INTERACTIVE EXPLORATION OF A CHAOTIC OSCILLATOR FOR GENERATING MUSICAL SIGNALS IN REAL-TIME CONCERT PERFORMANCE

A chaotic oscillator has a broad range of state space from which music ians can induce a variety of sounds. An application of such an oscilla tor for music performance and composition opens a door to a series of new projects in the music community. Chua's oscillator has been explor ed for musical signal generation bz the contest of music performance a nd composition. Further, an exploration of the parameter space of the oscillator has been assisted with evaluations of associated sound outp uts guided by auditory perception. The application of Chua's oscillato r in a music performance system requires several stages of research: ( 1) understanding basic principles of the chaotic system in terms of ma thematical descriptions of the system and hardware configurations, (2) understanding the output signals in terms of vector space description s as well as understanding the auditory signal outputs in relation to the vector space descriptions, and (3) incorporating the system in a m usical performance context. While the abundance of papers available su pport the first stage of research, the second stage of research requir es alternative ways of listening to the auditory signals with respect to the chaotic system behaviors. For the third stage methods and tools have been invented for exploration of the chaotic system, a simulatio n of the system in computer has been implemented, and a peripheral per formance system has been configured. In order to nourish auditory perc eption an efficient and intuitive way of interacting with the oscillat or is essential. One of the most interesting preparations for this res earch was the design of an interactive graphical software interface, t he manifold interface. This interface was extensively used for explori ng parameter regions for precompositional activity and for sending con trol signals to both analog and simulated versions of the oscillator i n real-time performance.