Aleatoric music also known as chance music, the name is from a Latin word alea meaning dice in which some element of the composition is left to chance and/or some primary element of a composed work’s realization is left to the determination of its performers. The term is most often associated with procedures in which the chance element involves a relatively limited number of possibilities. 

After the research and I have more understanding of what chance music is, I started to brainstorm ideas I can do for my composition. The first idea I came up with was where I would pour candies through a funnel down on top of a xylophone and how the candles fall is random and unpredictable creating a chance piece of music. I got the idea from a video creating using M&M, playing a piano, dispensing the candies on an instrument and creating a specific sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPtE3ZQFn5s 
The second idea I came up with was setting up sensors on the stairs so when people walk up and down the stairs, it would produce sound. The composition is up to the audience and the audience are the performers, it is unpredictable what the performers are going to do so it is considered a chance piece of music. I got the idea from Chinese candles, where the candle is light up, it will activate a sensor and play happy birthday song. 

Music is traditionally defined as a structured composition where there are specific instructions on how to replicate the exact sound the composer intended to compose. For our minimalism unit, we want to challenge the idea that music need to have these elements therefore we have decided to compose an aleatoric composition. 

We have decided to build a musical stair and in the type of mobile form, an aleatoric style, which means the chance elements are involved in the performance and the outcome is left to the determination of the performers. We will install the steps of a flight of stairs with sensors, as people walk up and down the stairs, the specific note would be played. The whole soundtrack would be recorded and register as our composition. Through this composition, we also aim to challenge people to reconsider that their daily routine, walking up and down the stairs, can be considered as a musical composition. 

Pitch: A flight of stairs has 12 steps and each steps would be a note on the piano, it would form the 12 tones scale. Therefore the pitch has the range of a 12 tectonic scale and we would set this scale to the middle C range.  

Melody: This element is up to chance. It depends which note the performer play, which step the people walk on corresponding to a note on the 12 tones scale. As people usually walk up or down the stairs, it can be predicted that the melody would consist a lot of runs either ascending or descending. But this is only a prediction as there is no certainty to determine people’s stair walking pattern. 

Tempo: This element is up to chance. It depends on how fast or how slow people are walking on the stairs. When there is two or more people walking up/down the stairs, there would be no strict timing and tempo as they walk at a different pace.

Dynamic and expressive techniques: This element is up to chance. How low or high the dynamic is depended on the number of performers, the number of layers and melodies played. Other than that, the sound is preset with the specific expressive technique so this element is consistently throughout the composition. 

Rhythm: This element is up to chance. It depends on the rhythm at which people walk. The length of the note is determined as the sensor can play the note with a preset time value but the rest, how long or short it is, is depended on how people walk. 

Harmony: This element is also up to chance. The harmony it creates from the different melodies that is created at once by multiple people walking up and down the stairs. 

Structure: Our composition would be 40 minutes long, during lunchtime from 11:40 to 12:20.  

Instrumentation/Texture: The sound of a piano.