By Linda Mahdesian
One could understand Zach Goldberger's skepticism. His cardiologist father asked him to compose music using heartbeats that had been converted into musical notes. At age 19, Zach had already composed and recorded original piano melodies for a CD called "Ivory Wings," released last year. But the skeptic soon became a believer. "At first I thought it would be like picking notes at random and trying to make music out of them, but the melodies coming out of the heartbeats were so easy ... I did more completing than composing," says this sophomore from Newton, Mass. "I felt like I was recreating fossils into skeletons, like a musical paleontologist."
What has resulted from this unique father-son, doctor-musician collaboration is most likely the first effort to use the actual rhythms of the heart as the template for musical composition. Zach Davids, which is the young composer's professional name ("It's shorter and easier to say," he says) was originally asked to compose eight songs as part of a new exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science called "The Dance of Chance: Growing Order Out of Randomness," scheduled to open this month. But as he got more involved with the project, he and his father, Ary Goldberger, M.D., director of electrocardiography at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, thought it could be expanded into an entire album.
Released in mid-October, "Heartsongs" features 15 melodies using the heartbeats of Dr. Golberger's patients. The album has become something of a sensation, with its flowing New Age sound. Reports on National Public Radio and in the Providence Journal-Bulletin and New York Times have generated calls and letters to the producer, Christine Chandler of Ivory Moon Recordings, based in Wellesley, Mass. Interest has spread overseas as well, with a Voice of America broadcast and interviews for the BBC and German public television.
The young Goldberger began composing at age 5, and got serious in his early teens, with idols like Billy Joel, Keith Jarrett, Leonard Bernstein and John Williams. He has taken piano lessons since he was 4 and yet has never taken a composition or music theory class. "I'll probably take one before I graduate - along with a music history course," says the pre-med English major.
Although scientists point to "Heartsongs" as evidence that there is a stronger link between the body's internal workings and music than previously thought, the composer himself resists too much analysis. "I think there's a danger when you rationally deconstruct music," he says. "You have to learn to accept the mystery."
The mystery of this body music will continue. Goldberger plans to work on "Heartsongs II" during the semester break. He is also working on another album of original music which he hopes to complete next summer.
Goldberger, a member of the Class of 1998, has wrestled with the choice between becoming a doctor and pursuing his musical interests full-time, "but I've decided I really want to be a doctor - maybe a surgeon - and I'll have music as my avocation." He hopes to have several albums out before going to medical school, and would love to compose music for a film.