Keating_540_Voyager Play List
I listened for humanity, things that spoke to me about the joys, sorrows, loves and losses of being human. I wanted each piece to offer a distinct joy and story, an intelligence of what it meant to be human and gifted with a soul. I was distraught that I would not be able to curate the 27 choices down to 10, but they came together perfectly for me, without angst. It is an unusual experience for me to not be tormented by choice; decision-making is not something I enjoy. It invariably suggests to me that I am losing out on one thing in order to enjoy some thing else. I am always deeply aware of opportunity costs, and no matter the pleasure, I wonder, what if I’d wandered the other road?
This unwillingness to choose reflects even in my foods where I love elaborate configurations of food rather than a single choice. I grew up on turkey dinners complete with 8 or 10 accompanying dishes, but much prefer turducken with at least 3 stuffings and then 8 or 10 accompaniments and several sauces . . . but I digress . . . although now I am desperate for Sailor’s Duff and Foamy Stuff, a fabulously rich steamed dessert I make for very special occasions . . . and yes, with both a salted caramel and cream-based sauce. To be fair, I learned that strategy when I visited New Orleans, where every dish comes with at least 2 sauces . . . and is, hands down, the place of the world’s best food . . . but I’m wandering again . . .
I listened for beauty and diversity—I wanted a cacophony of male, female, string, wind, solo, choral, east and west. I think I got it. I loved that my choices naturally worked out by beginning with the virginal tune of a sweet girl and ended with the solitary cry of the Japanese flute. What a beautiful assignment.
This piece is so simple. A young girl’s wedding song, the female’s voice speaks of longing, loss, fear and the hope. She is apparently only known as the young girl of Huancavelica. I love that she is not a famous singer, and is apparently just a young girl of about 13 years old. It’s also the shortest piece in the entire collection. Her voice, so young and innocent, still harbours echoes of pain and loss yet to come.
I loved loved loved the a cappella male voices, voices used to hold the pedal drone were magnificent, the harmonies—I held my breath as they sang; the sense of the call that is being made; tapering to the solitary voice at end—sad, longing (I understand it is a drinking song in preparation for battle)—the musical motifs were full of beauty.
What is there to say to the wild, visceral call of the Navajo into the night? This song so brilliantly visualizes these people speaking to the earth and their home, calling to Gaia for wisdom and healing. It reminded me of when I drove through Montana and Wyoming a few years ago and listened to the native radio channels the whole time. I barely slept. The music awakened parts of me that had been sleeping a long time and I was alert and alive in ways that are difficult to describe.
India will soon be the most populous country in world. This male singer creates an ancient call to the heart and the heat. The song shimmers just as that hot country sea shimmers and ripples. The music is haunting, heart wrenching, uniquely theirs and filled with a wild grief and voices from the past. Its oft-changing rhythms and beats call out its ancient mysteries. Beautiful.
This piece begins as a feral instrumental from the bowels of the earth before a female voice, Valya Mladenova Balkanska, calls back. Her voice sent shivers down my spine, and the play between her vocals and the instrument was spectacular. This piece beat out the Azerbaijan bag pipes—soft sultry sound—quite sorrowful; ancient music—but straight instrumental and not quite as moving. This singer commands you to listen. You can see her high in the mountains calling to her people; spell binding. I find it hard to articulate how a human voice and musical instrument can cry out and call to some deep inner place of my being; I could hardly breathe during this piece, it held me, gripped me . . . took me to my knees . . .
6. El Cascabel-Lorenzo Barcelata & the Mari
You can smell the tequila and hear the raucous laughter and you must stand and stomp your feet and clap your hands to this music . . . its rich Mexican horns fill you with the love of life and the thrill of a sweaty night dancing on the streets of Mexico city, click your heels and howl to the moon. This song took me right back to time I spent in Costa Rica. Of course.
Night by the river It was a full moon, one of those where men proposition and paramours do not say no but must withdraw their limp betrayals later under stale sunlight, a Samson defeat, a night where the moist heat hot music beat of summer takes you down to the river and secret rites of moon beam shot cunts sneak riot, wet cool now slippery the soccer player dreams breasts gently dripping drooping swaying light now dark sensuous succulents he reaches now falls reaches now falls his strength unmatched to the luscious bush under the moonlight by the water rippling sighing sweating wanting punctuation to pause the pleasure but Virginia Woolf plays semi-colons not periods the danger of a room of one’s own M. Keating
7. Flowing Streams – China
The zither is such a spectacular instrument and so quintessentially Chinese . . . equally proud, noble, austere, subtle, complex . . . also, as the only Chinese excerpt, it had to be included; again, the second most populous people on the planet deserved representation. At about 4:40 you can hear the stream rippling over shallows; spectacular, and the scaling that begins with a single note and builds to a blur is sensational.
8. Beethoven’s 5th– for the west
It is the raw power of this piece that earns it a place beyond the stars. Its energy and relentless attack keep the listener plastered in place; the triumph of the ending fairly screams to our alien listeners: “How Glorious! WE! WERE!” But I am torn, still: should it have been the 9th? I am listening to it now, Chicago Orchestra, spine tingling . . .
9. Cranes in their nest-Japan (Shakuhachi)—
I had to include this piece. It was the call of a crane, a deceptively simple instrumental; its singular grace and beauty, so pure, its stillness was perfectly positioned, following Beethoven’s overwhelming power, this subtle, clear call straight to the soul, of sorrow, loss, flight, and the inner peace that Buddhism represents, the eternal loneliness of the maitri warrior . . .
10. Greetings from Earth
After nine musical pieces, it seemed an appropriate ending to this fabulous collection of sound. Our music showed them our hearts; our words give them our names. To the other lonely wanderers a billion years in the future: This was us.
And if you were wondering what the odds really are of other intelligent life out there, it looks like 36 is the number in our galaxy . . . https://getpocket.com/explore/item/scientists-say-most-likely-number-of-contactable-alien-civilisations-is-36?utm_source=pocket-newtab