ABSTRACT
Many composers who work with chaos theory, the writer included, describe this connection as their own gateway to using non linear dynamic systems as a compositional tool or subject. Composers have a tendency to see the world in terms of music, or at least in terms of the aspects of music they resonate with, and for certain composers, chaos theory can be seen to have musical qualities in relation to variation and transformation through iteration. The act of composition is multivalent, involving overlapping and interfering influences and materials, with each composer and each work involving multiple possible sites of compositional acts. Composers of the late Romantic period such as Brahms or Mahler were able to create large-scale musical forms because of their common musical language, tonality. The composer applies fractal geometry to the pre-existing musical material, often from long-dead composers such as Vivaldi and Charpentier.
