Golden Record Curation

Curated 10 

• China, ch’in, “Flowing Streams,” performed by Kuan P’ing-hu. 7:37
• India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30
• Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
• Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20 
• Bulgaria, “Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin,” sung by Valya Balkanska. 4:59
• Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14
• “Johnny B. Goode” written and performed by Chuck Berry. 2:38
• Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57
• Peru, panpipes and drum, collected by Casa de la Cultura, Lima. 0:52
• Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26

Reflection

When curating the tracks on the Golden Record down to only 10 songs, the first two factors I considered were along the same lines as those considered by Carl Sagan and the committee of the original record; place and time. First and foremost, I began by classifying songs into continents, then regions of origin as I thought it was important to represent as many different cultural groups on earth as possible in a limited number of tracks. Next, I thought that it would be important to include songs that ranged in time of composition, as well as include a mix of both traditional or Indigenous and contemporary music to demonstrate the evolution of music through decades and centuries across the planet. 

The last step of my process, which I am not sure that the original curators considered, was to include songs that, rather than showing the differences between groups on earth, demonstrated the range of emotions that unite us. This was the more complicated part of the  process, but when narrowing down my final selections I considered including songs about a whole range of human experience;  love, joy, sadness, war, peace, good, evil etc. so that any extraterrestrial life that might come across the record in the next billion years might be able to have a small taste of the complexity of what it means to be human. 

References

NASA. (n.d.). Voyager – music on the Golden Record. NASA. Retrieved March 4, 2023, from https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/whats-on-the-record/music/

Taylor, D. (Host). (2019, April). Voyager golden record [Audio podcast episode]. In Twenty thousand hertz. Defacto Sound.