| In computer music, it is often the case that the compositional act and the parametric control of the underlying synthesis algorithms can not be separated from each other. In these situations, composition is completely intertwined with and dependent on the control of the synthesis parameters. As a consequence, the compositional process can be strongly shaped by the nature of the synthesis technique that is being used. Computer composition then requires the composer to have a deep understanding of the synthesis algorithms and their theoretical basis. As numerous and diverse synthesis techniques have emerged in recent decades, specific compositional approaches have had to adapt to the control of each one.; Instead of relying on such ad-hoc procedures of compositional control, computer music composers would benefit from a more general approach, one that could be applied in a variety of situations and contexts. The compositional control of computer music by fuzzy logic is proposed as a way of achieving this goal. It provides a simple, intuitive and flexible control of the compositional process that can be utilized in many different situations. Compositional control is achieved by the fuzzyfication of the relevant internal synthesis parameters and the parallel computation of several simple fuzzy IF-THEN rules of inference specified by the composer.; This approach has been implemented computationally as a package called FLCTK (Fuzzy Logic Control Tool Kit) in the form of external objects for the widely used real-time compositional environments Max/MSP and Pd. As a demonstration of the wide range of situations in which this approach could be used, five different applications of this parametric fuzzy control are presented in the contexts of spectral synthesis, physical modeling, granular synthesis, particle-based synthesis and audiovisual composition. |
