Abstract
It has recently been proposed that classical music has a fractal nature. A reanalysis of this proposal reveals some logical flaws in the argument. Chaos, fractals, time series and Schenkerian analysis are contrasted and inter-related. Further consideration of Bach's Invention No 1 (BWV772) leads to the conclusion that there is no inherent fractal nature in classical music; although the converse is not true. In other words, it is feasible to use fractal ideas to compose musical pieces — an area of much interest in recent years.
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Brian Henderson-Sellers is Associate Professor in the School of Information Systems at the University of New South Wales. His research interests span object-oriented information systems and environmental simulation modelling. Over the last three years, he has begun to integrate his software and musical interests in a collaboration, supported by the Australia Council for the Arts, with Greg White in the compositional use of object technology and strange attractors. Their first composition together was premiered in October 1992. He has, amongst other books, published A Book of Object-oriented Knowledge,Prentice Hall.
David Cooper is a lecturer and director of the electronic studio in the Music Department of the University of Leeds. He is a composer with a special interest in the music of Bela Bartok. He has recently been appointed technical director of the English University Funding Council Teaching and Learning Technology project in music which is producing multi-media computer-based learning packages. Publications include “A Pascal MIDI Library for the Atari ST,” Musicus,1, 2 (1989), and “A Computationally Non-intensive Algorithm for Pitch Recognition,” Array,12, 2 (1992).
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Henderson-Sellers, B., Cooper, D. Has classical music a fractal nature? — A reanalysis. Comput Hum 27, 277–284 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01830369
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01830369