Presented as part of the 2025 Northern Arizona Book Festival, this performance is part of Lenin Salcedo Jr.'s NAU Honors Capstone (under the mentorship of Rob Wallace). Musical improvisation has been at the forefront of contemporary musical techniques. Nevertheless, improvisation dates back to earlier forms, including various musical spiritual practices that promote learning and healing. Despite studies proving improvisation as a property of contingency in life, many scholars still relate improvisation to “randomness,” “unpredictability,” and “organized chaos.” However, the scientific study of “organized chaos,” Chaology, argues that chaos is deterministic (or relies on initial conditions). This project aimed to analyze the relationship between deterministic chaos and musical improvisation, with the title "The Immeasurable Equation" riffing on Sun Ra's phrase and philosophy that inspired the synthesis of scientific theory and artistic expression.
Through extensive research in improvisation, chaology, and philosophy, it was determined that improvisational performances are chaotic and that noise and humans' perception of noise in any form provide an intrinsic connection between individuals and the universe around them. This connection results in a fundamental understanding of the universe’s natural structure without substantial mathematical or scientific comprehension. Musicians, in turn, become scientists themselves, using musical improvisation and other art forms to connect with and study nature to the fullest.This performance will take you on a journey through the use of noise for existential understanding, from the prayers of African drummers to the free improvisation jazz movements of the mid-twentieth century. By the end of the show, the audience will see how noise connects us with the natural universe, allowing us to understand the universe and embrace its chaos without needing equations. Here, the immeasurable equation is that connection, an understanding of the universe not by laws or codes but by the sheer fact that we exist and feel its vibrations. This music is our emotional response to those vibrations, and that response is the one we all understand.