Bill Thompson - MU (sh 005)

mu was created last year as an installation. it involved designing several tracks of sine wave bass tones that were, for the most part, below the pitch threshold of human hearing. the sine waves were designed to randomly rise and fall in frequency and were played by three cd players set at random. the players were connected to speakers aimed at the underside of a prepared grand piano. as the frequency of various bass tones crossed and resonated with the strings of the piano, sympathetic vibrations would occur causing the piano to play arcs of sound rolling up and down the prepared strings. the title mu is a japanese zen term roughly translated to 'nothingness' or 'emptiness'. it does not translate well since it implies that any linguistic expression limits its true meaning. it was chosen as the title for that reason, in that any other title for the installation seemed to color/limit the experience of the piece.

Prepared piano resonated by subharmonic frequencies.

Excerpt