Source: igoro.com
Welcome back, Vassar! With the new school year comes many new and exciting developments for Creative Arts Across Disciplines, including a new theme surrounding hearing/sound/silence. What better way to delve into these new ideas than with our very first Podcast of the Weekend for the ’15-’16 school year?
Society and culture is filled with references to the heart. Whether it serves as a sign of love, life, or death, the heart has always been a traditional symbol and trope used my many visual artists, musicians, writers, etc.
Let’s take a look at music in particular. British and American music across all genres has featured songs with “heart” in the title for decades. Some of these songs speak of heartache, from Elvis Presley’s “Heartache Hotel” to Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achey Breaky Heart” to “Heartbreak 101” by Band of Horses. Other songs have a more optimistic tone, from “My Heart Will Go On” from The Titanic to “Junk of the Heart” by the Kooks to “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” by Elton John and Kiki Dee.
A more interesting phenomenon has occured recently, however, in which songs address the actual beating of the heart. Many songs featuring the word “Heartbeat” in the title have been produced within the last five years alone by artists including Enrique Iglesias, Childish Gambino, the Fray, and Kelly Clarkson.
Whether or not we think these are good songs is subject to personal opinion; however, something that all these songs have in common is their ability to strike a chord in every listener to some level, for everyone has a heart that beats. Additionally, heartbeat is in and of itself a rhythm, therefore its interaction with music is an interesting one. As a result, the concept of a heartbeat is a tangible one that we can both hear and feel.
For Summer Ash, this may perhaps be an understatement.
Ash, an astrophysicist and engineer, was diagnosed with a heart murmur. After 15 years of monitoring her heart, she was advised to get heart surgery, for her aorta was about 3 cm too large. After undergoing a three-hour procedure, Ash’s heart was determined healthy and functioning. This, again, was an understatement.
At home, Ash felt that her heart was fluttering–to the point where she could physically see it through her shirt. She could also hear her heartbeat, and it worried her. After returning to the doctor for a series of tests, the doctor determined that she simply had a very strong heart, and that the scar tissue that resulted from the surgery was likely transmitting the vibrations more, and that she should be back to normal within nine months.
For two years, Ash fought battle after battle with her heart–physically, mentally, and emotionally. Her heartbeat became something that she was constantly aware of, and it was very distracting. For Ash, total silence was never possible. Any emotion she had, from excited to happy, would be too much for her heart to handle. She began to feel haunted by the unknown: would her heart ever return to normal? Over time, Ash developed a very detached relationship with her heart, considering to be “like an alien creature just trying to claw its way out.”
When two years had passed, Ash was due for an echocardiogram. Lying on her side, the heart monitor was placed behind her; yet somehow, by some small fraction of light, Ash saw the reflection of the monitor in her eyeglasses. What she saw in the corner of her lens would forever change the way she viewed her heart and its beat. She began to cry.
Actually seeing her heart beat, while she felt it and heard it, was for Ash a “recognition of its purpose and its work.” For the first time, she felt that her heart’s beat was an actual part of herself. She wanted to tell her heart, “I see you.”
What’s great about this podcast is that, not only does it retell Summer Ash’s story, but it also investigates the reactions of the audience when the story was first delivered live. Many audience members fainted at some point during its delivery–others reported overwhelming emotions–some cried, while others experienced shortness of breath. What is it about a heartbeat–or perhaps, the lack of a heartbeat, and the flatline on a heart monitor–that stirs in us so many emotions? As discussed in the latter half of the podcast, “When you hear someone’s heartbeat, […] in that beat is an entire lifetime. It’s a history of beats, it’s a series of beats that have yet to come.” In many ways, hearing someone’s heartbeat invokes in us an immense amount of empathy. The sound of a heartbeat triggers something in our memory; whether it be feelings of anxiety, love, anger, or fear, our heartbeat is a simple part of human biology that connects us on a fundamental level. It’s no wonder, therefore, that films and television often overlay the sound of a heartbeat during intense scenes, or that many singers and songwriters play open the concept of the heartbeat to connect to listeners.
I encourage you to listen to this podcast in its entirety by clicking on this link and notice how it affects you emotionally. Does your heart rate increase? Do your palms get sweaty? Does your emotional state change at all? Then think for a moment about your heart, how important it is to human life, and see if it changes the way you react to the sound of a beating heart.