With it’s acoustic manifestations of non-existing objects “virtual string” musically describes the border between an abstract and concrete form of sound perception. The software used for this piece (“vstring”) offers a graphical interface to a physical model of a string. Although this was never intended to be a compositional tool, the very intuitive approach to the different parameters of the model was my inspiration to make a piece with it. In vstring, several software sliders control the string tension, stiffness or damping, the type and position of the string’s excitation and the frequency response and position of the virtual pickup placed upon it. As only one static configuration could be saved in an audio file, every transition had to be accomplished with many successive and slightly varying slider positions, thus utilizing a technique reminiscent of the animation of a cartoon.

(From Chris Chafe, Case Studies of Physical Models in Music Composition, p. 3)