Caudal Variations - live performance on VCV Rack

Caudal is a module from the Vult collection (for VCV Rack and Voltage Modular) of Leonard Laguna Ruiz.  It simulates a 4-node pendulum, and it can quite easily generate semi-chaotic random voltages.  I was introduced to it a couple of years ago by one of my students, Matthew Paine, and I finally got around to looking at it, and using it, a couple of weeks ago.  The module has 3 modes: "Pendula," "Planets," and "Fish Tank."  The module here is triggering off physically modeled timbres from Audible Instruments "Resonator" module, which also has three modes of resonation ("Modal," "Sympathetic String," and "Modulated/Inharmonic String").  Through the use of feedback patching, we're able to get a patch that changes radically in sound-type and gesture-type from moment to moment.  To sweeten the mix, every 30 seconds I manually change either the Caudal mode, or the Resonator mode, or both.  A very pleasant 5 minute walk through a chaotic system results.

This piece is dedicated to the memory of my father-in-law, the late Willam C Schieve, quantum physicist extraordinaire.  While looking through a list of his papers (and there are a lot of them), I encountered "Chaos in an effective four-neuron neural network."  Although that paper is NOT about the pendulum algorithm that Laguna Ruiz is using, I liked the coincidence between the 4-mode pendulum and the 4-neuron neural network.  Bill was very skeptical that the mathematics and physics he studied could be applied to music composition.  He was more of an 18th century kinda guy, musically.  In fact, he introduced me to the music of Johann David Heinichen, whose music is amazing, whether or not it has anything to do with chaos theory, or applications of scientific ideas to musical composition.  Here are two URLs for Heinichen's music, if you want to explore it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2AusmxOq5k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa21suv5p0U

(And for an 18th century composer who DID combine the arts and sciences, here's a symphony by William Herschel, who not only discovered Uranus, in his off hours, but also composed symphonies like this as his day job: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZomM6xGH_M)

Meantime, I hope you enjoy this little five minute VCV Rack ramble.