes in succession, followed by six allemandes, etc.) and, to a limited extent, can also choose the order in which they are played. However, Boehmer does not cite this, and it would be Original Research to put this into the article without a source. It is true that the article is not about Renaissance music, but the section in question is clearly labelled "Early precedents".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:54, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for answering my note Mr Kohl. I do not have that book by Boehmer but my teacher says he will bring it from the university and read it with me because I can not read German. I did not mean the part about Ockeghem should not be in this article. I just wish it could say something about why the mass by Ockeghem is like aleatoric music, because Ockeghem is not what the article is about, so maybe some people who read an article about modern music do not know very much about Ockeghem. Teenly (talk) 20:17, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome. Part of the problem stems from the fact that, as the article states, "There has been considerable confusion of the terms aleatory and indeterminate / chance music". The more restrictive definition found in the lede, originally formulated by Meyer-Eppler, is far from the kinds of indeterminacy discussed later on. On the other hand, some parts of the article suggest that aleatory is identical with 'mobile' (or 'open') form. In this sense, the Ockeghem has nothing at all to do with it. However, Boehmer is concerned with a somewhat larger meaning for the term 'open form' which encompasses things approaching Cage's indeterminacy. The other definition for 'open form' (the one found in Wölfflin) has nothing at all to do with mobile form, and even does not necessarily have anything to do with aleatory. It is necessary to bring this into the discussion in order to warn the reader that the term 'open form' is not exclusively used as a synonym for mobile form. There is a heavy-duty discussion (in English—just about) of this that takes issue with Boehmer's definition, by Holger Kaletha, "Decomposition of the Sound Continuum: Serialism and Development from a Genetic-Phenomenological Perspective," Perspectives of New Music 42, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 84–128.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:54, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Original research?[edit]

Ridernyc, using the Friendly" robot, added two tags to this article, one calling for more inline references, the other claiming Original Research. I have deleted the demand for further inline references on grounds that the article is already groaning under the strain of them—any more and there would be grounds for complaint that the article is over-referenced. I have left the "original research" tag in place for the time being, in the hopes that Ridernyc will explain just which claims might fall under this category (since there are one or two sentences that do not currently carry an inline reference). Since this was a bot-driven addition, I suspect mechanical error, and will delete the OR tag as well, unless justification is given within a reasonable time.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Spirit murmur[edit]

Some recent edits point to a fundamental confusion about the term "aleatoric music". The New Grove article on Alan Hovhaness dismisses his "spirit murmur" technique as "hardly aleatory", whereas a freshly added blog article claims his technique is virtually indistinguishable from passages in scores by Witold Lutosławski. I have to say that I find the blog's examples convincing, but this raises at least three problems. The first is that the authors of the New Grove article clearly do not understand "aleatory" in the sense defined by Meyer-Eppler, since they cite control of the resulting sound (an essential feature of Meyer-Eppler's definition of "aleatory") as evidence of non-aleatory technique. The second problem is that, accepting the view of the New Grove article on Hovhaness, we may just as plausibly conclude that Lutosławski's technique does not involve aleatory, as that Hovhaness's does so. On the other hand, the New Grove article on Lutosławski by Charles Bodman Rae uses the term "aleatory" repeatedly to describe just this phenomenon. The third problem is that the blog reference cites a score by Hovhaness dating from only two years prior to the one by Lutosławski, though Hovhaness had actually started using this technique a decade or so earlier. The implication of this article as presently written is that Lutosławski took the technique from Hovhaness without crediting him as the source, naming John Cage instead. Nothing cited so far supports this conclusion (certainly Fisher, the author of the blog does not claim this), and it should perhaps also be made clearer that Cage, Hovhaness, Lutosławski, Stockhausen, Boulez, etc. were all preceded by other composers (particularly Ives and Cowell) who employed similar compositional strategies. This idea was simply "in the air" at the time.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:23, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Most probably the New Grove writer (Rosner) meant Hovhaness's technique was not random in the full-blown sense that Cage's and others' pieces could be ... this is a big problem because many published commentators use the terms "indeterminacy" (general variability in a piece) and "aleatory" (variability only at a detailed level) completely interchangeably. I think the Grove article needs revising. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.224.103.226 (talk) 16:15, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

These are precisely my conclusions. The difficulty from a Wikipedia perspective is that claims made in an article in the New Grove remain authoritative until and unless an equally good or better reliable source can be found to contradict it. (It is ironic that Hovhaness appears to be excluded by Rosner and Wolverton precisely for adhering too closely to the narrower definition of "aleatory"!) Blogs will probably always remain at a disadvantage, and for perfectly sound reasons. The underlying problem is, as you say, that the word "aleatory" has been bandied about so loosely now for over fifty years, that it has become virtually meaningless. It seems to me that one purpose of the present article is to rectify this situation, as far as it can be done, but for the moment it looks like we are stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. I think the quotation about Hovhaness from New Grove requires too much interpretation (of the sort we are indulging in here) to demonstrate a conflict with Meyer-Eppler's basic definition, without overstepping the boundaries of original research.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:56, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Assessment comment[edit]

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Aleatoric music/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Assessed as start-class due to obvious limitations. Importance is high, although Indeterminacy in music should probably be worked on first, since that article is far worse than this one. --Wolf m corcoran (talk) 01:52, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 01:52, 6 March 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 07:09, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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