I have already described the recursive fractal ornamentations developed for the OM-Ruben library. I found these useful for granulation processes. The stuttering repeats of the algorhithm created iteration and tremolo effects. I created a function named 'r-granulation-time-trajectory' 1 which controlled the speed tendency through a curve shape sampled in windows. Transitions to perceptions of a granular mass, rather than distinct events, happen a long time before there are 100 notes per second. The statistical probability of the highest density is, however, small if the trajectory is moving lineary between .001 seconds and 4 seconds. I added an adjustable exponential curve, to make the dense cloud textures longer and more common.

Curtis Roads has been a pioner of computer generated granular sound. It would be very time-consuming to find these sounds by manually typing in 100 or 1000 tones per seconds, and it would be hard to find the same types of smoothness. In these cases, computer assisted composition can help a composer define overall strategies and quickly listen to different results. It can be compared to use a brush to spray paint over a canvas, or to Jackson Pollock's dripping of paint, since these results are found through mass textures and mass shapes rather than a 'note by note' approach.

Granular attack