THE SOUNDSCORE TO heartBEAT: A NARRATIVE-FORM MUSIC ...

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Before this recitation ends, the sound of someone knocking loudly on a pane of glass is
followed by the sound of a car crash, as the graphic "WINDOWS WTTHOUT PAINS" is
superimposed. These montages of sound and image do not suggest one particular
meaning or experience, but attempt to present constellations of possible meanings.
The Role of Sound
Television Opera
A significant aesthetic dimension of heartBEAT is the role sound plays in the work.
Rather than serving in an incidental, background role, sound works dynamically with
visual content and style, communicating not only mood and tone, but the pace of the
dramatic action as well. In this respect, heartBEAT resembles opera. In opera, music is
designed to communicate a sung (and often spoken) text, while reinforcing the dramatic
mood and action as well as the symbolic content of the libretto. In heartBEAT. music is
augmented with natural, non-musical sounds and electronically processed speech. This
texture is then combined with sequences of visual images which suggest numerous
musico-dramatic dimensions. Though heartBEAT does not sound or look like traditional
manifestations of opera, the ontological similarities suggest that it may be regarded not
only as a narrative-form music video, but as a television opera as well.
Synaesthetic Elements
The careful coordination of auditory, visual and conceptual design constitutes a
central aesthetic feature of heartBEAT. The synchronization of these elements is
accomplished through a wide variety of structural techniques.
Sound and Visual Edits. Different musical effects were created to reinforce specific
editing techniques. There are musical gestures designed to work with quick edits (the
orchestral hits in Mall Performance One), slow dissolves (the rich synthesizer textures in
the St. SebastianA^enus section), smears (digital effects beneath the fiddle tune as MR and
MS dance), wipes (the record scratch sound during the transition from the Office Dance to
the Star Fantasy), and chromakey effects (the sound montage behind the Star Fantasy).
Leitmotives. heartBEAT incorporates a wide array of acoustic and electronic
sounds used in a leitmotivic fashion, reinforcing the repetition of visual, literary, or
conceptual elements. The most important of these is the "Think" motive, symbolized by
the sound of an automobile hom. This motive appears eleven times in a variety of
contexts. The horn is preceded by a drum roll in the opening of each of the four
"Thoughts," and is heard whenever the word is spoken or presented as a graphic. Other