Talk:Aleatory

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Contents 1 The Books 2 Cleanup 3 The Dice Man 4 aleatory or indeterminate: we should take care...

[edit] The Books

How does this jump from John Cage to The Books

and what about The Books computer music is random, as opposed to worked out on the computer.

The article discusses Cage and then mentions The Books. The "jump" happens through a paragraph break indicating a new point or idea. Just because a computer is involved doesn't mean that aleatory isn't, and though I find nothing on AMG's band article or album reviews to indicate that this is the case with The Books, I did find a website mentioning but not explaining their aleatory ([1]). Hyacinth 09:55, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't see anything aleatory about the Books' style either. They use a lot of samples in their music, and there is always a chance element when working with processing and such (i.e. you don't really know how the clip is going to sound when you reverse it, until you've done it). This isn't aleatory though. I guess it would be closer to musique concrète. In any case, I don't think that the Books belong here. (This is a slightly different topic, but I think that the distinction between Boulez and Cage on this page is unclear. Cage didn't use the term aleatory, as far as I know, and their conflict had to do with intention vs. nonintention. Perhaps a more neutral, technical definition, not immediately connected with a composer could start the music section, followed by a brief list of a few composers and representative works, and a link to the longer article on aleatory music. Unless there are any objections, I'll do that soon.) JonathanDS 09:16, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

If you don't do it, I will. I noticed The Books being on here a few months ago, there is nothing aleatoric about their music (as far as I'm aware). On their page it also says they're aleatoric, which should also be changed. I agree, musique concrete is a much better classification. Why does this article exist at all? It seems to me that it should just become a disambig that leads to, for example, Aleatoric music and Automatic writing, and something for the film example (which I'm not sure exists yet. - Achristl 15:06, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've taken out the Books. Actually, I'd also question whether Automatic writing belongs here. The term aleatory, I think, is often misused as meaning completely random. However, with a die (and that's the original root of the word) you have a controlled randomness--you'll get one of a limited number of possibilities (i.e. with a die, the numbers 1-6). Mallarmé did some writing that was truly aleatory in this sense, as did Cage. Reducing this page to a disambig might work. After all, there's a more in depth article about aleatory music already. However, I don't know if there's enough material on aleatory work in the other arts to make much of an article, and I don't know that it'd be best to have them all on their own. What about going the other way and bringing the musical stuff here (as well as expanding and correcting the other arts)? What about adding a section on aleatory techniques in the other arts to the music article? I'm not sure if those solutions are any better. Either way, a fair amount of work needs to be done. JonathanDS 21:43, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

I removed the October 2005 cleanup tag as there is no explination on this talk page. Hyacinth 09:55, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Dice Man

I added a short paragraph about The Dice Man, realizing that although its story is aleatory, the book wasn't written in an aleatory way. Feel free to change/delete at will. jkl 08:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] aleatory or indeterminate: we should take care...

It's fine to expand the perspective from music (my speciality) into more arts. comparisons could be interesting, even if the word "aleatory" might not be used in literature studies ... or am I wrong? Do literature people mention it ?? Anyone knows? This should be made explicit ...

Can anyone find documentation for the statement that aleatory means "pertaining to luck" ??

The Dice Man is a nice clear example of something aleatoric - judging from my knowledge of the notion as it is used in instrumental music. Automatic writing would, if there's any clear parallel between the music use of the concept and possible other uses, belong not here, but to indeterminacy - see [indeterminacy in music]. Because aleatoric is the use of a limited number of possibilities - as is the case when throwing a dice. (To thicken the plot, coin-tossing may appear even more limited, but the crucial thing here is not the isolated action which generates randomness, but how open the overall design is intended to be!!)

But automated writing should rather be transferred to indeterminacy. We would need to make a new article about that in general as an aesthetic attitude, if it is really a concept used seriously outside music. With links to indeterminacy in music and maybe more. In case...

No time to work this all through right now. Will just try to put on an "unreferenced" tag. [[[User:Intuitive|Intuitive]] 13:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)]