Stress Fractures explores five types of stress: compression, tension, torsion, bending, and shear, by expanding the Harmonic Fluctuation diagram outlined in Hindemith’s Unterweisung im Tonsatz to include microtonal pitch spaces and drawing inspiration from Newton’s concepts on loss of energy and conservation of momentum for the rhythmic underpinnings, where increased harmonic dissonances directly correspond to the rebounding consonances via agogic stress, dynamics, and speed. The works’ form is dependent on boundaries made by broad strumming gestures and trills.
 
Though scientific in its influences and construction, Stress Fractures should not be divorced of the psychological definition of stress.