2012 – A collection of electronic pieces created using ChucK. These works feature physical models, binaural rendering, sonification, and explorations of audio-visual integration.

1.
Jabberwocky Etude

Based on clips from Nikolle Doolin’s reading of Lewis Carroll’s poem “The Jabberwocky”.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought–
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

2.
Pendulum Etudes

I modeled and sonified a double pendulum in ChucK. A fourth order Runge-kutta algorithm was used to numerically solve the double pendulum’s equation of motion at each time step. Except for a few equalibrium points, the pendulum exhibits chaotic behavior. Thus, the main parameters that were used to map the pendulum into sound were the chaotic angular position and angular velocity of one or both of the masses. (The pendulum is modeled with mass at the end of each arm.) It is possible to start the pendulum in many different positions and even change values such as gravity to achieve different effects.

Many different effects are possible. Only a few have been realized here: pitch mapping, panning, note duration. Varying the unit generators that are fed to the algorithm also produces sounds that of interest-this includes prerecorded files.