'transcription' of the piece's algorithm on SuperCollider

reconstruction & sonification of James Tenney's string quartet Arbor Vitae

based on Michael Winter's paper:  'On James Tenney's Arbor Vitae for String Quartet' 

[ not 100% accurate (dynamics are missing for instance & some durational bounds are missing too)—but you get the idea! ]

made with/ thanks to the precious (precious) help of Andrea Vogrig 

here is one sonification with sine tones (to be played on low volume)

besides getting an understanding of the algorithmic complexity of the piece, i was curious to  listen to another version of the piece, one reduced to its "bare skeleton." in other words, i have always wanted to bypass the timbral complexity in the piece and get a more direct access to the harmonic relationships and tuning, unaffected by the mass of sound characteristic of string quartets. the synthesized version confirmed my (subjective) experience/hypothesis, i.e.: an extremely "clean" timbre may allow for more precision in grasping harmonic relationships. 

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