Precise execution does not matter?

Hi Thanks for you help with my previous questions. I have another question.

Sometimes I notate music and I want it performed exactly how I wrote it. Other times (often within the same piece) I don't really care about the exact rhythms and pitches, but I'll notate the approximate texture that I want and write something to the effect of "rhythms don't have to line up precisely." Kind of like aleatoric freedom but not quite that free.

Can anyone think of precedents in the repertoire of this kind of direction?

Thanks again!

Beeri

Well, on one hand there are composers like Lutoslawski who specifically wrote rhythmically uncoordinated parts between instruments, which are usually very determined regarding their pitches etc., but rhythmically only come together at specific points. He called that "limited aleatorism". He was probably the one that focused most on this technique, but quite a few other composers made use of limited aleatoric processes that left the performer many (often rhythmic) freedoms (also Boulez, Stockhausen, etc.). And of course passages to be played "ad libitum" are frequent in a LOT of music. (Such as many of Kurtag's pieces, where note durations are often only designated by noteheads with different forms of fermatas above them. This is however a bit different than what you asked for, since the aim is usually not -textures- here.) Also: Most pieces utilizing space-notation and similar forms of graphical representation will automatically produce this rhythmic freedom, e.g. many pieces by Feldman.

And then there's of course music where certain groups are always coordinated -within- themselves, but rhythmically independent of other groups, resulting of different, rhythmically differing layers. Many pieces by Ives being the great precedent of this.

Last but not least, there are also the pieces that ask for very specific rhythms and don't specifically allow for freedoms - but where the composer is aware that they will never be played with 100% accuracy, which is an important aspect of how the piece will sound. Ligeti's microtonal counterpoint is often, to some degree, based on this. He -does- ask the player to play his rhythms and pitches as exactly as possible, but even then, there will automatically be slight variations, which contribute to the general effect. This would be ruined however if the players deliberately took freedoms from the rhythms though, since the variations might become much too big then and line up with each other unexpectedly.