The harmonic basis of the composition was governed by a mix of Coleman's influence and the image of the full Lorenz attractor. As his harmonic basis, Coleman often employed one or more tonal centers for a piece of music. In my composition I was to employ two.
In attempting to capture the essence of this strange attractor, I came upon the traditional idea of duality. The image had two lobes, which the variables would chaotically select, creating a sort of mathematical balance in the figure. Bringing to mind images of the struggle between good and evil, I decided to make use of the tritone interval, exactly half an octave, to seperate the two tonal centers.
During the composed form of the piece, the tonal center is allowed to shift when the melodic line crosses the `zero point'. But, during the improvised section, the tonal center is allowed to shift at will - allowing the both the rhythm section and the soloist control of how dissonance is used.