rane ‘The Nature of Fractal Music by Solomon The Fractal Nature of Music copyright ©2002 by Larey Solomon See eS SSS An animated Mandelbrot fractal showing a large magnification zoom. (To review this fractal animation after itis fully loaded (which may take a few minutes), back out (Alt¢=) and immediately return (Alt=P) to this page or right-click the image and choose "View Image".) ‘The topic of this essay is the manifestation of fractal-like structures in existing music, rather than the creation of new music. For those interested in the use of fractals to create music, a list of of websites is provided at the end of this exposition. ‘The word “fractal” means "broken" and originally referred to fractional dimensions and irregular (hence "broken") surfaces. Fractal geometry is a new branch of experiential mathematics that recognizes that objects in the real, or natural, world are not purely square, triangular, circular, spherical, cylindrical, ete., but, rather that the latter are are only idealized geometric models. Planet Earth is described in traditional science as @ sphere or ellipsoid, although its surface is not smooth, but rough, with mountains and valleys. The coastline and boundary of India may be described in Euclidean geometry as a triangle, but itis really very complex and irregular. One of the defining aspects of fractals is their fractional dimension, We are used to dealing with whole dimensions. We say, for instance, that a line is one dimensional, a plane is two dimensional, a sphere is three dimensional. But what does it ‘mean to have a fractional dimension? Taking India's coastline as an example, we can ask how we should measure its perimeter, On the surface this seems to be straightforward, but before we can actually measure it we must determine the unit, or scale, of measurement. Zooming into the details of a coastline results in ever increasing intricacy and complexity of the line that defines it, Should we measure the line around boulders, pebbles, grains of sand? As the unit of measurement becomes smaller and smaller the perimeter approaches infinity, and the larger our measuring unit, or scale, the shorter the perimeter seems to be. Before long we realize that such a measurement can only be an approximation. So, how long is the coastline? There is no one definitive answer, but it depends upon the unit of measurement and how much approximation ‘one is willing to settle for The fractal dimension is a measure of the space-filling ability. The coastline seems to be a line of one dimension, but if it ‘were to continue infinitely it could fill a plane of two dimensions. Therefore, itis said to be somewhere between one and ‘two dimensions. This fractional dimension can actually be mathematically determined by the degree of roughness or space= filling capability of the object. (Mandelbrot showed that the Hausdorff-Besicovitch dimension of a coastline is 1.26.) Perhaps the most important defining property of fractals is self similarity on many different scales; ie, they have self iterating geometric structures that repeat in different sizes. "People use the word fractal in different ways, but all agree that fractal objects contain structures nested within one another like Chinese boxes or Russian dolls" [Kanadoft, Physics Today, 1986]. There are two kinds of self similarity: 1. exact similarity (linear fractals), and statistical similarity (non-linear fractals), In linear fractals, each scaling factor reproduces exactly the same shape, as in the Sierpinski triangle and Cantor fractal cited later. In nonlinear types, ocurring most often in natural objects, the resemblance at differing scales is not exact, but is close enough to be recognized as statistically self-similar. Mathematical fractals have, theoretically, an infinite number of scales, but fractals are also said to occur in nature, where the scaling factor is finite, One example of this is the natural fern, This is a picture of the natural fern, Dicksonia culeita: hitpulsclomonsmusie-nebracmus.him 19rane ‘The Nature of Fractal Music by Solomon ‘And, here is a fractal computer modeling of one of the fern's fronds: ‘The shape of one of the whole branches of the fern is triangular, but itis not a true triangle. It is curved and has irregular ‘edges. Let's call this fractal shape a "triferngle". Each of the fronds that make up the branch is also a statistical trifengle. Fach leaf cluster is arranged in a trifemngular shape, and each leaf is trifemgular, Each leaf is also divided into triferngular shapes. Thus, the fern has a fractal structure of repeating self-similar triferngles on several diminishing scales. From this remarkable replication we can see that fractal modeling can simulate the forms of nature. They are now used to create landscapes in movies and for computer modeling. Just as fractal geometries are found in nature, similar self-iterating structures can be found in music, architecture, and other ats ‘Asan example, one of the first and simplest fractals is called the Cantor fractal, which is based on the Cantor set or funetion. ‘The definition of the Cantor set is as follows: Ag= [0.1] and define, for each n, the sets A , recursively as U na \ Bo 1+ 3k 2+ 3k op An Then the Cantor set is given as: C=nA, A graphic representation of this set is as follows == rr hitpulsclomonsmuse-nebracrmus nimsontz016 “The Nature of Fractal Musi by Solomon This fractal may be formed by taking a line of length Ag and deleting the middle third, forming the second line in the above diagram, By the iterative process the middle third of each of the two segments is deleted, producing the third line. process continues indefinitely, deleting the middle third of cach of the resulting segments, forming a "Cantor comb". Thus, each of the steps is a binary division of the result of the previous step, and the whole process generates the number series: 1,2, 4,8, 16, ete. Looking at the process in reverse, the smaller units are added in binary groups to form the larger units. AS the set continues to fractionalize it approaches a series of points having no dimension, or "Cantor dust”. The Cantor fractal has a fractional dimension of 0.63, ie., lying between a point and a line, ‘Now consider a simple piece of music by Beethoven, the first Ecossaiven. Link to a Key for symbols of formal analysis (Use your "Go Back" or [Alt @=] key to return here) hitpulsclomonsmusie-nebracmus.him a9