In chance music, also known as aleatoric or indeterminate music, elements of the musical composition or performance are left to chance. John Cage was an influential composer of chance music, including his piece Imaginary Landscape No. 4 which featured 12 radios playing simultaneously on different stations. Chance music gives performers freedom in areas like selecting which musical passages to play, determining start and stop times, or choosing pitches and rhythms, resulting in each performance having unique variations.

1. CHANCE MUSIC
In chance music, the composer leaves a lot up to the performer. For example a
composer might give each player in the band four different sheets of music. On the
director's signal each player in the band could play any one of the four sheets of music,
starting and stopping whenever he or she wished. Chance music is interesting because
each performance is different.
One important composer of chance music was John Cage. His Imaginary Landscape
No.4, consists of 12 radios all playing at the same time, but all tuned to different
stations.
An improvisatory style developed by John Cage. A composer chooses a series of notes
or rhythms to include, allowing players to create a piece from general guidelines.
Aleatoric/Chance music is music in which either composition or method of performance
is determined by elements of chance or unpredictability. Music composed by the
random selection of pitches and rhythms. Frequently found in some professional opera
choruses.
The origins of Aleatoric/Chance music:
 Originates from the Latin word "alea" which mean "dice".
 Aleatoric/Chance music describes music where an element of the composition is left
to chance.
 Can also be when some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to
the determination of its performer(s).
 The term is most often associated with procedures in which the chance element
involves a relatively limited number of possibilities.
 In aleatory music, aspects such as the ordering of a piece's sections, its rhythms,
and even its pitches are decided at the moment of performance.
 When not purely improvising, players follow lists of arbitrary rules or interpreted
"graphic" notation that merely suggest the sounds.
Charles Ives and Henry Cowell had used such techniques, but John Cage became the
principal figure in aleatory; other aleatory composers include Earle Brown (1926 –
2002), Morton Feldman (1926 – 87), and Pierre Boulez.
 John Cage is the 20th century conceptual artist who famously "composed" the piano
piece titled 4' 33" (1952), which consists of the pianist(s) sitting at a piano and not
playing for exactly four minutes and 33 seconds. He continued to experiment and
push the boundaries music, and embarked on a career of what he called "an
exploration of non-intention." Cage used found objects and ambient sound,
experimented with magnetic tape editing and splicing and used a variety of

2. composing methods to create compositions that were usually performed live instead
of recorded.He became known outside the art world in the 1960s as an influence on
pop art and rock music, and continued to lecture and compose until his death in
1992. Some consider Cage little more than a charlatan, but his idea that "everything
we do is music" has undoubtedly influenced modern composers. Some of his other
works include Imaginary Landscape #3 (1942), Variations I and II (1958) and Thirty
Pieces for Five Orchestras (1981).
The features of Aleatoric/Chance music:
The term Aleatoric/Chance Music is simply used to describe works that gives the performer a certain
amount of freedom with regard to the sequencing and repetition of particular parts throughout a piece of
music. One feature of Chance Music is;
 Musical Dice Games!
This was an early genre of composition during the 18th and 19th Century. It consisted of musical
measurements. To define exactly how Chance Music evolved a simple game was created in the early
18th Century. This game was entitled Mozart's Musikalisches Würfelspiel. The idea behind this game was
that Mozart wrote the measures and instructions for a musical composition. The rule being to cut and
paste pre-written measures of music together to create a Minuet. Therefore once the piece was played
through it sounded muddled up! which created the 'Random' effect of the pieces. The following link is to
see exactly how Mozart's Dice Game works.

3. Composers & Examples:
 The French composer Pierre Boulez was largely popular for popularizing the term,using it to
describe works that give the performer certain liberties with regard to the sequencing and repetition of
parts.
 Another French composer, Pierre Schaeffer developed the term' jeu' (French for play) in reference
to a technique of allowing random sounds to enter into a musical composition.
 Karlheinz Stockhausen composed Klavierstuck XI(1956), which features 19 elements to be
performed in changing sequences.
 Alfred Schnittke composed First Symphony[5] which uses aleatoric techniques only one of a
number of approaches to the 'chaos' of 20th century life.
 Roman Haubenstock-Ramati composed a series of influential "mobiles" such as Interpolation
(1958).
 Andrew Ackers harp solo is the final section of ten sections in a three movement contemporary
classical (aleatoric) suite.