Approximating Pi
2007
2-, 4-, 8- or 16- track electroacoustic (also with soprano saxophone) [various versions 8’, 10', 15’, 74’]

Installation at SBCAST Santa Barbara, CA
This piece is based on the converging series pi = 4(1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + 1/9 ···). There are 8.75 convergences per second, in each of which ten frequency multiples of 8¾ Hz are set up, their amplitudes proportional to the first ten digits of the corresponding convergence. For example, for '3.141592654', the ten frequencies' amplitudes are 2^3, 2^1, 2^4, 2^1 ,2^5, 2^9 etc. The convergences make the digits stabilize from left to right - thus the frequencies from bottom to top - with the resultant timbre moving from turbulence to constancy over a maximum of about 14½ years. This 10-minute version forms an extreme truncation of the whole.