Maxwell's Equations

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(Note: Extended techniques present in this work are not accurately reflected in the audio file linked above. If you would like to produce a recording of this work, please reach out!)
 
Maxwell’s Equations is a suite in four movements for solo timpani, a character suite inspired by the governing equations of electromagnetism, named after the physicist James Clerk Maxwell. These equations, already discovered and characterized by various physicists whom the individual equations are named after, were first organized into a symmetric set of differential equations by Maxwell to show that light waves are electromagnetic in nature. In this work, extended techniques for timpani are devised by turning the applications of each equation in the study of physics into puns, continuing a trend in my work of character music inspired by math and physics concepts. The four
movements are as follows:
I. Gauss’s Law (Surfaces): This equation relates electric charge to the flow of electricity through a surface surrounding the charge. Based on the notion of “surfaces”, this movement is a lively rondo which explores alternative playing surfaces on the timpani, such as the rim and shell, and the mallets themselves.
II. ∇ ∙ B = 0 (An Absence): This equation describes the impossibility of magnetic monopoles (i. e. cutting a magnet in half produces two magnets, not two halves of one magnet). This movement is thus played with the absence of mallets, the drums treated like pitched hand drums. The music is slow and folk-like in nature.
III. Ampere’s* Law (Loops): This equation (modified by Maxwell in his formulation, hence the asterisk) relates electric current around a loop to the associated magnetic field, giving a movement consisting of a single looped measure, played nineteen times with different (sometimes theatrical) techniques throughout.
IV. Faraday’s Law (of Induction): This equation describes the physical phenomenon on which electromagnetic inductors operate: a moving magnetic field induces an electric field which in turn changes the direction of the magnetic field. This movement is based on two alternative meanings of the word “induction”: the notion of beat induction, by which humans hear pulse, is realized in instructing the performer to “dut” a cross-rhythm while playing which eventually becomes the new pulse after a metric modulation, and the use of music to induce emotions in its listeners is realized through a repeated series of dramatic, cinematic chords, always with two of the four drums held as common tones from one chord to the next while the other two drums change pitch.