Voyager – Tzu Hsu Chu

Linking Task 8: Golden Record Curation (Mark)

[8.2] Golden Record Curation

For this linking task, I decided to take a look at Mark’s post, specifically knowing his background in music, as I wanted to see how he approached this task from that perspective!

Coming from a music background, Mark definitely draws from a lot of music theory when it comes to analyzing and justifying the songs he chose. For his criteria, he wanted to find pieces that “contain an obvious example of universality of musical elements, tempo, harmony, melody and texture” (Pepe, 2022). Some common element included “ostinato patterns, chant, call and response musical phrases and representations of nature”.

The first 4 tracks he chose belonged to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Stravinsky, some big names in classical music history. Mark explains his choice with some musical jargon, but then adds more information in an accessible way for those who might not have as much background knowledge in music. He also points out the significance of the composer or the piece, and uses very descriptive expressions to compare and contrast it with each other, providing some context in the realm of classical music.

"Compared to Mozart where emotions begin to surface, Beethoven brings it to a boil" and later on "If Beethoven brought emotions to a boil, Stravinsky boiled them over"

Mark then picks some tracks in the world music genre, and uses them to demonstrate some of the universal commonality between them, such as the call and response in chanting, pulsing trance-like rhythm, and nature imagery.

Lastly he chose a more contemporary blues song, Dark Was the Night to complete his curation. Mark chose this song specifically as blues took elements from the world music previously listed, and became a foundation of North American popular music.

Reflection

I thought Mark’s post was very insightful, as much of this information about these songs is unknown to me, as I do not come from a musical background and therefore do not have the skills to decipher them directly from the music tracks alone.

The way Mark put each piece next to each other for comparison and contrast helped with extending it into a greater context such that one can see why it was significant to include a certain track. He did not look at each track solely on its own, rather, he built on more to the foundations that he had laid down, such that his track-list curation and decisions felt cohesive as a unit!

References

Pepe, M. (2022. July 10) [8.2] Golden Record Curation. Mark Pepe’s ETEC540 Course Site. https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540mpepe/2022/07/10/8-2-golden-record-curation/

Task 9: Golden Record Network

Seeing the data of everyone’s choices for their record curation was somewhat difficult to interpret, due to all the edges and nodes that were involved.
Therefore, for my reflection, I will do an analysis on a smaller scale.

I had parsed the information according to the different communities first to see who I overlapped with the most– Agnes, Alexis and Emily.

Next, I tried positioning the nodes of our names in the four corners to form a quadrant. In the center are the tracks that all four of us have. Depending on who has similar tracks, the nodes of the track names are listed in relative location to our names.

Criteria

I was prompted me to take a look at their blog post and read up on the criteria of their choices and what their justifications were behind their decision-making process.

Agnes: “showcase aspects of civilization on earth and how humans live and interact with the planet; varied types of musical formats” (Plourde-Doran, 2022)
Alexis: “geographical and cultural diversity of sound, instruments, and languages” (Reeves, 2022) with more tracks for larger continents (i.e. Asia and Africa)
Emily: “songs that included vocals, for sampling human voices in different frequencies, languages, dialects and tones” then filtered geographically (MacDougall, 2022)

Both Agnes and I thought about the aspects of civilization as a criterion.
Alexis, Emily, and I all had geography as a criterion.
Agnes, Alexis and I included tracks in music, vocals or both (i.e. we did not exclude based on musical format) as a reflection of diversity.

Connectivity

Now knowing the above information, I assumed that I would have greatest overlap with Alexis, given we chose the tracks based on geography; next would be Agnes, as we considered the civilization aspects of the tracks; lastly with Emily, as she first filtered via whether or not tracks have vocals, which would have disqualified a good portion of tracks to begin with.

According to the network visualization, below is the count of our overlapping tracks (i.e. connected nodes). This reflects the assumptions that I had made!

Top Hits

Looking into the track choices, I found 3 songs that all four of us had chosen:

- Track 2: Kinds of Flowers
- Track 5: Morning Star Devil Bird
- Track 23: Wedding Song

Geographically speaking, Track 5 was the only song from the Australia/Oceania region; Track 23, as it was the only song from South America region; Track 2 was the only song from Southeast Asia region.

One interesting thing to note is the ways that each of us have categorized the geographical regions.

Alexis categorized America into North and South America, but did not divide Asia into sub-regions. She did account for continent size and included extra songs accordingly from Asia and Africa.

Emily did not clarify the regions when choosing the tracks, though in her list she did include Mexico which was separate from her choice for North America, so, there is an assumption that it was divided by sub-regions, which was made clearer when she decided to prioritize Indigenous voices when it came to narrowing down the three songs from “North America”.

In looking at the visualization, though one can see the commonalities of tracks chosen between each person from the cohort, and where we overlap and “connect”, it does not reveal the “why” and decision-making processes, which needed to be supplemented with other sources of information.

Along similar lines, even when the “why” and decision-making processes were clear, differences in the “algorithm” such as weight in the sequence of information parsing or categorization can also influence how the original data is processed “upstream” which then alters it as it flows “downstream” to data-post-production of the visualization.

References

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

MacDougall, E. (2022, June 29 ). Task #8: The Golden Record. ETEC 540. https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540emilymacdougall/2022/06/29/task-8-the-golden-record/

Plourde-Doran, A. (2022, July 8). Task 8: The Golden Record Curation Assignment. Agnes’s Webspace ETEC540. https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540ag/2022/07/08/task-8-golden-record-curation-assignment/

Reeves, A. (2022, July 9). Task 8: Golden Record Curation . Alexis’ Communication Junction. https://blogs.ubc.ca/communicationjunction/2022/07/09/task-8-golden-record-curation/

Task 8: Golden Record Curation

It is interesting to think of the future as known and the past is ever-changing and dependent on context of what is preserved and what is not (Brown University, 2017).

Though scholars did try to include music from various cultures, languages and time-periods, the current track selection on the Golden Record reflected an intellectual monoculture that is very much Western and male-dominated.

As I curated the playlist into 10 tracks, I wanted to reflect:

geographical and cultural diversity of music around the globe
include both vocal and instrumental components of the songs
contents of the songs reflect conceptual aspects of human civilization

Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. First Movement
Location: Europe
Musical Content: Orchestra
Conceptual Aspects: as mentioned by Ferris, the mathematical foundations in this piece may be deciphered, given that the extraterrestrial life forms may have other ways of perception than that of humans. I think it also showcases the complexity and organization in orchestral pieces.

Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38
Location: South America
Musical Content: female vocals
Conceptual Aspects: Rituals and social norms surrounding “coming of age”, “fertility” and “reproduction” and the important role of such ceremonies across different cultures

Georgian S.S.R., chorus, “Tchakrulo,” collected by Radio Moscow. 2:18
Location: Eurasia
Musical Content: male vocals
Conceptual Aspects: the song is a drinking song in preparation for battle, reflection of war and conflict as an integral part of the rise and fall of civilizations throughout history. In addition, it highlights the cultural significance that “alcohol” plays in many cultures

Java, court gamelan, “Kinds of Flowers,” recorded by Robert Brown. 4:43
Location: Southeast Asia
Musical Content: gamelan, vocals
Conceptual Aspects: Connections to the different spiritual and philosophical states as represented through the relationship humans have with nature.

Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26
Location: Oceania
Musical Content: Vocals, Didgeridoo, unknown percussion instrument
Conceptual Aspects: After some research, there seems to be a mistake in the description, as the song that “Morning Star” cuts off into is not “Devil Bird” but another piece called “Moikoi”. Morning Star is a piece about the journey souls make after death; Moikoi is about “malicious spirits who entice newly deceased souls away from their clan country”, and “perhaps can be read as a message about the journey of the human spirit between Earth and space” (Rosen, 2013).

Japan, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (“Crane’s Nest,”) performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51
Location: East Asia
Musical Content: shakuhachi
Conceptual Aspects: this song depicts the various stages in the life cycle of the crane, which symbolizes longevity in many East Asian cultures. The piece is thought to emphasize the Buddhistic values of affection between family members. Given that context, I think it shows the natural cycle of life and death of life forms on Earth, in addition to the values that can be learned from nature. Another note is that the techniques used to play the piece mimic the wing flutters and cries of the crane, which is demonstrative of “life imitates art, art imitates life”.

“Dark Was the Night,” written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson. 3:15
Location: North America
Musical Content: vocals, guitar
Conceptual Aspects: according to Ferris, the song was included because “Johnson’s song concerns a situation he faced many times: nightfall with no place to sleep. Since humans appeared on Earth, the shroud of night has yet to fall without touching a man or woman in the same plight.” (Sagan, 1978). I think this speaks to the difference in socio-economical statuses around the world and the affects of poverty, and on a more relevant note, inaccessible housing in the recent times.

Azerbaijan S.S.R., bagpipes, recorded by Radio Moscow. 2:30
Location: Eurasia
Musical Content: woodwind
Conceptual Aspect: I learned that this kind of composition includes classical poetry and musical improvisation, in which the scale and harmonics follow specific foundation of principles. Most of mugham songs are concerned with themes relating to spiritual search for god. I think that speaks to the importance and ubiquity of religion in civilization.

Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57
Location: North America
Musical Content: vocals
Conceptual Aspect: the song is part of a dance in which the Navajo medicine man call upon Yeibichai, the supernatural beings that created them, to heal someone. I think this shows communal healing as integral aspect of medicine, health and well-being, communal responsibility and aid during times of disease and sickness.

Alima Song” – Mbuti of the Ituri Rainforest
Location: Africa
Musical Content: vocals, percussion
Conceptual Aspects: I learned that the Mbuti people are nomadic people living in the rainforest in societies with no chiefs or leaders and share responsibilities amongst themselves. The song is composed by each individual singing one or two notes in circulation building up to a harmony.

Reflection

This was a very challenging task to approach — the responsibility of creating such a time capsule of humanity for extraterrestrial life-forms feels like a heavy burden upon my shoulders!

While listening to the Twenty Thousand Hertz Podcast introducing the Golden Record, I found it comforting to hear that even the scientists had a difficult time curating the record, and acknowledged that “you are automatically going to exclude almost all of the great music because there’s so much of it.”

Abby Smith in her lecture on digital memory and information preservation also mentions:

"When we think about what we want to preserve, inscribing our memory and outsourcing it into physical objects that we have no control over, we do lose some responsibility for the materials that we actually have." ( Brown University, 2017)

As we send out the Golden Record into the void, it is unclear how extraterrestrial life forms will understand or interpret our messages, and in some cases, it is out of our control.

With this new-found reassurance, I realized that regardless of what I include or exclude, it will still capture a sliver of humanity, even in its most pixelated and grainiest verisimilitude.

References

Brown University. (2017, July 11). Abby Smith Rumsey: “Digital Memory: What Can We Afford to Lose?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBrahqg9ZMc

Contents of the Voyager Golden Record. (2022). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Contents_of_the_Voyager_Golden_Record&oldid=1094094672

Music of the ituri forest. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. (n.d.). Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://folkways.si.edu/music-of-the-ituri-forest/world/album/smithsonian

Nelson, R. (n.d.). The International Shakuhachi Society. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://www.komuso.com/pieces/pieces.pl?piece=2218

Rosen, R. J. (2013, November 13). Is the official description of the Aboriginal music on the Voyager Records Wrong? The Atlantic. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/is-the-official-description-of-the-aboriginal-music-on-the-voyager-records-wrong/280676/

Sagan, Carl (1978). Murmurs of Earth : the Voyager interstellar record (1st ed.). Random House. p. 178. ISBN 0-394-41047-5.

Twenty Thousand Hertz. (n.d.) Voyager Golden Record. [Audio podcast episode]. Megaphone. https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/20k?selected=TTH4214315391