Pablo replies to me replying to him:

>>>chance is not a technique.  Sounds strange, but please remember
>>>the classical meaning of the word "technique".
>>
>>You're confusing performance realization with the technique of composition.
>>An aleatoric composer builds (thus satisfying the meaning of the word
>>"technique") a frame in which something can be realized.
>
>Nawp, Steve, "they" are (or were) confusing it.  In many aleatory works,
>performance realization and "technique of composition" are often one and
>the same thing.

Exactly, although I quarrel with the word "often" (I haven't counted.  Have
you?).  But that doesn't deny that the frame was made.  If it was made,
then it was well or badly made - hence the word "technique."

>To "build a frame in which something can be realized" is just a rhetoric
>expression:  you're not "building" anything there, actually you're just
>giving to the performer a certain (little) material that he must order
>at the moment of performance.

In the case you propose, the order is obviously not part of the frame.
The material and the specification of performer is.  At times the order
- or the process of determining the order - is indeed specified.

>The work consists simply of how should the performer put order (or chaos)
>in that material.  You can't call "technique" to an operation on the
>material that leads to different or unexpected outcomes.

I can't? Why the hell not? It happens all the time in non-chance music.
If the result was a foregone conclusion, there'd be no reason to play
anything.  The only thing that differs is the latitude we're willing to
extend to those things beyond our strict control.

>>>Stokie has been involved in almost every major musical fraud committed
>>>since the second half of XX century: integral serialism, aleatory music,
>>>electroacoustic music.
>>
>>I fail to see why these are frauds.  That is, that what they purport to
>>be is not what they are.  I don't know what they purport to be.
>
>Well well, we have an interesting subject here.  You've just said why
>these are frauds: precisely because "that they purport to be is not what
>they are".

Sorry.  I was simply substituting a definition of "fraud" into your
statement.  I still don't know why these things are frauds in the
dictionary sense of the word.  So far, all you've said is a variant of "I
don't like this." Whether you like it is your own business, and I'm not
trying to persuade you change your nature.  All I'm trying to do is
separate your rhetoric from your dislike.

>...  However, all this is not necessarily a fraud, it's just a dubious
>aesthetical framework:  the fraud consists of thousands and thousands of
>pages written in order to justify and glorify both integral serialism and
>aleatory music.  Even nowadays, many people consider it as an important
>step in the development of Western culture.  OK, Steve, I know that you
>appreciate them only from a strictly musical point of view....but many
>people don't.

So much the worse for many people.  So much the worse for me that I can't
appreciate bel canto opera.  Nobody likes everything.  Furthermore, the
intent of a composer is not as important as the effect of the work.  As I
say, I may intend that my latest symphony lead to world peace.  It probably
doesn't.  In this sense, indeed, the work may be a "fraud," but it's not
a very important sense, certainly not as important as I infer from your
posts, which imply a certain moral failing on the part of composers..
Again, as you imply, the important thing is how well the music works on
its own.

>>Again, I find some works in these styles to be very beautiful.  I'd hate
>>to think I'm a gullible victim, particularly when I enjoy them so much.
>
>Musical beauty is, fortunately, much less rare and predictable than one
>could believe.  As the Holy Spirit, she blows where she wants.  Personally,
>I think that this is not the case of Stockhausen, but many works builded up
>deliberately from inconsistent, stupid, absurd or waste "normatives" are
>often beauty, despite their own authors.  (Please, don't say that "this is
>the only important in music", because if it's so, this very discussion list
>has no sense).

Unfortunately, I've already said it.  And apparently it needs to be said.
It seems to me a self-evident proposition, if only for the reason that we
often don't know the composer's intent.  I have no idea, for example, what
Josquin intended by his motet "Praeter rerum seriem." I have only the
music.  However, lacking access to the composer's intent shouldn't bar
enjoyment of the music.

>>So far, all you've really said is that you don't like them.  Why raise
>>your personal tastes to a universal aesthetic principle?
>
>Perhaps because I'm a sort of megalomaniac monster.  My granny uses to
>complain about it often.

My grandpa was the same way about me.

Steve Schwartz