How might one choose just ten songs from the golden record? What criteria guide your decisions? In imagining the beings who might engage with this technology, my ideas shifted. Initially, I thought about collective identity and how we might communicate the human experience (on earth) to an-‘other’ being. My remaining choices lived in the theme of evoked emotion and movement. Is there a feeling that is communicated in a piece, and might that feeling transcend language? Moreover, movement is a universal human experience. Which left me wondering how specific elements might pull one (human or other) into movement?
The thread in my choices begins with communicating our collective identity and then shifts to inviting a shared experience of feeling and movement.
My Top 10 Play Golden Record List:
- Greetings in 55 Languages
- United Nations Greetings/ Whale Songs – Various Artists
- The Sounds of Earth – Various Artists
- “El Cascabel”- Performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México
- “Melancholy Blues” – Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven
- The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No. 1 – Glenn Gould
- “The Fairie Round” – Early Music Consort Anthony Holborne of London/ David Munrow
- Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BMV 1047: I Allegro – Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter conductor
- Sokaku-Reibo (Depicting Cranes in Their Nest) -Japan Shakuhachi
- Navajo Night Chant, Yeibichai Dance – recorded by Willard Rhodes
- “Gavotte en rondeaux” from the Partita No. 3 in E Major for Violin, performed by Arthur Grumiaux
