heart sounds

Julia and I were trying to decode Harvey’s heart sounds over VC:

Me: I can hear the tones, or I can hear the rhythms–not both at the same time.

Julia: Aren’t you supposed to be a musician?

Touché, Julia.

I once had a descant in a choral arrangement that had a wickedly weird entrance.  I was almost always a half a beat early.  Finally my mentor said (in front of the 90-person choir): “Anna, just conduct the beats at your side.  You’re in the back row, no one’s looking at you.”

So now, in the still of the deserted carrels of Van Pelt, I’m conducting the closures of the atrioventricular and semilunar valves (the “lub” and “dub” of “lub-dub” respectively), while trying to wrap my mind around the accompanying murmurs and gallop rhythms.

Next time, we should remember to not listen at 1.8x, giving Harvey false tachycardia (a resting heart rate over 100 beats/minute).  That might help us too.