[sdiy] Re: [AH] BUG MUSIC: Vote for your Favorite!

[Peter Grenader]

Paul S (MOTM) I believe coined that phrase.  In any event, it does ring of
of that typical Texan charm, don't it?

As far as aleatoric, Cynthia is correct, it is referring to chance. But, in
all honesty, nothing done for any of  these competitions past or present has
truly been aleatoric music.  But that's OK, it makes for a cool name.

To the letter of the law and as silly as this sounds, there are
compositional rules behind chance music. It's normally not just all willy
nilly and let's see what pops out the end and call that a piece.

As an example, there was a chance score written by an American composer by
the name Vick Higgins in which  the chance information  (process) was
determined by the placement of holes in staff paper.  He taped a piece of
staff paper to a board and shot holes in it with a BB gun, the holes then
making the notes which would be played in the piece itself.

Depending on who shot the holes into the paper, the pitch information was
determined pretty much by chance (unless the person with the gun was a uber
sharp shooter) - but the process to determine those chance elements was
defined (see that piece of paper over thar...shoot some holes in it) --
there were 'rules' set up in which to arrive at the chance or aleatoric
elements of the piece, as there is in most music of that nature.

Hope that helps. class dismissed,

- P