The term
aleatory music
—first coined by composer Pierre Boulez, and synonymous with chance music
and indeterminacy
—describes the random or chance processes used by composers and performers beginning in the mid-20th century. As early as the 18th century, however, several composers had toyed with a form of chance composition. For example, in his Musikalisches Würfelspiel (Musical dice game,
1787), Mozart used dice and number tables to determine the order in which bars of music were performed...
