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

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leitmotivic elements include the ticking clock, tiie beating heart, and the opening musical
theme.
Sound Effects. Sound effects play an important role in the soundscore to
heartBEAT. These devices tend to trigger strong associative responses from viewers,
affording them tremendous impact. In heartBEAT. sound effects are presented both in
precise synchronization with visual design (MR shaving, and the robots rolling the large
sphere) and in more loose and subjective ways. For example, the work opens witii a
nineteen-second sound effects montage (crickets, the car hom, a jet airplane landing, an
orchestra tuning up) which swells over a black screen. Though there is a lack of visual
content, attention is aroused in both senses as the viewer looks intently at the screen,
hearing a complex sound sequence but seeing nothing. One is left to provide any number
of possible meanings.
At times, the use of naturalistic sound effects tends to place heartBEAT
momentarily in a frame of reference closely aligned with everyday life. Over the final
credit roll, sound effects convey the wordless narrative of MR waking in the moming,
eating breakfast, getting in the car and driving to work. The viewer leaves the aesthetic
experience of the work by reading information about the piece and listening to a sequence
of namral, "real life" sounds.
Musical Style
The score to heartBEAT is programmatic in form, working closely v,i\h dramatic
action and tone. As with the visual design, the musical style of heartBEAT is eclectic,
drawing from a wide range of historic and ethnic forms. For example, a detuned organ
playing a passage in the Phrygian mode accompanies the stylized visual images of St.
Sebastian and Venus, while a dark, Stravinsky-like orchestral texture accompanies the
bubble gum sequence in Mall Performance One. A samba underscores Mall Performance
Three, while footstep patterns of the samba dance punctuate the visual flow. Rock music
textures accompany the Star Fantasy, while a country fiddle plays under the MR and MS
dance sequence. During the underwear scene and the elevator sequence, one hears
soundscores to television advertisements.
heartBEAT makes use of a wide variety of acoustic as well as electronically
produced sounds. Digital sampUng provides a primary aesthetic and structiu^al resource
of the work, and permeates the duration of the score. Characteristic examples appear in
the Flying Dance, where a sampled slide whistie creates the unusual ethnic flute effect. In
the bath sequence of MS, and during the Spanish Bride scene, samples of a female voice
provide a critical synaesthetic element.