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Attached to the tops of the piano wire
(the tension of which is supplied by the wieght of the bucket, and
is regulated by the amount of water) are small motors, with a thin
cord which strikes the string once for every revolution of the motor's
shaft. A microcontroller, with a custom program then controls the
acceleration/decelleration and overall speed of each motor independently.
The speed of the motors varies widely, from only a few revolutions
per second (simple ticks) to several thousand revolutions per second
(in the audio range, causing complex interferance patterns beetween
the speed of the motor and the resonant frequency of the piano wire).
The buckets themselves serve to amplify and radiate the sounds.
The patterns of the piece are modelled after crickets
and cicadas found in the midwest. Having grown up in Western Pennsylvania,
and lived in the mid-west, these sounds are ever-present in the
summer.
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