Acknowledgments

This work is as much Tod Machover's as it is mine. I had thought about this thesis before I arrived at MIT; however, the leap of faith was made by Tod and not by me; for that, I know, I will always be indebted to him. His stability, diligence, broad range of knowledge, support, and care for the most conceptual parts as well as the finest details, consistently encouraged and surprised me. From what I learned through my interaction with him during the past two years, Tod became a professor to me in the true sense of the word and I do not have adequate means to thank him for it.

I would like to thank my readers Rosalind Picard and Xavier Rodet who were always there for my simple-minded and abstract questions regarding precise matters of science. Xavier's help in many conceptual issues already started in 1987.

Special thanks go to Dan Ellis for creating the audio signal processing tools, without which the synthesis system would not have gotten off the ground. He has also been a rich source of technical help and insight for me. I would like to thank Barry Vercoe for his insightful help and comments during the proposal stages of the work, and for creating Csound.

The Media Lab and especially Music&Cognition has been a wonderful environment for thinking, working, and playing. I would like to thank Alan, Andy, Betty Lou, Bill, Casimir, Dave, Fumi, Janet, Jeff, Jin, Joe, Judy, Kathryn, Linda, Mary Ann, Mike H, Mike T, Neil, and Robert. I will especially remember Bill Gardner, Dan Ellis Dave Rosenthal Janet Cahn and Robert Rowe for debugging talks, proofreading and much moral and technical support. Andy Hong's art of sound was always a savior. If you are going to listen to the accompanying tape, you should thank Janet Cahn who saved you from listening to my voice. Stan Sclaroff provided solid code for the least square fit algorithm which I did not even have to look at.

David Nahamoo, who always had logical answers to my metalogical questions, is the one who started this project many years go. Esmaeel Tehrani, Hossein Omoumi, Sally Sargent, Khosro Pishévar, and Isabella Khan formed my understanding of music. Working with Miller Puckette had many influences on the initial design of the system. Discussions with Gerhard Eckel were always challenging, informative, and enjoyable. The structure hierarchy was designed in summer of 1989 in Vienna with Gerhard who taught me that music and visual art are related. Cort Lippe's consistent passion for music always amazed me. Many thanks go to Lev Koblyakov for many hours of sharing his rich knowledge of music with me.

Janet, Judith, Julia, Karen, Laura, Mok, Patrick, Stephan, and Thomas built my very pleasant reality in the past two years.

Finally and most importantly, I want to thank my family and long known dear friends Althea, Bijan, Fardad, Farhad, Fariba, Faryar, Ferial, Hayedé, Mammad, Saied, Shahriar, Shahyad, Shidokht, Sorour, and Yadollah for being a part of my life.