The Idea
I started having heart issues as far back as 2005, and one of the first tests they did was an echocardiogram, basically an ultrasound of my heart. Throughout most of the test, there was nothing to see or hear. But then to my surprise, I was treated to the sounds of blood rushing through my heart valves, and each valve had a delightfully different sound from all the others. I immediately had the idea to somehow use the sound in a song. Okay, lots of my ideas never get past that stage. I have buckets of great ideas that never get out of the bucket. For example, when road maps made their first appearance on a computer, I thought it would be a great thing to be able to input the locations of the endpoints of a trip, and have the computer analyze all the different possible routes and find the best route. But at the time, I was lacking a database of all the roads and intersections, so into the bucket that one went. Just a few years later, there were lots of mapping services all happy to do exactly what I had envisioned, and even more. Another great idea came about because thick paperback books hurt my thumb from holding them open. How about a nice electronic book reader? This one was a really good idea, so I consulted our consultant at Gulfstream for all things electrical, Stu Law. At the time, early 1990s, the components just weren’t available to make a compact reader, and a fat reader was not much better than what I had. Bucket. Not long after that, you could buy a Kindle reader from a place called Amazon, who incidentally would be happy to sell you the books to go with it. So, I never really expected the heart valve music idea to climb out of the bucket, and for more than 20 years, it didn’t.
And Then It Did
In February of this year, my cardiologist decided he wanted to see a new echocardiogram to compare with the one from last year to track my progress. This time, I went in armed with real technology, my iPhone and the Voice Memos app that it came with. High tech, compared with 20+ years ago. I asked the ultrasound technician if it would be okay if I recorded the sounds of the valves. Sure, she said, but why would you want to do that? I told her, and she thought that might be an interesting thing to do. Then she totally surprised me by what she said next. “I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and nobody’s ever asked me that before.” Really? I mean, this is NASHVILLE people, not some out of touch with the music industry town in someplace like South Dakota. No matter, I had her official okey dokey, and when the valves showed up, I recorded the sounds. Still not having the means to do anything with it, at least I had the recordings of the valve sounds.
Enter Suno AI
Last summer, my songwriting buddy Ken Harrell introduced me to Suno AI, a web application that can create songs. And that includes songs with lyrics and instrumentals, too. I began experimenting with Suno AI using the songs that Ken and I had written together. Results! Pretty darn good results, too. I worked my way through our entire catalog, about 20 songs. Done. Okay, now what? As I was going through endless photos to select the ones to go in my book, I ran across the one of me rocking in my little rocker, sound asleep while my Mom’s string quartet practiced. There’s an idea! No, I can take a nap anytime and anywhere. Why not reinvision her string quartet, just as a virtual band. Splendid! And thus was born The Swanks. One thing followed another, and we got Baroquen Record (a Baroque string ensemble), The Four Kings (jazz band), Tin Can Alley (steel drum band), The Queens of Brass, and soon to be added, The Aces of Country. That’s a lot of bands with a lot of different types of music, not to mention the crossovers, a trumpet here, a steel drum there, or a harpsichord somewhere else. What could possibly be next? Now let me see, where’s my bucket? Well, lookee here, there appears to be just one idea left in my bucket, which is good because I’m retired now. Tick, tock. I have all of the technology elements at my disposal, so why not? I’m gonna make music out of the sound of blood rushing through my heart valves. Okay, I’m starting out small, and making percussion. Music, maybe later!
My Heart Belongs To Sandy
I know that now you are just dying to find out what the first song is that has heart valve sounds incorporated into the song. “My Heart Belongs To Sandy”, what else could it possibly be? And, of course, it really does. Now, take a closer look at those words “first song”. Out of curiosity, I wanted to know if this had ever been done before. Wouldn’t it be cool if nobody had ever done it? So I carefully framed the question and posed it to MS Copilot, asking it to research the project. And the results were that it could find no documentation indicating that this has ever been accomplihed before now. So that’s my story, I finally accomplished something that apparently, no one else has ever done. And that’s a nice place to end this tale.
Till next time!
Van
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