| David Calrk Little has used fractals in his compositions since the late 1980s.
Here is part of his description of his work from a Discovery Channel interview from the
spring of 1999. |
| "Fractals are patterns which occur on many levels.
This concept can applied to any musical parameter.
I make melodic fractals, where the pitches of a theme I dream up, are used to determine
a melodic shape on several levels, in space and time.
I make rhythmic fractals, where a set of durations associated with a motive get stretched
and compressed and maybe layered on top of each other.
I make loudness fractals, where the characteristic loudness of a
sound, its envelope shape, is found on several time scales.
I even make fractals with the form of a piece, its
instrumentation, density, range, and so on.
Here I've separated the parameters of music, but in a real piece, all of
these things are combined, so you might call it a fractal of fractals." |
|
| In describing some of his fractal compositions, Little said |
| "My first clear use of fractals was in 1988, with Fractal Piano 6, a
short piece using a computer-guided pianola.
And in 1989 I applied chaos theory and fractals pretty much from the beginning
to end in The Five Seasons for 6 percussionists and tape, a piece of 19 minutes.
Since then I use my new fractal techniques in most of my pieces, but
sometimes in combination with material or ideas that are not purely fractal.
The piece that is perhaps most clearly derived from chaos theory is Hyperion's Tumble." |
|
| Finally, a general comment about what makes a piece of music fractal. |
| "Something which gets repeated on many scales or levels.
Simple cyclic repetition is not fractal, there must be a
variation, displacement, or nesting of a pattern, evident when you
'step back' or 'zoom in' to the music." |
|