The Fractal Music Generator ("FMG" from now on) is a composition
tool for musicians. It uses mathematical objects and algoritms to produce
sequences with musical properties. The resulting sequences depend on the
parameters given to the program. There is a fairly big number of parameters
so the number of different sequences that can be made is practically infinite.
You can map any sequence to a General Midi instrument to be played by
your soundcard or a synthesizer connected to a MIDI port. You can also
play up to 16 of these sequences at the same time in order to construct
a full song, and save it as a MIDI file. However, the main purpose of the
program is to expand, not replace, the musician's creativity.
FMG creates sequences by means of two kinds of mathematical objects:
fractals and phrase structure grammars. Fractals are very cool mathematical
sets with some properties similar to music. They are used to generate the
melody and dynamics of the sequences. For a good explanation of what fractals
are and where are they applied, please refer to the "Links
and references" part of this documentation. Grammars, on the other
hand, are used to generate the rhythm. But this is all hidden from the
user. The program is intended to be used by musicians, so I've tried to
make the interface as less technical as possible.