Since long before music and since long before humans, life has been evolving many forms of oscillation and resonation. And as our species appeared, many of these forms helped to determine the natural sonic environments in which we and our instrumental control of musical sound then also evolved.

These two general observations motivate, in many possible specific ways, also modeling bioacoustics when pursuing new sound-generating processes for musical use. This 7-minute video presents a case study of this, introducing an algorithm that simulates the calls of Hyalessa maculaticollis, a species of cicada native to parts of East Asia.



The algorithm offers real-time control over the insect's call sequence. Notably, this also includes imposing the production of a specific musical pitch on the detailed simulation of anatomical mechanics.

The paper introducing the algorithm describes the physical model and includes the runnable, annotated source code. Also, more generally, it points out trade-offs and inherent contradictions when modeling bioacoustics for tonal use.

The paper has been published here, and archived here.