Maybe, maybe not, but certainly not certainly.

I'm in a class dealing with John Cage right now. Here's a question about indeterminacy that was posed to us along with a short answer of mine. Thoughts?

Q:What notions do the words “intentional” and “unintentional” inspire and to what extent do they apply practically?

With regard to musical composition, intention can be questioned often. Scores are mere directives about making music, not the music itself. Music is meant to be played and listened to, not simply read from the page. Thus, the music is only realized when a musician renders a version of it from the instructions on a sheet of music. A composer, therefore, must strive to communicate and intend musical consequences through the language of notation. And, although the written language of music has evolved greatly in just over five-hundred years of existence, its syntax grasps at multiple other languages for clarification – German, Italian, French, and English adjectives and directions, diagrams, drawings, and other graphic depictions meant to elicit emotional and interpretive responses from players. This is not to ignore the relatively specific notational conventions for pitch, rhythm, and relative articulations. It is notable that much of the notational system is made of subjective marks, open to a relatively wide range of interpretations – markings such as crecendo, decrecendo, forte, piano, multiples of f and p, etc. All of this is to say that there is only a certain amount of intention that a composer may hope to bring to fruition with any degree of certainty. There will always be a necessary element of interpretation and, perhaps, improvisation. Performance practice, tuning conventions, acoustical fads, and other narrowing factors play a large role in narrowing the scope of possible outcomes, but with a long view of music in mind, these factors are fleeting, and composers may never have full sway over their work unless they record it. In doing so, however, they might remove themselves from the artistic practice of composition, whereby the composer creates a more-or-less specific musical structure from which players may swing gracefully, or fall on their faces. There will always be unintended musical happenings with music as a performing art.