In choosing a list of 10 works of music from the Golden Record list of 27, my parameters were to limit the duplication of music from specific regions or cultures, particularly European and American music selections that were predominant. This was to allow for the inclusion of other regions, nations and cultures, even though many regions and nations were not included in the original list (for example, there are no examples from Canada such as Inuit throat singing).<\/p>\n
The 10 works Golden Record selections that I chose for the survey were as follows (in order of how they appear on the Golden Record list of 27) along with one of the main reasons I chose each of them:<\/p>\n
What was noticeably absent from the list, which also may reflect the biases of those who selected the music, were various forms of dance music, religious or worship music, and music used as part of cultural events or rites of passage, with the exception of the Initiation Song and the Wedding Song. There also seems to be no inclusion of emerging instruments of that era such as electronic sounds and most of the songs pre-date the 20th century.<\/p>\n
Although my intention was to reduce the Euro-Western bias by limiting the number of songs that met that criterion, about 40 per cent of my list of 10 is still European or American. Unfortunately, because of that, my list excludes significant nations and even the entire continent of Australia.<\/p>\n