Architecture Sean Keller and Heinrich Jaeger coined the term
aleatory architecture to describe "a new approach that explicitly includes stochastic (re-) configuration of individual structural elements — that is to say 'chance.'"
Art Literature Charles Hartman discusses several methods of automatic generation of poetry in his book
The Virtual Muse.
Music The term
aleatory was coined by
Werner Meyer-Eppler in 1955 to describe a course of sound events that is "determined in general but depends on chance in detail".
Pierre Boulez applied the term "aleatory" in this sense to his own pieces to distinguish them from the
indeterminate music of
John Cage. and put these ideas into practice for the first time in his electronic composition
Gesang der Jünglinge (1955–56), in the form of statistically structured, massed "complexes" of sounds. Aleatoric techniques are sometimes used in contemporary film music, e.g., in
John Williams's film scores and
Mark Snow's music for
X-Files: Fight the Future. ==See also==