Performance Issues

It is (unfortunately) impossible to make first the composition process ``easier'' for the composer and then the performance process ``easier'' for the instrumentalists by letting some aspect of the soundscape undefined.

It would have been, of course, a lot easier to write only some notes (or note-heads), an overall duration, a more or less general dynamic level and draw a wavy line over the page of the score! That would have been also welcomed by most (all?) instrumentalists...

However in the real world of music performers there are points to consider when using aleatory notes.

Each performer, as a fully trained musician has been playing endless hours of scales, arpeggios and other exercises. Probably doing still so in his professional life. The physical memory is strongly established and when undirected, fingers will unquestionably find, between the notes given by the composer, those successions and assemblages who are closest to the ones practiced before.

Another point is that orchestra musicians are trained to play in sync with their instrumental section or at least with their neighbors.

That reveals the futility of expecting a micropolyphony, or anything closer to it, to emerge by giving musicians more or less directed random notes to play.

Some composers, Lutoslawski being notable among them, have actually used ``directed^3.2 random notes'' in parts of their orchestral works. The point is they did not tried to create a soundscape of some duration in this way and the parts playing partly random notes, especially in the scorings of such a knowing composer as was Lutoslawski, were limited to a solo or a reduced number of instruments.