Instrumentation: Fixed Media
Duration: 7 minutes
Recording Available: Yes
Performed: Yes
Lane Koivu
What's Up! Magazine
Larry Austin
Computer Music Journal
Vol. 29 Issue 4
"The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa." -Werner Heisenberg, 1927.
Heisenberg is known today as the father of Quantum Mechanics, and especially for Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (HUP) which states that the more you know about the position of a subatomic particle, the less you know about its momentum. Conversely to some certainty, you may be able to know the momentum of a particle, but you will not be able to predict its position despite the sophistication of present or future measurement technologies.
Some may see that HUP is analogous to the perception of music. As listeners, once we analyze sound events, we take them out of time. We are aware of the sound, but not its context at a given moment. Even though Heisenberg won the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in quantum mechanics, most of his close friends would probably have noted his facility at the piano.
ΔpΔx ≥ h/4Πis composed using only piano samples. I created this work using Csound and DigiDesign's Pro-Tools exclusively. This composition was completed in my home studio in Lockport, Illinois, 2004. Respectfully, this work is dedicated to my colleague Dr. Leonard Weisenthal: educator, physicist, and listener.