Indeterminacy 20

Well, since Darmstadt, I’ve written two pieces. One
in the course of a fifteen-minute TV program in
Cologne. The other is Music Walk, written during two
hours in Stockholm. Neither piece uses chance
operations. The indeterminacy in the case of Music
Walk is such that I cannot predict at all what will
happen until it is performed. Chance operations are
not necessary when the actions that are made are
unknowing. Music Walk consists of nine sheets of
paper having points and one without any. A smaller
transparent plastic rectangle having five widely
spaced parallel lines is placed over this in any
position, bringing some of the points out of
potentiality into activity. The lines are ambiguous,
referring to five different categories of sound in
any order. Additional small plastic squares are
provided having five non-parallel lines, which may
or may not be used to make further determinations
regarding the nature of the sounds to be produced.
Playing positions are several: at the
keyboard, at the back of the piano, at a radio.
One moves at any time from one to another
of these positions changing thereby the
reference of the points to the parallel lines.

- John Cage