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Arts & Culture

The Aleatoric Indeterminacy in John Cage's Prepared Piano Compositions

Quick fact

John Cage's first prepared piano piece, 'Bacchanale' (1940), was created because he needed percussion music for a dance but had only a small stage—so he placed objects on the piano strings to transform it into an orchestra of exotic sounds.

Why this is interesting

Imagine a piano that sounds like a percussion ensemble—now imagine the pianist is not even sure which notes will sound. Why would a composer deliberately give up control?