Fractal Music

Fractal Composer Exercise

1) The first voice is our metronome. Extend this voice to 12 measures by clicking once on the right-pointing arrow next to the number 8.

2) Place the cursor at the end of the eight yellow bars marked Beat and select Beat from the Phrase menu. This inserts the selected phrase, in this case Beat, at the location of the cursor

3) Select Beat from the Phrase menu three more times so that there are a total of 12 measures in the first voice.

4) Click in the first measure of the second voice to begin entering notes in this location.

5) Press the Q key to select quarter note insertion and enter the notes from Phrase One in the second voice using the keys 0-9, A, B, C, and D (sequence = 7, B, 9, 8, 7, 4, 2, 4)

6) Select this two measure phrase by dragging the cursor across all eight notes and then click the Make Phrase button.

7) Name this "phrase 1" and click OK.

8) Place cursor at the end of phrase 1 and then select "phase 1" from the Phrase menu.

9) Now there are two instances of phrase 1 in the second voice. Repeat step 8 four more times so that there are a total of six instances of phrase 1 in the second voice.

10) Place cursor at the beginning of the third voice and then select "phase 1" from the Phrase menu.

11) Select this new instance of phrase 1 by clicking on it.

12) Use the Length transform to stretch it by a factor of 3/2. This phrase now is automatically renamed "phrase 1_Lx3/2".

13) Place cursor at the end of this new phrase and select "phase 1_Lx3/2" from the Phrase menu. Do this three times to obtain a total of 12 measures in the third voice.

14) Click on the plus sign to add a new voice and select an octave offset of -1.

15) Place cursor at the beginning of this fourth voice and then select "phase 1" from the Phrase menu.

16) Use the Length transform to stretch it by a factor of 4. This phrase now is automatically renamed "phrase 1_Lx4".

17) Place cursor at the end of this new phrase and select "phase 1_Lx4" from the Phrase menu.

18) Select this second instance of "phase 1_Lx4" and click on the Break Phrase button.

19) Delete the final four measures of this voice so that all voices end after twelve measures.

20) Click on the Play button to listen

21) Select the third instance of "phase 1_Lx3/2" in the third voice and click the Shift button. Scroll up and select -2.

NOTE The Shift transform transposes the phrase by the selected number of scale steps. These are not the same as half steps. They are counted using only notes from the current scale. This type of pitch transform is called diatonic transposition.

22) Click on the Play button to listen.

Here is how the composition should sound, and how the workshpce should look.

Here is an exploration of why this composition is fractal in duration.

Return to Exercises.