If I may have 4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of your time...

[some guy]

sax_appeal is of course correct that there are several versions of this piece.

For anyone interested, Larry Solomon has put together a fascinating little essay about this piece, including information about all six versions, how they differ, and why, and how to do a decent performance of it.

Highly recommended.

http://solomonsmusic.net/4min33se.ht...the%20Premiere

[fundrazor]

"And "aleatoric" is a term designating a largely European attempt to integrate intention and non-intention, that is, to keep control over larger things in a piece while occasionally giving some freedom over small things."

Although it is perfectly apposite to correct the statement that 4'33'' is an aleatoric piece, I have to take issue with the statement above. Whereas earlier experiments with aleatory techniques were undoubtedly European (by which I mean that Mozart - who wrote the earliest such piece I am aware of - was undoubtedly a European although he would have seen himself as German or a Holy Roman Empiricist), Cage is regarded as one of the major influences in the renaissance of the style and his experiments with works dominated by the elements of chance as found within the I-Ching certainly predate Boulez' 3rd Piano Sonata. And, if Boulez is regarded as the enfant terrible of the European dabble with aleatoricism, it is equally interesting to read his quote of 1958 in regard to Cage which speaks of "the adoption of a philosophy tinged with orientalism serving to mask fundamental weaknesses of compositional technique."

So, modern aleatoric experiments were not European but Western (including the barbarous North Americans). Personally, the debate was best summed up by Boulez himself when he denounced highly-mathematical compositional techniques and aleatoric styles as "both refusals to choose. The new music of chance is just as fetishist, except that choice is now left to the performer instead of to numbers." Vive l'emotion, vive l'inspiration, vive la difference!

[some guy]

"Aleatoric" is a European term (coined by Boulez, by the way) for a (largely) European practice of working with chance or with performer freedom within a framework of control.

"Indeterminate" (or "experimental") are terms used by US composers for a (largely) US and UK practice of letting go of control.

While both have to do with chance and freedom, they are not interchangeable terms. Cage and Childs and Tudor and Wolff and the like did not write aleatoric music. Stockhausen and Boulez and (most charmingly) Lutoslawski and the like did.

None of that is to say that there weren't European composers who wrote indeterminate pieces. Of course there were. (Haubenstock-Ramati being the prime example.) And many US composers wrote aleatoric pieces. The whole European/US thing is just about origins. Most important is the philosophical difference between "aleatoric" and "indeterminate." To call Cage's work "aleatoric" is to risk misunderstanding (as Boulez did) what Cage was all about.

[reith]

In which case, while a composition might be aleatoric or indeterminate or a mix of both, the moment it becomes a subject of a recording, that recording is a 'snapshot', determinate and an absolute score of the performance, hence the work, albeit just one of many.

This argument can be levelled at a any recorded performance of even the most carefully scored conventional work - enough is left to chance to allow any number of 'interpretations', and license is often taken by performers that can sometimes transmute the work to something different (from the composers' intentions). I'm thinking of the Bryden Thompson recordings of Elgar's symphony 2 that pushed the duration up by about 50%. It is still recognisably the title work but only just. He turned it into a different work in my reckoning.

This question plagued an ensemble I formed with two students some 6 years ago, bringing in two others - sometimes more - and a girlfriend poetry reader. We improvised - not entirely free improvisation with a couple of exceptions. We created rules for individual pieces (often using the poetry as a yoke) writing 'bare' motifs for improvising on, maybe deciding a chord progression etc.
There was always debate about whether we should record our efforts. I was 'against' because it would undermine the improvised nature of our efforts. Others disagreed and we recorded a couple of sessions for keepsakes...then a secondary temptation presented itself - to try to "improve" on the recordings, to construct a definitive score from a performance.

(We've since finished gigging: the two students took up their professions, one as a music teacher; and I returned to business. The overall experience was interesting/fulfilling, it kept us busy with live music. I would claim it a mix of aleatoric where choices were limited and indeterminate in that on occasion no one knew what the outcome would be. The audience participated unwittingly at times to everyone's huge amusement on one occasion - needless to say, one that was not recorded.

So even from a technical viewpoint the issue ultimately comes down to one man's music is another's poison. The sound, even with us being particularly sensitive working like this with each other, would not have been definable as aleatoric or indeterminate.

[stevel]

Originally Posted by t0mmeh

2. Music (myuuuuu-shiq) - I don't have another definition right now but pronounce music like whats in the parentheses and it kinda sounds like Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

Actually, when I pronounced it this way, it came out sounding more like Dr Evil!

Steve

[tubaman]

heres a question for you that may help your question.

if sound was not a factor what other factors are there?

keep sound and remove the experience.(it's music)

Monotone! what is monotone it is sound even one note of frequency can be music so when typing on your keyboard you are making percussive music even though you don't experience the music it is still music so if sound is gone and you experience soundless music is it still music?

we have a mute button for example use it the song is still going and know the programing is experiencing "the music"

so i think music is a combination of 2 factors maybe more...

they are
1 Sound
2 Experience

without one it's like semi music its there but just not to us and remember the sun doesn't revolve around us so that means that music tend to our ears only