Leave It up to Chance!

• Selena Ryan
• Posted 12/6/21
• 0 comments

Composing Aleatoric Music

Suggested Grades: 3-8

National Core Arts Standards

#1 — Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
#2 — Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.

Objectives

• Identify and compose aleatoric music.

Materials

• Dice
• Boomwhackers™
• Barred instruments

Overview

This initial lesson takes students through a hands-on approach to composition using group collaboration. Aleatoricism is a composition technique using chance and luck that was developed in the early 20th century.

Before teaching this lesson, expose students to aleatoric music. I always recommend playing music while students enter the classroom and find their seats. Some examples of aleatoric music include:

Nomisma (2020) – Selena Ryan
Music of Changes (1951) – John Cage
Klavierstücke (1955) – Stockhausen
December 1952 (1952) – Earle Brown

• Introduce students to the concept of “aleatoricism” using examples of chance in real life.
  • Have they ever shuffled cards or rolled dice for a game?
  • Have their names ever been called for a raffle?
  • Has their popsicle stick ever been called in class?
  • Have they ever flipped a coin to decide on something?

• This concept is called “aleatoricism” and can be used to create and compose music too!

Suggested Teaching Process

Create an aleatoric composition while practicing note names of the treble clef.

1. Project or post a large staff.
2. Write middle C on the staff.
3. Pass the die; each student rolls a number to determine each subsequent note of the class composition.
   • If the number is odd (1, 3, 5), the next note goes down.
   • If the number is even (2, 4, 6), the next note goes up.
4. Students identify each note name to write after each dice roll, practicing note-reading fluency.
5. Achieving aleatoricism requires no intervention. Therefore, you must write down the corresponding music note of the rolled number, even if those notes do not follow traditional music rules.
6. Aleatoric music uses free-from meter. I recommend writing all notes as quarter notes for the sake of simplicity.
7. After each student has had a chance to roll the dice, the composition will be complete.
8. Students can play their composition on Boomwhackers™, Orff instruments, or even sing it on solfege!

References

Dave Hackett. (2017, January 5). Earle Browne’s December 1952 by Dave Hackett – YouTube. YouTube. Retrieved November 8, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K2dyqrw6cY.

John Cage: Music of changes (1951) – YouTube. YouTube. (n.d.). Retrieved November 8, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_8-B2rNw7s.

Klavierstück XI: Collage scheme karlheinz … – YouTube. YouTube. (2018, November 3). Retrieved November 8, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueyqTzJPUZg.

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