[tsdf]

********** Taken from wikipedia *********
Aleatoric music (or aleatory) is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer(s). The term became known to European composers through lectures by acoustician Werner Meyer-Eppler at Darmstadt Summer School in the beginning of the fifties. According to his definition, "aleatoric processes are such processes which have been fixed in their outline but the details of which are left to chance".

The term—deriving from the Latin word alea, meaning "dice"—has come to be associated most often with procedures in which the chance element involves a relatively limited number of possibilities. The French composer Pierre Boulez was largely responsible for popularizing the term, using it to describe works that give the performer certain liberties with regard to the sequencing and repetition of parts, an approach pioneered by avant-garde American composer-theorist Henry Cowell. The term was intended by Boulez to distinguish his work from pieces composed through the application of chance operations by John Cage and Cage's aesthetic of indeterminacy.

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Does anyone have some good recordings to suggest that utilize aleatoric composition?

[industrialspider]

I heard a recording John Cage did once, where he just recorded the sounds of the audience at a live recording for about 5 minutes. Would that be considered aleatoric?

[ambrosia]

I'd have to look in my collection for specific titles, but Pierre Boulez, Györgi Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski and Karlheinz Stockhausen all use aleatoric techniques as an integral part of their compositional processes. If I come across any good examples in my library, I'll post some, but those are all composers worth checking out.

[falling star]

My favorite aleatoric music are wind chimes. I could listen to beautiful peels of melody and rhythm produced by those with the wind all day long

[random generator]

A friend of mine use to have these hollow metal plates, that set on various height platforms. They were all various sizes and would resonate very beautifully when struck. We use to set those out in the rain and record them. I still haven't ever used those recordings, but certain parts were lovely. Aleatoric music at its finest

[tsdf]

when i lived in oklahoma, a friend and myself used to climb into this drainage tunnel and go about 3-400 yards inside of it. It produced these lovely, long reverbations on any sound produced around them. But about 400 yards inside, it went under a train track and we would go inside of it and record the train passing over head. Since a train moves at a constant speed, the rail noise typically produces all sorts of nice rhythms at a constant tempo, but its random in the fact that the weight of each cart produces different tones, etc.

[vanity]

I think incorporating field recordings into compositions would fall under this category as well. For instance i have a song where I have 10 minutes of recorded traffic under a bridge I used, that sits as the undercurrent for a cello solo. I think the traffic element would be considered aleatoric. It makes a rhythm that constantly fluctuates and varies at random endlessness.

[Christian]

There's actually notation for some aleatoric music (I think! I'm not sure!) It's when you see the staff of music end and then you see two (or I guess theoretically there could be more!) arrows point in different direction to different staves, giving the performer the choice of any of the staves.

But I like nature's aleatoric music just as much