Life deals us things we didn’t choose — chance, opportunity, disruption. In this piece, I use that same wild randomness to create music. Cards with music notes on them are shuffled. Notes are drawn. A piece is spontaneously created. No editing, no safety net—only the present moment answering the call. What emerges is part ritual, part experiment, part meditation on how we meet the unknown. This is the Musical Oracle: where chance becomes a voice, and response becomes art.
Much of Life comes down to this:
we’re dealt cards we didn’t choose —
opportunities, setbacks, surprises…
all the things Life throws at us.
Sometimes we like the hand we’re dealt;
other times — not so much.
But our freedom — our human agency —
lies in how we play those cards,
how we respond.
It occurred to me:
what if I made music that same way?
What if I let myself be dealt some notes I didn’t choose,
and then shaped them — spontaneously —
into a piece of music?
So I made a card deck.
Not a Tarot deck, not a poker deck…
a music deck.
Twelve cards
for the twelve notes
of the chromatic scale.
And since card decks usually come with four suits,
I figured, sure — let’s do that, too.
Because… why not?
And let’s name them using the ancient elements:
earth, air, fire, and water.
Because… why not?
And let’s represent each suit with an animal.
Because… why not?
Eagle for air.
Dragon for fire.
Elephant for earth.
Fish for water.
I don’t know what deep purpose the suits might serve.
But at the very least,
they let a note show up more than once.
Beyond that… we’ll see.
So in the end,
twelve notes times four suits
gives us forty-eight cards total.
Meanwhile, the point of all this
is the ritual.
I shuffle the deck,
draw some cards,
and whatever notes appear
become the seed of an improvisation.
No prep,
no pre-compose and polish.
Just a spontaneous musical response
to whatever the oracle deals to me.
And since I’m recording these improvisations,
each one needs a title.
And in the spirit of this ritual,
I figured the title should be random too.
So I built a little song-title generator —
a fun bit of software
that picks a noun
and one or two adjectives.
It comes up with titles like
Lavender Mystic Fragment
or Lilac Sanctified Vigil.
I designed it with hundreds of thousands of possible titles,
which should keep me busy for a while!
I’ve put the link to it in the description
so you can play with it too if you want.
I call this whole thing
the Musical Oracle.
In ancient times,
an oracle was a place
where randomness met meaning —
where a chance event
became a message,
a clue,
a path.
Part of the inspiration
comes from the Zen calligraphers.
They would center themselves,
take one breath,
and make a single brushstroke —
no hesitation,
no correcting,
no polishing.
The point wasn’t perfection,
but a moment of genuine presence.
I’m nowhere near their league, of course,
but I’m drawn to the spirit
of what they were doing.
They weren’t trying to put on a show.
They were trying to meet the present honestly,
with whatever they had
right in that moment.
This ritual
aspires to something like that.
The oracle gives me some notes;
and I respond musically.
It’s simple,
it’s fun,
and for me
it’s a lovely metaphor
for the ongoing dance we all have
with the randomness life hands us…
and the way we choose
to answer it.
— William Zeitler
Select at least one of ‘modifier 1’ and ‘modifier 2’, then click ‘generate’ to generate a random music title:
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