Monthly Archives: October 2023

1977 must have been a time of great hope and wonder to send into the cosmos artifacts of our human culture in hope that it one day may be discovered.  Somehow, I feel that people today may recognize that mathematically it is nearly impossible that extraterrestrial life doesn’t exist, and yet we might be too cynical to undertake such an endeavor today.  NASA was an organization at the time with the audacity or pure curiosity to undertake such a task.  One of those artifacts ‘on board’ was to no surprise music.  How would you go about selecting 27, or even just 10 of the worlds ‘greatest hits’?  What best represents humanity?  Is the sophistication of a piece, the emotions that it stimulates?  NASA scientists knew that whatever beings might find this in some distant place in the future may not even have the ability to hear, and so, they also considered things like the mathematical resonance of a piece.  Perhaps with today’s technology we would not have to limit it to a 27-track piece, and we could overwhelm the aliens with choice much as we are today.  Indeed, we take the anthropocentric view that the aliens would be most intrigued with our human musical expressions, but it is exactly this assumption that is challenged in Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction work Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home.  In it, a sophisticated alien intelligence visits earth that humans cannot communication with.  People realize that the aliens are trying to communicate with the whales, which from discovering voyager they determined to be the most sophisticated life on earth.  Note that the real Voyager did include various sounds of nature and animals.  In that fictional future whales had already been extinct for some time, no doubt at the hands of man, much to the alien’s chagrin.  The starship Enterprise must then travel back in time to save the whales, in order to save humanity.  This is a fanciful story, but one that intrigued the imagination of many at the time to place importance on the welfare of such majestic beings on the earth.  This important narrative of valuing planetary life interestingly was contributed in part to, us putting hope in the cosmos.

Back to the music section of the archives sent into deep space on that hopeful mission, the question posed in this task is, could you narrow 27 pieces down to 10 and can you explain why you would make those choices?  Full disclosure I am no musician although, like most humans, I do have a great appreciation for ‘good’ music.  But what is good?  In all honesty, none of the 27 would have even made my list, and I dare say that list today would be much different.  I mean, Johnny Be Good?  I guess you had to be there to appreciate it fully?  The era of classical music for example is so incredibly powerful, there are pieces that stir me so deeply it is undeniable.  I was saddened to see none of my favorites made NASA’s list.  Going through the list in a painful exercise to narrow down and cut out so many beautiful pieces made me realize how subjective the process was for me.  Even for the great scientific minds at NASA when it comes to selecting musical beauty, surely much must be in the ear of the beholder.  But I digress, I will do my best however to narrow down 27 to the 10 of those that I think would best represent our species!

See if you agree ~ or not!

For my reader’s reference, I will give you the full list, and then I will highlight in green the 10 I chose with a brief note as to why.  For your convenience each piece is linked to the YouTube track.  Enjoy!

Music From Earth

The following music was included on the Voyager record.

1.

• Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. First Movement, Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, conductor. 4:40
• Yes, Bach does belong on my list of the greatest musical geniuses of all time. This piece selected is not my favourites, the two pieces of his I appreciate most that sends my mind into another world would be Orchestral Suites No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068  and Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major BWV1007 – Mov. 1-3/6 Due to Bach’s sheer mastery of such a range of instruments and harmony, I would leave in my top 10 this piece by Bach even though I don’t believe it is his best piece.  As a side note, genius he may be and a spot on the list he should have, however, when selecting 27 pieces to represent humanity, I think it is clearly not representative to have Bach featured three times.  Therefore, I have not selected the other two in my top 10.

2.

• Java, court gamelan, “Kinds of Flowers,” recorded by Robert Brown. 4:43
• Yes.  Maybe.  I can’t decide if I love this or not.  There is something deep and almost religious about it.  Having said that, I am not sure how it makes me feel or whether I would ever listen to it of my own volition.  It reminds me of the cultural diversity on earth and how I cannot relate it to anything in my own life.  It is so interesting however, that yes, I would include it.

• Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
• Zaire, Pygmy girls’ initiation song, recorded by Colin Turnbull. 0:56

3.

• Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26
• Yes.  The Australian Aboriginals are one of the oldest living cultures on earth.  They also have a very interesting relationship with the dream world.  The digeridoo is also one of the hardest instruments on earth to play, requiring circular breathing which I find incredible.  I wish there was more of it on this track.

4.

• Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14
• Yes.  The complexity that roles out in this piece along with its exciting tone and pace give it a certain pizzazz that perhaps no other track on this list does.  The plethora of instruments along with the beautiful signing displays how we can integrate ourselves with the instruments of our creation.

• “Johnny B. Goode,” written and performed by Chuck Berry. 2:38
• New Guinea, men’s house song, recorded by Robert MacLennan. 1:20

5.

• Japan, shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (“Crane’s Nest,”) performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51
• Yes.  Admittedly my biased does come into play here.  Having lived in Japan, hearing the shakuhachi sends me to a meditative Zen feeling.  I think the beauty of this piece, like so much of man’s art, it is an ode to nature.  It is an imitation of the beauty we see in the natural world, which is, in a sense what we would want to convey to an alien species about our love for our planet.
• Bach, “Gavotte en rondeaux” from the Partita No. 3 in E major for Violin, performed by Arthur Grumiaux. 2:55

6.

• Mozart, The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor. 2:55
• Yes.  This masterpiece is also a wonderful representation of the vocal capabilities of the human voice.

7.

• Georgian S.S.R., chorus, “Tchakrulo,” collected by Radio Moscow. 2:18
• Yes.  The Georgian choir is almost a religious experience to listen to.   The experience as above with the Zaire Pygmy Girl, is an outstanding example of people singing in unison.  To me the Pygmy Girl didn’t quite make my cut.  It is a shame because I feel there are so many incredible and moving pieces out of Africa, I just didn’t find them on this list of 27.

• Peru, panpipes and drum, collected by Casa de la Cultura, Lima. 0:52
• “Melancholy Blues,” performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05
• Azerbaijan S.S.R., bagpipes, recorded by Radio Moscow. 2:30
• Stravinsky, Rite of Spring, Sacrificial Dance, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Igor Stravinsky, conductor. 4:35
• Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. Glenn Gould, piano. 4:48

8.

• Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
• Yes.  To me, this is not solely a happy piece, rather it speaks to the peaks and valleys of the human experience.  Again, it may not have made my personal list, but is it a masterpiece?  Absolutely.

• Bulgaria, “Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin,” sung by Valya Balkanska. 4:59
• Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57
• Holborne, Paueans, Galliards, Almains and Other Short Aeirs, “The Fairie Round,” performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London. 1:17
• Solomon Islands, panpipes, collected by the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service. 1:12
• Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38

9.

• China, ch’in, “Flowing Streams,” performed by Kuan P’ing-hu. 7:37
• Yes.  I believe the instrument used is a The guqin.  Someone please correct me if I am wrong.  It is one of the Chinese stringed instruments.  The sound is so incredible it absolutely tells a story.  The NASA scientist saw fit for it to take up over seven minutes of track and presumably they were constrained by space. There are many fantastic guqin pieces to choose from, but I do agree this is a powerful piece and absolutely belongs in the 27 and certainly in my 10.

10.

• India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30
• Yes.  Without even understanding the lyrics, this is a stirring piece. Indian music was coming into mainstream appreciation in the late 60s and early 1970s influencing bands such as the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, so it is not entirely surprising to hear this genre of traditional music.  Reading what people have commented about the lyrics of this of this song, it is about a girl coming of age and going out into the world.  How fitting for Voyager, itself is a creation of man that has come to a point in technology when it can be sent out into the unknown with great expectations and apprehension.

• “Dark Was the Night,” written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson. 3:15
• Beethoven, String Quartet No. 13 in B flat, Opus 130, Cavatina, performed by Budapest String Quartet. 6:37

This task, Mode Bending, is a continuation of sorts from Task 1 ~ ‘What’s In Your Bag?’.

Since the mid 1990 s there has been discussion of multiliteracies and multimodal expressions of literary understanding and use.  Education must adapt.  The challenge for Task 7 was to take an existing work (Task 1) and ‘bend’ it into another form of expressing the concept by changing the mode in which it is represented.  Therefore, our challenge was to change from a visual to audio.  I wasn’t quite sure with what medium I might express this.  Through the inspiration of my classmates, I decided that the Genially platform might provide an interesting medium through which I could bend this photo into an oral presentation. One of the questions in Task 1 was to ponder what an archeologist from the future might make of the artifacts carried in your bag.  I chose to use this idea as an angle to create my new audio-visual mode of meaning presented here in Task 7.  In my hypothetical future in which a teacher of a 21^st century history class is presenting the archeological artifact.  I try to use an impersonal (as much as that may be possible) view from ‘30,000 feet’ of what our modes of literacy and technology might look like from a future in which technology has made obsolete the things we carry today.  In conclusion, in the ‘assignment’ for homework to said students (in the future) I try to portray the idea that the medium of interaction, the tools of analysis and the mode of presentation might all be different depending on emergent technologies we see today and how they might be used in the future.

In the image below, click first on the top centre ‘question mark’ icon, then each item and finally at bottom centre, the homework assignment to hear an audio clip.  As a note of disclosure, this commentary from a hypothetical future is meant to be in jest, don’t be offended if you disagree with any commentary or take on this piece of fiction as it is meant to be humourous.  I hope you enjoy and feel free to comment.

I started with a title which I knew to be simple for most people familiar with this story to figure out.  I wanted it to be an easy one for people to get so that they could reflect on it from a place of familiarity.  For this reason, I chose a work that is easily relatable to imagery.  What surprised me in this exercise is how brief it could be, which could be incredibly advantageous.  Furthermore, even without someone knowing this fable people in many cultures might be able to grasp the meaning quickly.  The exception perhaps was for the limited way in which I had to depict the types of houses, for that I leaned on an image relying on the sound of the English word, which is ‘cheating’ a bit in that sense.  For a simple fable such as this, imagery is extremely effective.  Where the ideographic symbols starts to come apart is when we go deeper in expressing nuances, detail, and complex concepts.  As we’ve seen throughout the readings in the development of written languages the ability to be able to break down words into basic building blocks is important to build up complexity into meaning.  Symbols, while efficient for instantly conveying a whole meaning is however inevitably ineffective building out and pointing to specific complexities.  The last book I read for example, in between my two MET courses, was Musashi, an old favourite.  The thought of trying to summarize any given page of that book in emojis surely would be an injustice.

TASK 4: Manual Scripts and Potato Printing

Photo credit:  Richard Payne, taken at the Burnaby Village Museum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine

Part one of this week’s task is to write a diary entry, reflection, short story, or a poem to get you thinking about the process of manual writing, which so many of us now seldom do.  I chose to write a letter to my daughter in the future trying to convince her to buy a house.

I type, a lot, probably averaging 4 to 5 hours every weekday.  The only time I ever write by hand in the last few years is to sign my name.  Although this writing task wasn’t ‘difficult’ it was frustrating to me how rusty my handwriting skills have become and it also reminded me of how different the thought process is.  I did find myself very slow to actually start, but then once I committed pen to paper, I let it flow (for better or for worse).  My handwritten sample was completely unedited.  The times when I started to write something wrong I just ‘wrote over’ it.  I used pen and paper and quite frankly, forgot just how unforgiving of a medium it is.  Sacrificing neatness and accuracy I rushed to write to try to let my thoughts flow.  Had I been wanting to edit this, I would have gone over it with a red pen, made notes and re-written it.

When writing with pen and paper it kind of forces you to keep the thought process going forcing you to get more immersed in it.  The expression through the handwriting feels personal.  In many ways, to me it also feels less professional.  Although I did all my elementary and secondary schooling in handwriting, almost never using a computer, university was the opposite.  And now work as well is all on the computer.  The language model AI built into the software is a constant aid, fixing spelling errors, offering suggestions for more concise language, and even translating.  You can always go back and edit, hyperlink references and copy and paste to your heart’s desire.  While acknowledging this superior medium of putting thought to text, somehow there is still a skillset and almost an artform to handwriting that is a truly worthwhile pursuit in terms of honing your thoughts.  One of my colleagues journals, I think it is a wonderful habit, I need to get over the embarrassment of my own writing and just do it.

Part two of this week’s task was to challenge making your own type setting in a fun and easy way, with potatoes!

Since my letter was about a house, I decided to make my five-letter word ‘HOUSE’.

The S ended up being blue as I wanted to signify the mistake I made in carving out the first one backwards.  Other than that, it went well, it was a very enjoyable process and one that of course would improve with every try.  The most challenging aspect is consistently cutting around curves.  It was not time consuming, save for the fact that I involved my children, so it ended up being a larger painting adventure…

The biggest take away for me from this task, especially right after handwriting a letter was that text as language is a series of components we use as tools to build larger concepts.  The closest feeling, I have ever had to this prior to this exercise perhaps would be doing calligraphy, paying attention to the detail of every letter.  Taking the time to carve out each letter really felt separated from the ideas that they could later represent.  It is like the worker in a factory making a widget component that will be some part of an unknown bigger mechanism.  All you know is your specs, you don’t have to know how the machine will work.  So too is it for us to build our toolbox of text language.  First, we must learn the basic components and build up from there.  Like so many skills, once we become experts, we forget the basic components as the broader skill becomes second nature.  It is always a beneficial reflection to break something back down to the basics, either when trying to hone a skill or to solve a problem.  It is an interesting and worthwhile practice too, to try this with the text of your written language.