I prefer to refer to ‘beats’ as Pulsations, the consistent thing that gives sound art a living/breathing force. I often speak about organicism in music, and truly, sound can be organic without any pulsation at all, but this is the organicism of the living and stationary, or the irregular—like waves, and plants, and winds, and even space[time].
However, the bleeding life, which is to say, that which pulsates in regular intervals, such as the beating heart, the expanding and contracting lungs, or even footsteps.
This sort of differentiation can be made in different types of sound art. In my opera, Folklore City, the organic development of the story in terms of emotional development remains quite Wagnerian—slow and natural. However the use of electronics is artificial, as well as the lack of an orchestra. The pulsations used throughout the work are the middle-ground, a sort of homunculus, blending the artificial with the organic. These pulsations do not differ from dancing pulsations, and although this is one of my few works not rooted in dance, the pulsations inspire dance, as dance is something generated only by bleeding life.