Abstract:

An intensive study of rhythmic and melodic innovations in the early 1960's avant-garde jazz music from both compositional and improvisational standpoints, focusing on the music of Ornette Coleman. Parallels are drawn between these innovations and discoveries in modern mathematical chaos theory, resulting in an original composition based on a nonlinear dynamic system known as the Lorenz attractor. A performance of the composition featuring the author is recorded using studio production techniques of the early 1960's.

 
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Introduction
  • Motivation
  • Determinism
  • Free Will
• Mathematics
  • Greek Notions and Beyond
    • A Brief Calculus Aside
  • Introduction to Chaos Theory
• Jazz
  • The End of the 1950's
  • Ornette Coleman
    • Historical Perspective
    • Order in the New Music of Chaos
• Original Composition
  • It Ain't My Responsibility
    • Melodic Material
    • Harmonic Material
    • Rhythmic Material
    • Form
    • Improvisatory Material
  • Conclusions
• Analysis of Congeniality
• Lorenz Attractor Source Code Documentation
  • Makefile
  • music.c: For producing chaotic music
  • music2.c: For producing chaotic music with note durations
  • lorenz.c: For solving and graphing the Lorenz attractor
  • lorenz-ng.c: For solving and outputting the Lorenz attractor data to a file
• Recording Session Methodology
• It Ain't My Responsibility Lead Sheets
• It Ain't My Responsibility Melodic Graphs
• References