Thirty Pieces for String Quartet (1984)

This work comprises four parts without overall score. Each player rehearses alone. During performance, they sit far apart at points surrounding the audience. This work takes it title from Cage’s Thirty Pieces for Five Orchestras. Cage says of this work: "Just as that work is a coincidence of chamber orchestras, this is a coincidence of solos." Each solo alternates between 3 kinds of music: tonal, chromatic, and microtonal. The work uses proportionally notated time brackets, and is an early example of Cage's use of this notational method.