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 Back To Ampersand Index PAGE 13 - &hearts (Track 7) - The girl I was dating for most of 2004 asked me to write a song for her and although she was a jazz musician and enjoyed dissonant and atonal music, she said that she wanted me to write her a "normal" sounding song that I could play for her on guitar. I spent a pretty long time writing it (or at least, longer than I spend writing most things, which is usually about 10 or 15 minutes) and I had practiced it a lot so that I could actually play the whole thing for her (since the acoustic guitar is especially difficult to play when my hands are shaking). The next time she was over, I played her the song, but she sort of walked away about half way through. I don't know what age group will be reading this, but the title is a reference to something which most younger people have seen. On the internet, by typing "&hearts" you can make a small heart, like this "&hearts". Often times though, when entering a small heart on somebody else's Myspace/Livejournal/Xanga/Facebook, HTML coding will be disabled, and despite best intentions, all that will result is the text, "&hearts". The track begins with the acoustic guitar performance, which is pretty straightforward, as well as some iZotope Trash static that is feeding off of the 12 string guitar part (which comes in on the second time through the form). You can also hear the 12 string guitar part itself coming through as short little blips. There is a Minimoog playing a melody very quietly, you can hear it here, as well as the two guitar parts later: hearts_intromoog1.mp3. 12 string guitars are particularily difficult to play or keep in tune unless you have one that cost you more than $130 new, so that explains why this one sounds the way it does. The background part is a Mellotron Half-Speed Brass sound, run through an effect which recreates the sound one octave lower. That is then run through an effect which alternates between the octave lower sound and one which is run through an erratic pitch bending sound. I wanted the piece itself to reflect its title and history. During this first time through the form, the tonal acoustic guitar and distorted twelve string are countered with a very quiet atonal brass and woodwind arrangement, which gives the tonal and "nice sounding" composition a sort of bitter aftertaste. Here is the atonal arrangement and 12 string guitar distortion isolated: hearts_atonal1.mp3 For the second time through the form, the 12 string guitar part is added, as well as a celesta and Prophet 5 synth on the left, and an ARP String Ensemble and celesta-sounding synth on the right. You can hear the two pads and two celesta sounds here: hearts_celestachorus1.mp3. All of these sounds are contrasted with the same atonal arrangement, except played by a single organ now. I originally had an oboe playing the melody, but I replaced it with the same synth sound that creates the ambience and beginning melody of The Tundra. You can hear it here: hearts_wcmelody1.mp3 Playing the form twice didn't really make me feel like I had a complete song, so I wrote something to put after it. The acoustic guitar outlines the original feel I intended for the section, but when Paul played this cool rock beat over it, I decided to scrap it and make something new. Here's the isolated rhythm section of the new feel: hearts_rhythm1.mp3 The end section is constructed with a A and B parts. The A part is very short and is repeated a different multiple of times in each incidence, while the B part is longer and more transitional. This is the sequence I chose (indicating the number of times the A section is repeated, each separated by a B section): 2 3 2 1 Here is the background arrangement of the end section: hearts_endchords1.mp3. I chose to mute all of the harmonic instruments for the final single A and B section, so that is why they aren't included. The epilogue for this track consists of piano, harp, celesta, and Mellotron guitar (through a delay) playing the bridge, reharmonized chorus, and final chorus from Soul Partition. On the left is the guitar solo from Halyard. When it switches from the bridge to the reharmonized chorus at 5:50, the bass part (sped up) from &hearts enters. At around 6:10, the epilogue of Soul Partition enters, which comes to full volume at 6:25. At 6:28, the howling sound and reverse acoustic guitar from The Park enters on the left. Here is an August 31, 2004 Version of the track, with a chamberlin oboe instead of the broken synth: hearts_archive1.mp3 Back To Index |