This task was an interesting one, because in many ways I disagree with the approach taken by the Sagan committee, in which a small group of people used their personal preferences and biases to choose the music–for instance, their white western bias was shown by the five works by Bach and Beethoven which were included out of the 27 total. I will grant that they only had six months to prepare (Ferris, 2017), and the availability of recordings around the world was much more limited in 1976 than they would be today. Today, if the creation of a Golden Record were repeated, I would hope that there would be a process that would include the expertise of the different cultures that were to be represented. It is important the choices of what to archive are made by members of a particular culture (Smith Rumsey, 2017).
I began my curation process by first considering what to leave behind, “what can we afford to lose” (Smith Rumsey, 2017). I decided to first pare the Western classical collection to one song only, and chose to keep only Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Next, I considered some filters or criteria that I would use to make my choices:
- instrumental or vocal?
- complex or simple (in terms of the number of instruments)?
- cultural diversity?
- does the song tell a human or Earth story?
Considering cultural diversity first, I selected the following:
- Benin “Cengunmé”, referenced by NASA as “Senegal, percussion”. (Ferris,, 2017)
- Australia, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird”
- Japan, “Tsuru No Sugomori”
- India, “Jaat Kahan Ho”
- China, “Flowing Streams”
- Java, “Kinds of Flowers”
- America, “Dark Was the Night–Cold Was the Ground”
- Peru, “panpipes and drum”
- Europe, Beethoven, Fifth Synmphony, First Movement
- Azerbaijan, “bagpipes”
Of the above list, six are instrumental, and four include vocals:
Instrumental
- “Cengunmé”
- “Tsuru No Sugomori”
- “Flowing Streams”
- “panpipes and drum
- Beethoven, Fifth Synmphony, First Movement
- “bagpipes”
Vocal
- “Dark Was the Night–Cold Was the Ground”
- “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird”
- “Kinds of Flowers”
- “Jaat Kahan Ho”
I then chose to substitute Peru “Wedding song” for the “panpipes and drum”, which preserved diversity and balanced vocal tracks with instrumentals.
In terms of simplicity vs complexity as measured by the number of instruments employed, there now were eight songs in the “simple” category and only two in the “complex” category (Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and “Kinds of Flowers”, which I categorized as complex because of the overlaying of multiple voices. One of the considerations of the Sagan committee was the uncertainty that any intelligence encountering the Golden Record would understand music in the way that we now do (Ferris, 2017), which led to their including so much Bach and Beethoven for it’s “mathematical” basis. I choose to keep the majority of the songs as simple, as I feel the best chance for an intelligence to learn our music would be to work from the simplest arrangements (maybe Beethoven’s “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” should have been on the record). The rhythms of “Cengunmé” and “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird”, the single instruments of “Tsuru No Sugomori” and “Bagpipes”, and the single instrument and single voice of “Dark Was the Night–Cold Was the Ground” were particularly good matches to this criterium.
My final decision was if the song told a human or Earth story. I was tempted to replace Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with Mozart’s “Magic Flute” opera, but elected to keep Beethoven for its evolutionary representation of the mathematics of music as a more important consideration, and due to the work being written by a person suffering significant hearing loss. This will perhaps have a better chance to be understood by an alien intelligence. With the exception of “Cengunmé”, “bagpipes”, and “Fifth Symphony”, I felt all the songs told a strong story.
My final curated list of ten songs was only one different from my initial list of ten, which reflects the priority that I placed on cultural diversity. The majority of songs have few instruments and fundamental rhythms, there are equal vocal and instrumental songs,
- Benin, “Cengunmé”, referenced by NASA as “Senegal, percussion”.
This song has a strong rhythm and repetitive patterns, and is representative of not only African culture but the strong percussion tracks of modern pop, rock and hip-hop music.
- Australia, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird”
The simplicity of the songs, with strong reliance on rhythm, are again their main feature. The vocals of this song are very specifically telling a story of the Earth and the human experience on this planet.
- Japan, “Tsuru No Sugomori”
The single instrument has a exquisite purity to its sound, and representative of many wind instruments.
- India, “Jaat Kahan Ho”
Strong rhythms and a definite story told by this up-tempo, more chaotic song. It is perhaps more appropriate to represent one of the most densely-populated regions of Earth. The vocals provide another unique language that contrasts significantly with the other songs.
- China, “Flowing Streams”
Using a single string instrument, but able to produce a wide variety of sounds, this song is a good representative of one of the largest populations of Earth.
- Java, “Kinds of Flowers”
The use of vocals in this song provided a level of complexity that most of the other songs did not, and represents well the Southeast Asian and South Pacific populations. A strong story that is descriptive of the local environment.
- America, “Dark Was the Night–Cold Was the Ground”
I chose this song for its simple structure, strong story-telling with its vocals, and the fundamental influence of its genre on subsequent popular music in North America and Europe.
- Peru, “Wedding Song”
Primarily vocals, this song was yet another unique example that represents a particular culture on our planet. A strong story is told through the music.
- Europe, Beethoven, Fifth Synmphony, First Movement
The decision to only have one representative of European classical music was a difficult one, but having a more complicated arrangement was important for diversity. The mathematical basis for the work, and the fact that it was composed by a man who suffered significant hearing loss, will perhaps have a good chance of being interpreted by some other intelligence in some other star system.
- Azerbaijan, “bagpipes”
Simplicity in instrument, but complicated in structure, this final selection was primarily chosen to represent yet another distinct population of Earth.
References:
Ferris, T. (2017, August 20). How the voyager golden record was made. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/voyager-golden-record-40th-anniversary-timothy-ferris.
Smith Rumsey, A. (2017, July 11). Digital memory: What can we afford to lose? YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBrahqg9ZMc