Audiobooks.  Do they really count as reading?

This discussion is presented (of course) in audio form.

The audio file reviews: the history of audiobooks; reviews primary research regarding the use of audiobooks by a variety of groups; and discusses the narrow question, if audiobooks  can successfully replace traditional books in certain high school classes?

References cited in the audio file and used in the research of this podcast are set out below.  The references are annotated to provide context to the author and a brief summary of the import or content of each reference.

References [with annotations]

Baskin, B. H., & Harris, K. (1995). Heard any good books lately? The case for audiobooks in the secondary classroom. Journal of Reading, 38(5), 372-376. [Discusses the value of audiobooks in classrooms including:  better understanding of stories in exotic locales, the use of trained actors for accents, phrasing and emphasis and ability to understand new dialects more easily].

CBC Radio, (2017, January 5).  How the audiobook went from a resource for the blind to a popular form of story telling. CBC.  http://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/schedule-for-thursday-january-5-2017-1.3919997/how-the-audiobook-went-from-a-resource-for-the-blind-to-a-popular-form-of-storytelling-1.3920008.  [The CBC article reviews the book by Matthew Rubery entitled The Untold Story of the Talking book].

Chang, A. C. S. (2011). The Effect of Reading While Listening to Audiobooks: Listening Fluency and Vocabulary Gain. Asian Journal of English Language Teaching, 21.  https://www.dyslexicadvantage.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Reading-While-Listening.pdf.  [Primary research study that found reading while listening for ESL students results in improved fluency and vocabulary].

Dahl, M. (2016, August 10).  To your brain, listening to a book is pretty much the same as reading it.  . https://www.thecut.com/2016/08/listening-to-a-book-instead-of-reading-isnt-cheating.html.  [The article cites Daniel Willingham (see below) who surmises that “audiobooks are not cheating”).  Discusses decoding and comprehension.]

Daniel, D. B., & Woody, W. D. (2010). They Hear, but Do Not Listen: Retention for Podcasted Material in a Classroom Context. Teaching of Psychology, 37(3), 199–203. https://doi.org/10.1080/00986283.2010.488542https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/doi/abs/10.1080/00986283.2010.488542 [Peer reviewed primary research study.  The conclusion was that students using podcasts did significantly worse on a quiz immediately after the reading/listening].

Edison, T. (1927, August 12).  “Mary had a little lamb”.  https://archive.org/details/EDIS-SCD-02#:~:text=Mary%20had%20a%20little%20lamb%20Spoken%20by%3A%20Thomas,Jersey%20Recording%20taken%20from%20Movietone%20Production%20news%20film. [Thomas Edison demonstrates how in 1877 he made the first record on tin foil.  The original 1877 recording was not saved].

Frey, N., & Fisher, D. (2006). ‘You Got More of These?  Re-engaging Adolescent Readers and Writers with Meaningful Texts. RHI: An Annual Magazine for Educators, 1(1), 7-12.

Heid, M. (2018, September 6).  “Are audiobooks as good for you as reading?  Here’s what experts say.  Time.com.  https://time.com/5388681/audiobooks-reading-books/ [Cites the research study by Rogowsy et al (2016)].

Marchetti, E., & Valente, A. (2018). Interactivity and multimodality in language learning: the untapped potential of audiobooks. Universal Access in the Information Society, 17(2), 257-274.  https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/content/pdf/10.1007/s10209-017-0549-5.pdf.  [Peer reviewed primary research.  Next step thinking about the integration of audiobooks into the classroom including how audiobooks can be made into an interactive medium – adding to the text for learning purposes].

Moore, J., & Cahill, M. (2016). Audiobooks: Legitimate” Reading” Material for Adolescents?. School Library Research, 19. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1120838.pdf [Peer reviewed secondary research article that considers the use of audiobooks by teens with learning disabilities and teens with typical patterns of development.].

Rego Barry, R. (2016, November 16).  Is audio really the future of the book?  JSTOR Daily.  https://daily.jstor.org/the-future-of-the-book-is-audio/.  [This article reviews Rubery’s book (see below) and comments on Wolfson’s 2008 observations on how audiobooks teach critical listening, improve vocabulary, increase comprehension and appreciation of the written words, especially for “reluctant readers – including ESL’ and those with visual impairments].

Rogowsky, B. A., Calhoun, B. M., & Tallal, P. (2016). Does modality matter? The effects of reading, listening, and dual modality on comprehension. SAGE Open, 6(3), 2158244016669550.  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244016669550.  [Peer reviewed primary research study regarding the affect on comprehension of the input modality – audiobook, e-book or dual modality (listening while reading)].

Rubery, M. (2016). The untold story of the talking book. Harvard University Press. [Rubery is Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary School of London (UK).  The book reviews the history of audiobooks.  Was available through the City of Toronto public library system].

Waite, S. (2018). Embracing Audiobooks as an Effective Educational Tool.  https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/ehd_theses/1218/  [Thesis for MSEd program at SUNY Brockport.  A comprehensive review of the use and efficacy of audiobooks].

Willingham, D. (2016). Is listening to an audio book cheating. Daniel Willingham-Science and Education.  http://www.danielwillingham.com/daniel-willingham-science-and-education-blog/is-listening-to-an-audio-book-cheating#:~:text=Listening%20to%20an%20audio%20book%20might%20be%20considered,Disneyland%20and%20saying%20%E2%80%9Cyou%20took%20a%20bus%20here%3F  [Willingham holds a Ph.D in Cognitive Psychology from Harvard University and is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia.  Willingham posits that one’s mind mostly does the same thing when reading and listening.  Discussion of decoding and comprehension].

Willingham, D. (2017).  The reading mind.  A cognitive approach to understanding how the mind reads.  Jossey-Bass.  [Willingham holds a Ph.D in Cognitive Psychology from Harvard University and is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia.  The written book was borrowed from the City of Toronto public library system.

Wolfson, G. (2008). Using audiobooks to meet the needs of adolescent readers. American Secondary Education, 105-114.  [Wolfson is an Associate Professor in the Education Department of Iona College.  The article discusses the use of audiobooks with adolescent readers, in particular to improve fluency, expand vocabulary and increase motivation with books.  Opportunities for audiobooks include for students with special needs.]

Woo, A. (2020, August 9).  Canada’s guidelines on reopening schools recommend masks for students aged 10 and up.  Globe and Mail.  Toronto. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-masks-for-students-aged-10-and-up-recommended-by-canadas-public/.  [This article is included not for the content but to demonstrate that the Globe and Mail has added an audio open for stories.  Readers can read or listen to the story – with a speed listening option].

Speculative Futures

Life is interesting.  Trying to speculative about the future is even more interesting.

The following are two very different speculative narratives about our potential relationship with  education and text and technology in the next 30 years.  Like the movie, Sliding Doors,  the narratives have the same starting point and different end points.

A.  Speculative narrative  – Sunny Days (in some people’s opinion)

2020 – Our relationship with education, text and technology has changed quickly.  Out of necessity, education moved on-line, fast.  Education has to catch up quickly to deliver useful on-line education, on short notice.  Teachers, parents and students must adapt to text in a digital form, almost exclusively.  Further, technology will need to be developed, to not simply deliver a digital version of prior traditional in-class programs, but to deliver higher level, ie constructivist, flipped classroom or UDL learning programs in schools and Universities.  On-line, Zoom classrooms are the norm (but they have to get better).

2030 – Technology continues to change.  Reading is out and audio everything is in.  Children will no longer be assigned texts to read but will instead use their phones to play podcasts and audio of lessons.  Zoom has been replaced with the Virtual Classroom.  Gone are the one dimensional computer classes.  Instead, each student will be in a virtual classroom as avatars.  They will interact on a 3 d basis with the other students and the teachers.  (This is helping with Covid 19 version 8 – social distancing is no longer an issue).  And, unlike Zoom, where one needed to dress nicely at least from the waist up, the Virtual Classroom lets participants dress in virtual outfits – pick anything.  But the administrators have decided not to let the students change their actual appearance – they believe that would not be a productive social engineering tool.

2040 – Google glasses are in, monitors, blackboards, white boards and sort of board are out.  (See a video on google glasses below).  Anything the student needs to see visually will be shown on their google glasses.  During class the teacher can control what the students are seeing. The glasses also allow for collaborative work – ie two students can work together and both see the same visuals.  Teachers are combatting student’s who have algorithms select which passages of readings are necessary for the class (Johnson, 2019).  Understandably the teacher’s want the students to read the i.e. whole book.  In some ways, this is an old fight – the current version of the 20th century battle against the use of Coles notes (a common student guide to literature that some students would read in lieu of a book).

2050.  Student’s don’t have actual phones anymore.  All information is simply transmitted without hardware save and except the google glasses -which are multi-functional.  They replace the old cell phone, can act much like an old school tv, as a computer and correct vision.  The challenged in this era is to override the student’s simply using one another’s writings as their own.  Group work is encouraged and glass transfer should be off outside of the group.  All teaching is virtual.  Students are now attending classes anywhere they chose globally.  Language is not an issue as instant translation is the norm.  The world is getting smaller as cultures are more intertwined.

B.  Speculative narrative – Different, darker days ahead

Music credit:  Howard, J.N. (2015), There Are Worse Games to Plan/Deep In The Meadow/The Hungar Games Suite, The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.

B.  Some Interesting Videos

Control the underwater internet cables, control the world

OMG – Millennials have little or no experience with:  a map, the Yellow pages and a rotary phone

Google glasses:  an early generation of what will become essentially a wearable virtual monitor

References

Dunne, A. & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Retrieved August 30, 2019, from Project MUSE database.

Hariri, Y. N. (2017). Reboot for the AI revolution. Nature International Weekly Journal of Science, 550(7676), 324-327.

Johnson, S. (Producer),  (2019, May 19), The Future of Digital Literacies .

Marshall, T. (2015).  Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics, New York, Elliot & Thompson.

Zeihan, P. (2014).  The Accidental Superpower:  The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder, New York, Hachette.

Week 11 – Predictive Text

I used Twitter on my iPhone to start a thread using the prompts suggested in this task.  After starting the thread with the ‘set prompt’ I only used a word derived from the auto-generated choice provided  – in each case there were three choices.

Example 1 – The prompt “My idea of technology”…

The statement is almost non-sensical, despite my best efforts to make word choices that would convey a coherent message.  The statement does not represent how I would normally communicate.  It was interesting, that each fork in the road, I was attempting (subconsciously) to take the positive choice.  I was able to keep doing so, but that effort did not seem to be relevant to the substantive meaning.  The gif was my attempt to convey my reaction to composing those sentences.

One note – you can see the next prompt after my final sentence, to begin the next sentence were the choices:  I, Hey or Yes.  Often neither of those choices would have been the word I may have wanted to start that next sentence with.

Example 2 – The prompt “Every time I think about our future”.

Again I used Twitter and after the prompt I used the suggested text.  And again, it was difficult to create a comprehensive conversation about the prompted issue.  In this example I consciously chose to allow the discussion to use a negative and consider if I thought that changed any outcome in the exercise.  In my opinion it did not.

Other comments:

As posited in the videos we watched this week including Malan (2013) and O’Neil (2017), when using predictive test, the user is beholden to the person(s) who programmed the algorithm that delivered the word choices.   And the user is beholden to same with any information or reasoning as to why those choices were provided.  Are the word choices on my iphone the same for all iphone users – or all iphone users using the same ios program?  Are the word choices changed because Apple (or someone) knows that I am female, my age.  Were any of the word choices based on words I often use (I think not).  Anecdotally, one of my sisters lives on Hillholm Road – which the iphone rather unfortunately autocorrects to Hellhole Road.  And the phone will continue to make that auto-correct.  Yikes.

I have also experienced – in just the past year or so, my gmail account providing a set of stock suggested replies to emails I receive.  For the most part the choices are pretty good,  They are polite, grammatically correct  blasé type replies.  Examples include:  “I will get back to you”;  Received with thanks;  Thank you I will respond as soon as possible.”  But again, I don’t know if the suggested phrases are selected for me, if they change based on the content of the email – are there certain trigger words that prompt i.e. “received”.

Finally, prescriptive text has become a crutch I use with respect to typing and spelling.  I am fortunate that I can type quickly (I am the age where one learned to type with both hands, all 10 fingers).  But for the past number of years, I have learned that I can continue to type quickly and the auto-correct with, many times, correct my typing errors and, I say with some shame, correct my spelling errors. Sometimes I am actually not sure of the spelling of a particular word, but auto-correct swoops in and fixes the spelling for me.  This is helpful to me.  And I expect would be helpful for students.  Do I think this is a problem?

The last issue – is the use of predictive text in public writing spaces a problem, for example in politics, academia, business or education?  On the surface, the answer is not necessarily.  Everyone can choose to use or not use the predictive text when composing a message.  However, for example in politics, and as enunciated in particular by O’Neill (2017) in her video or O’Neill (2017) in her article. “How can we stop algorithms telling lies?”, there are some risks that can flow from the use of algorithms and predictive text.  Can this leak into the simple act of providing predictive text in twitter – perhaps.  As we heard about this week – gender issues – nurses are she and doctors are he – are just the tip of the iceberg, but attentiveness to the issue will keep me on my toes thinking about it.

Hmmm…I am embarrassed/reluctant to admit it took until the second try to realize what the game was about. And I did try a couple of times to speed things up (thinking I have max 1 minute before I get effectively shut out of the game).

I did realize that some of the instructions were counterintuitive – once I found the first one like that I was aware of the others.  But could not get past the point where I took the photo.

But is it Friday morning, I am having my coffee, and at some point, my time is worth more than being frustrated (on purpose) by a game. I listened to the two podcasts and wondered, am I also being (unknowingly) frustrated in life by only knowing or being told selective information – about politics, current events etc. What are the digital feeds that are being shown to me stopping?

Yikes – I will be interested to see if anyone completed the game. (Was there a trick I did not figure out other than trying to speed up?).

Patricia McLean

PS – I don’t even have a screen shot – my computer would not make a screen shot of that web site – so in a very low tech alternative, have a photo of my last failed effort.

User Inyerfeace Online Game by Bagaar

userinyerface.com

It was my first time playing User Inyerface  and I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Once I made it to the second page it was a bit easier to navigate. Perhaps it’s because I know it’s a game so less pressure and I’m familiar with online persuasion architecture ( Zeynep Tufekci).  I wasn’t extremely frustrated, but I was still frustrated at parts of the game such as when I had to fill out the email and password portion and all these pop-ups kept appearing again and again. It also took some time to navigate through the buttons that didn’t work and the texts that try to deceive you.  I had to re-read these parts a few times. Upon reflection, in the past, I’m going to say I was caught in some of the dark patterns employed such as the hidden costs when your paying for airfare or for a cruise.  I’m going to agree with Tristan Harris in his Ted Talk video that a step to change is to acknowledge that we can be persuaded.  When Zeynep Tufekci mentioned about googling for boots and suddenly those boots pop up everywhere on my Facebook to articles I read, it’s scary how learning algorithms work.

Using Brignull’s Dark Pattern types, I was trying to categorize some of them in the game. One was the Forced Continuity where it showed the four easy step visual to complete the form, but if you check the terms and agreements that was in small print which was lengthy, confusing and required additional steps to complete.  Do I sense a trap here ?  This could also be under the Trick Question type also. The Roach Motel in the game was when the pre-select mode for the email gave the illusion that it was trying to help the consumer by making it easier for them to complete the form and I see this a lot in online subscriptions, but it’s always a difficult process to get out of it.   The beginning page of the game was under Disguised Ads as I see this on a lot of online articles where in the middle of the article there are usually words that are highlighted, underlined, or capitalize to draw your attention to click on it.

References:

Brignull, H. (2011). Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design. Interaction Design, Usability, 338.

Harris, T. (2017). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/tristan_harris_the_manipulative_tricks_tech_companies_use_to_capture_your_attention?language=en

Tufekci, Z. (2017). We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads. Retrieved from  (Links to an external site.) https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dystopia_just_to_make_people_click_on_ads?language=en

Week 9 – Using the Golden Record Music Selection Data in a Palladino Project Visualization

I am going to pre-empt this post with the note – I love the Palladio Project.  It is a very interesting program to permit the visualization of data, using different factors as the underlying keys to the data.  It allowed for the visualization of a data set that set out some general ideas about how the class made its musical selections from the Golden Record.

The political implications of the groups of the music choices are not fully known by the visualization.  In particular, the Palladino visualization – in its various iterations, cannot convey: (i)  if all the musical pieces were selected at least once;  there does not appear to be a node for “0”;  (ii)  why certain students selected the same musical piece;  do we or can we make assumptions as to why without more information about the individuals making the selections;  and (iii)  the data could be early misinterpreted by someone with a particular bias.  It just seems to be very open to interpretation if so desired.

In my opinion, the visualization provided by the Palladio file does not provide the reasons behind the choices of music made by the different students.  More data would be required in the database.  Possibly, geographic location, geographic origin (where you were born or brought up), ethic background, age, sex, any training in music – lessons, for what period of time, current occupation (does that influence one having a global viewpoint or thought that the music should reflect a more global viewpoint).

The following is a visualization of the data:  student selection of musical pieces.  This visualization sets the size of the nodes to increase with the number of times a music piece was selected by a student.  The node size does assist with the visualization of the data.  (But again, it is a positive affirmation of data and does not necessarily advise which pieces were not selected).

This visualization highlights how node size is an important visual cue.

The Palladino visualization also provided information to group students based upon common musical selections.  Again, the use of the node function provides a visual element wherein the larger nodes represented greater common connections.  However, this visualization alone does not advise, for example, why students selected common musical choices.

This is a visualization of the students by common choice of music.

The Palladino visualization program did allow for the manipulation of the data in a few variations, but without additional data can only provide general information.  It cannot tell us if certain pieces  were not selected.  It can principally only provide general information about which musical selections were common selections by the group.

This is a visualization:  Track by Group

This is an interesting visualization of working with the program – trying to pull out the links and nodes to better show the information.  It was very interesting to experiment with the program to try to manipulate the display to provide clearer information.

This visualization shows the groups by track and shows the commonality of choices by student.

The Palladio program is very interesting.  I would like to use in a situation where I have more data to provide greater more precise distinctions between choices.  But again, a fabulous introduction to a new media form that is the new digital text world.

THE DATA:

The first time I looked at Stanford’s Palladio where each individual and song were plotted on the graph, I thought the data was beautiful as well as overwhelming, like an intricate spider web.  When I placed the data into groups, I belonged to Group two with Sarka, Shawn, and Brain.

There are twenty-seven songs in the Golden Record. Brian and I had five songs in common and five that were not. The five songs that I pick that Brian didn’t were El Cascabel, Rite of Spring, Flowing Streams, Dark was the Night, and Pygmy Girls’ Initiation Song.  The songs that Brian pick that I didn’t were Melancholy Blues, Magic Flute, Tsuru No Sugomori, Percussion, and Night Chant.   Sarka and I also had five songs in common and five songs that were not.  I thought it was interesting that three of Sarka’s songs that he picked which I didn’t,  had a connection to the songs Brian picked.  These songs were Night Chant, Magic Flute, and Percussion.  Shawn and I had the strongest connection as we had six songs in common and four songs that were not.  The only song that Shawn and I had in common within the group was El Cascabel, while the only song Shawn and Brian had in common was Melancholy Blues.  From the graph, the strongest nodes we had as a whole group were the songs Wedding Song, Jaat Kahan Ho, Johnny B. Goode, Morning Star Devil Bird, and Tchakrul.

I thought it was interesting that Brian was the only one who had one edge that didn’t have any relation to anyone in the group.  I had four songs that wasn’t attach to a node, Shawn had three edges, and Sarka had two edges that wasn’t attach to anyone in the group.  I think based on connectivity, Brian would be a central node or network bridge because his edges had more connections to other nodes in our group.

Looking at a macro scale of the graph, this time of the all the groups and songs, the data depicted that some songs were attached to all the groups.  These songs were:

-India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar

-“Johnny B. Goode, “ written and performed by Chuck Berry

-Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes

-Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonica Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor

-Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi Mexico

These songs were important because they were central to all the groups or somehow a network bridge to other nodes.  Why ?  Unfortunately, it is hard to extrapolate the reason based on the data.

SOME THOUGHTS:

Since the graph delineated connections, I was trying to look at the data based on relationship and the significance of a node in a network.  The data was a lot of quantitative information that can be presented in different ways.  The graph showed how we are all somehow connected through one node or several nodes to each other and that some nodes are more central and significant than others.

However, the data cannot tell the reason why some songs such as Jaat Kahan Ho or Brian in our group are a central node or a bridge between nodes.  Perhaps, it was because the song Jaat Kahan Ho was an incredibly catchy tune?  Maybe Brian had a musical background and therefore knowledgeable in picking the songs that would represent the world?  These would be assumptions though.  What is missing in the data to give it more depth are people’s personal information, their habits, and background history.  Without knowing people or interviewing them, the only alternative to gather more information is to search their personal blogs, Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin account.

Another thing that you cannot obtain from the data are people’s choice and the reason why or why not.  In the past, I participated in a yogurt marketing research where we did a taste test.  The company created a new type of flavoured yogurt and wanted to unveil it to the market. I w as in part two of the research where the company wanted a sample of the response on the taste and the reason why you would buy the product, why you wouldn’t, and how the company could make the yogurt more appealing.  A person’s qualitative response is something that is missing from the data.  Having said all this, I thought the Stanford Palladio tool created an elegant graph that was visually friendly to use.

References:

Code.org. (2017, June 13). The Internet: How Search Works . Retrieved from https://youtube/LVV_93mBfSU

Systems Innovation. (2015, April 18).  Graph Theory Overview . Retrieved from https://youtube/82zlRaRUsaY

Systems Innovation. (2015, April 19).  Network Connections . Retrieved from https://youtube/2iViaEAytxw

Systems Innovation. (2015, April 20).  Network Centrality . Retrieved from https://youtube.com/watch?v=NgUj8DEH5Tc&feature=emb_rel_end

Golden Record Curation

I have curated ten musical pieces from the Voyager Golden Record.  The particulars and criteria were influenced by NASA’s stated goal of the record, to have a diverse style of music representing Earth (NASA, undated).

The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth (NASA, undated).

In the podcast entitled. Twenty Thousand Hertz, Linda Salsman Sagan stated that she thought the record was a message of peace, joyful;  and Tim Ferris stated with regard to the record that the message he thought they were sending to another world was “we are here and we are listening” (insert citation).  (Actually I thought the thought should have been, we are here and hope you are listening).

Ms. Sagan and Mr. Ferris were part of Carl Sagan’s team that curated the music.  Tim Farris has described the process by which the music was reviewed and selected as follows (2017):

In those days, we had to obtain physical copies of every recording we wanted to listen to include.  This wasn’t such a challenge for, say, mainstream American music, but we aimed to cast a wide net, incorporating selections from places as disparate as Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, China, Congo, Japan, the Navajo Nation, Peru and the Solomon Island.  Ann found an LP containing the Indian raga “Jaat Kahan Ho” in a carton under a cared table in the back of an appliance store.  At one point, the folklorist Alan Lomax pulled a Russian recording, said to the be the sole copy of “Chakrulo” in North America, from a stack of lacquier demos and sailed it across the room to me like a Frisbee.  We’d comb though all this music individually, them meet and go over our nominees in long discussions stretching into the night.  It was exhausting, involving, utterly delightful work.

It seems to me to have been a rather underwhelming attempt to gather music which would in fact represent the diversity and culture of the entire world.  Yes, it was 1972, but that is not the dark ages.  (I was a young kid in 1972).  But in my experience, there would have been ample opportunity to pick up the phone, or write a letter to a colleague or contact in another country, ask them to suggest and send some albums with music that represented their culture.   Abby Smith Rumsey (2018) states at her Brown University lecture, that it is important what is and what is not chosen to be preserved or chosen as being important enough to create a digital memory.  In the case of the selection of the music for the Voyager Golden Record, it was very important what was selected, and why, however it seems that not enough thought and effort was actually put into this record and the goal of representing world diversity and culture was likely not met.

So, my criteria focused on trying to select from the choices given ten pieces that reflected diversity and culture of the world.  And then, because I am biased like everyone else, within that dynamic I picked my favorite music pieces to be included.

1. Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in F, First Movement.

Provenance:  German composer, European, Western music

The first because it is simply my favorite piece of music on the Golden Record.  Further, im Ferris (2017) suggests that music by Bach and Beethoven possessed mathematical properties that might be able to be understood by extra terrestrials.  That is n interesting point.  I might have selected them for those reasons but also, because that music is revered in the Western world and has been for hundreds of years – something that might valid those choices.

In selecting Western classical music, we sacrificed a measure of diversity to include three compositions by J. S. Bach and two by Ludwig van Beethoven. To understand why we did this, imagine that the record were being studied by extraterrestrials who lacked what we would call hearing, or whose hearing operated in a different frequency range than ours, or who hadn’t any musical tradition at all. Even they could learn from the music by applying mathematics, which really does seem to be the universal language that music is sometimes said to be. They’d look for symmetries—repetitions, inversions, mirror images, and other self-similarities—within or between compositions. We sought to facilitate the process by proffering Bach, whose works are full of symmetry, and Beethoven, who championed Bach’s music and borrowed from it.

2. Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, NO. 1, Glenn Gould.

Provenance:  German composer, European, Western music

I selected this piece because of the instrument – just the piano.  It is a beautiful piece by Bach and played by that great Canadian, Glenn Gould.  The reverence of the single instrument, the two hands providing the harmony in an intricate arrangement.  Again Western music and again written in 1722 has stood up to the test of time (Wikipedia, undated).

3. China, Flowing Streams.

Provenance:  China

Now we are starting our tour of the world, in an effort to present a diversity of music to represent different cultures around the world.  I personally, might not have chosen this piece if there were other options.  (See my comments above, where it appears that Sagan et al found music pieces from far flung countries in a haphazard way in New York City.  A consultation with any Chinese musicians or music scholars might well have resulted in another piece of music representing Chinese culture.  And, given that the population of China is approximately

4. Japan, Shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori”

Provenance:  Japan

5. Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird”.

Provence:  Australia, Indigenous song (not an imported English/Australian song thankfully)

My reasons are the same as set out above.  Needed cultural diversity.  Australia, indigenous.

6. Peru, panpipes and drum, collected by Casa de la Cultura, Lima

Provenance:  South American, indigenous

My reasons for this choice are similar to those sent out above.  It is a song that may be representative of a different part of the world, different culture.  It is a song from the indigenous peoples of Peru (not a song imported from the conquers).

7. Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle

Provenance:  Senegal, Africa.

My reasons for this choice are similar to those sent out above.  It is a song that may be representative of a different part of the world, different culture.

8. Navajo Indians, night chant

Provenance:  American native.

I chose this to represent the Native Americans (not the Europeans who settled the US).

9. India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho”, sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar

Provence:  India (Southeast Asia)

This is the song that Sagan et al found by happenstance.  Not a lot of choices appear to have been reviewed for this choice – but we need an Indian voice / Southeast Asian influence.

10. Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement.

Provenance:  German, Europe, Western music

Okay, okay.  I know that I am adding more classical music, but I cannot help myself.  Beethoven’s 5^th could have been in the top three for me.  Premiering in 1804, the work is almost 200 years old and is still revered – world wide.  Let’s end this list of ten with a bang and add Beethoven’s 5^th.  (Yes it has the mathematical qualities that Tim Farris discussed, but it is the orchestration, the composition, that has had me entranced forever).

What Sagan Missing

There are two categories of music that I want to note that Carl Sagan et al missed.  First a true, objective, informed representation of global music.  Second, in my opinion, some of the greatest music created in the Western (limited to the Western world because that is my experience).

These include.

1. Elgar – Nimrod (from “Enigma Variations”)

Provenance:  English composer.  Work written in 1899

This is one of my favorite classical pieces.  Can you listen to it without tears in your eyes.

2. Andrea Bocelli (or any other decent Italian opera singer) singing Nessun Dorma.

Provenance:  Italian.  Nessun Dorma is from the final act of Puccini’s opera  Turandot.

Just listen.  Full of emotion.  If this cannot tell the extraterrestrials what we are about, nothing can.

3. Supertramp, Fool’s Overture

Provenance:  English, modern rock. 1977.  (In fairness to Sagan et al, this song was not commercially released until after the Voyager Golden Record was made.

Sorry – this description is from Wikipedia:.

 “Fool’s Overture” is the closing track from Supertramp‘s 1977 album Even in the Quietest Moments…. Written and sung by guitarist/keyboardist Roger Hodgson, the song is a collage of progressive instrumentation and sound samples. First there are excerpts of Winston Churchill‘s famous 4 June 1940 House of Commons speech regarding Britain’s involvement in World War II (“Never Surrender”), and later sounds of police cars and bells from the London’s Big Ben clock tower are heard. The flageolet-sounding instrument plays an excerpt from Gustav Holst‘s “Venus”, from his orchestral suite The Planets. There is also a reading of the first verse of William Blake‘s poem “And did those feet in ancient time” (more commonly known as “Jerusalem”), ended by a short sample of the band’s song “Dreamer“.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0eVuIxJRp8

References

Ferris, T. (2017).  How the Voyager Golden Record Was Made, The New Yorker.  https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/voyager-golden-record-40th-anniversary-timothy-ferris

NASA, undated, Voyager Golden Record, retrieved from https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/ on July 3, 2020.

Smith Rumsey, A (2018).   Digital Memory:  What Can We Afford to Lose.  Brown University.

The Well-Tempered Claiver, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well-Tempered_Clavier retrieved on July 3, 2020.

During the first task, what’s in my bag, I was defining things in a very practical and functional way.  Ernesto commented that the chapstick I had was a Yelp brand and that reviews are very postmodern.  This made me think.

What if logos were like an emoji, communicating a thought but also defining you as part of a group.  This led me to search if it was possible to find an audio-visual for each of the items I had in my bag without orally saying the name of the item.

Surprisingly, there was a lot of English audio-video commercials on the items I had in my bag from home made commercials to professional advertising.   I decided to arrange the audio-video clips from current ads to those that look like they were made in the 70s and 80s.  I thought it was interesting to see that the ones from the past, such as the Vaseline ad was more literal and would orally say the name and visually show you the function.  The more recent audio-visuals  conveyed mood and meaning  from visuals and sound.

From an archeology point of view,  the first task delineate that I live in the city since all of the items enable me to move around the city in comfort.  But upon closer scrutiny, an archeologist would notice that the brands communicated which mini communities I belong to within the city.   I used to be an Android person, but the plug from my iphone would say I belong to a community that uses Apple language and Mac functions on a laptop.  You’d probably find me at an Apple workshop 🙂

I think we live in this big blogging and video making society that is continually growing where we communicate by text, but we also use sound to create mood and meaning , such as the Lexus ad.  As technology becomes easier to use, this fueled a more multimodal approach of communicating where everyone can become an author or co-author creating different dialogues.  However, this does bring up the question of author and authenticiy……

As I slice, pull apart and put together different visuals and sounds to create a playlist like a DJ, I decided to add in an Apple audio-video but from China.  I was thinking about multiliteracies from The New London Group which was why I wanted to try incorporating this.  I chose Apple because this was not as easy to find as I thought it would be.  Some audio-visual were universal, a lot of the ones I was looking for were not.  Some items were cultural specific and difficult to find in any other language such as that of Nature Valley and Sunkist.

References:

Jessiedamage. (2008, April 2).  Hello Kitty Theme Song [Video].  YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J6-WITRcVg

Nature Valley Canada. (2019, June 28).  Nature Valley | Rediscover The Joy of Nature [Video].  YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9GvhjVejSA

Suzanne Ciani. (2017, March 13).  Sunkist Orange Juice [Video].  YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-mdKMcHblI

80scommericalsforever. (2011, March 11). VINTAGE 80’S VASELINE “THE WONDER JELLY” COMMERCIAL [Video].  YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGNoKknQ73o

Seeker. (2013, Sept 7).  Does Yelp Really Impact Businesses? [Video].  YouTube.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFv87mxbPfs&list=RDCMUCzWQYUVCpZqtN93H8RR44Qw&index=1

Pilot Pen. (2018, Feb 12).  Pilot FriXion Erase Doubt [Video].  YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBprh1Ztuzk

RK Reid. (2009, Oct 27).  Derek Alexander Handbags [Video].  YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GbQ892YXfs

Lexus International. (2018, November 23).  Discover the Lexus UX [Video].  YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlqmWCID6mc

3dmihai.  (2009, March 18).  Thermos commercial ad [Video].  YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGGpEQg9U3Q

Apple. (2015, March 9).  West Lake, China – Apple Store Opening [Video].  YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9bq33sbYsc