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Indeterministic music, also called "aleatory music", is music based on chance. The composer's creative input to the outcome of a piece is either greatly reduced or even removed completely. "Creative input" includes melody, harmony, instrumentation, etc... even logical arrangement. Theoretically, indeterminism is the opposite of serialism, where the composer controls every minute detail of a piece through numerical patterns.

Far and wide, John Cage is considered the father of indeterminism. He was influenced by the study of Zen philosophy: he determined that a quiet mind was one free of dislikes; but, since dislikes require likes, it must be free of both likes and dislikes. He once said, "You can become narrow minded, literally, by only liking certain things and disliking others, but you can become open-minded, literally, by giving up your likes and dislikes and becoming interested in things." To escape being influenced by his own likes and dislikes, Cage then sought to remove the creative process from his composition, often relying on coin flips and dice rolls to decide where or how to place a certain note.

Audio Clip (MIDI): 4'33" by John Cage
Play MIDI
In this MIDI example, you can hear Cage's most famous (and infamous) work, called 4'33". The extraordinary thing about it is that it's just four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence. Or is it silence? You see, to John Cage there was no such thing as true silence; there was only the absense of intentional noise. As you listen for those 273 seconds, is it really silent? You can probably hear your computer fan whirling, or maybe someone walking around your house, or perhaps some cars driving by outside. That's the "music" of 4'33"... whatever you happen to hear is what you're supposed to hear. By doing that, Cage effectively removed every single bit of creative input on what the listener hears.

For all intents and purposes, indeterminism is dead. Many musical scholars now disregard it as a passing fad of the mid-20th century. It remains to be seen whether future generations will try to revive it or whether it will fade away forever.


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