Classical Music Secrets: What is Chance Music ?  During the early 20th century, composers began making use of scores that consisted of purely text. The Dada artists enjoyed doing this, and they were followed by various movements that used chance and experimentalism to create a new series of sounds and music, like the Fluxus movement in the mid-20th century. There are many ways that a composer can include chance elements, from John Cage's use of random radio stations in his work Radio Music to allowing the performers to improvise and even choose the instruments or melodic materials. As a composer I use chance in a variety of ways. I might include a section with no time or rhythm to counter an extremely rhythmic section of music or leave the instrumentation up to the musicians. I may include improvisation from the performers or audience. In my work Conversations on a Bus I used chance operations that gave some direction to the performance artists . Conversations on th...

"History is the story of an angel being blown backwards into the future." - Laurie Anderson Intermedia - the copulation of the art forms. Movement accompanies sound and the visual in an overstimulation of the senses. Once orchestrated with analogue tape, static images, and inexplicable actions, current intermedia art encompasses logorhythmic music, digital video, and virtual reality. As Dick Higgins described in his landmark, "Statement of Intermedia," in 1966, intermedia exists "between the media" (1) . Though often considered a visual art medium, the role of music and sound proves to be essential components of many artworks. Technology has accelerated creative expression as ideas, once existing only the in the mind, can exist in a tangible form. Music has embraced the digital world. Out of circuitry and imaginiation the next musical age evolves. No survey of contemporary culture can begin without a comprehensive look at the history that gave birth ...

Sound, Noise, and Electronic Music Group 1: Ages 5-7 Group 2: Ages 8-10 Group 3: Ages 10-13 Objectives Group 1&2: Recognition of various sound waves, ability to construct simple compositions using sound waves, training the voice to imitate sound waves, using the body to imitate sound waves in musical movement, learning concepts of timbre and noise as music, encouraging improvisation with instruments, continuation of Primer Level in Keyboard playing. Group 3: Recognition of various sound waves and noise types, ability to construct compositions using graphic notation, understanding the music history behind electronic music (John Cage, Futurists, noise, early electronic instruments, etc.), learning concepts of timbre and noise as music, encouraging improvisation and experimentation with instruments and various sound producers, using the voice for sonic imitation of sound waves, creating vocal compositions with graphic notation (vocalizations), continuation of Primer Level and Level 1 ...