DESCRIPTION:
see http://tunesmithy.com for Tune Smithy - the program used to make this. This is one of the fractal tunes that come with the program.

Tuning: is a just intonation pentatonic but with two versions of the second and the major sixth, giving extra tiny "comma" scale steps - the notes are a "syntonic comma" apart, tuning: 10/9 9/8 5/4 3/2 5/3 27/16 2/1.

Instruments: orchestral harp, shakuhachi and 'cello

These commas are seldom used as scale steps, normally you use one or the other choice for each note depending on the context. But I really like using them as scale steps as in this tune and a few other examples, either fractal tunes or compositions.

You hear the scale (tuning) first, then the seed, then the fractal tune which is entirely generated from the scale and seed.

The tune is generated entirely from the short seed phrase you hear at the start of the clip. No composition methods or techniques are used except to create the seed. It is constructed in a similar way to a visual fractal. It's based on the musical equivalent of the Koch snowflake. The underlying structure is a sloth canon with structure at ever larger and larger time scales and goes on endlessly.

The "composition" consists of creating the seed, then you set how the notes are tuned, vary some parameters, and choose the instruments to play each part. The rest is all automatic. The reason it works may be because many natural sounds like running water have fractal qualities, and also composers and improvisers naturally use fractal type approacheswithout realising it.

Gives an idea of what the tune sounds like played on high quality instruments

It's a display only, non editable score, notes positioned by time, which is why the measures keep changing in size because of the fractal rhythms, with many of the fractal rhythms you couldn't notate them at all exactly with conventional musical rhythm notations.