Giacinto Scelsi, who never saw himself as a traditional composer, developed various production methods over time. Whereas he initially generated sounds and formal ideas that were then worked out by a professional composer into actual compositions, he sought direct access to the sound of the music in his later creative period. He sat at the piano and created music ex improviso in the here and now. Scelsi called this “the method of an inspired roll of dice”. But how should the inspiration be retained? Scelsi found the solution in recording his improvisations on a tape recorder and then letting others transcribe them as accurately as possible into musical notation. Scelsi described his own role in this way: “I would even like to be described as a ‘postman’ – the one who sometimes receives messages, which he then delivers.”
