Golden Record

Firstly, I have to say I’m really impressed with the curation of this list. During the 19th century to present there has been a dominating philosophy and theory to music education called “Aesthetics”. This theory, essentially, wants to focus on teaching and developing “high art” and “good” music. Which can, unfortunately, perpetuate Western music, composition, and theory as “the best”. I was half expecting to find larger traces of this epistemological framework in this list. Seven of the twenty-seven songs are Western European Art music, which is 27% of the list. If you include the other musical contributions that are historically linked to Western European Art Music, that makes up ten of the twenty seven songs, 37%. Now, it is difficult to express the global significance and complexity of western music theory without coming across as elitist. I do want to give credit where credit is due, however, for the most part, I have removed much of these pieces. This choice was made because there are ways of precisely and accurately notating this music. If an alien species can decode our language, brain scans, and whale sounds, they could certainly figure out how to read music. Many of the cultures represented on this list do not have systems for notation and there are problematic and troublesome implications of taking, what could be, a sacred song from one culture and notating it to be played out of context in another. So essentially, works that can be precisely notated (with permission from the authors), will be removed. In addition to Western European Art Music, there are ways of notating Javanese gamelan, Hindustani and Carnatic music (India).

Now to the hard part. I tried to choose pieces that represent different elements of music and instrumentation, not necessarily a global representation. For example, there are multiple pieces that include some kind of folk bagpipe. For this reason I have picked only one bagpipe piece that also contains other elements of music – to cover as much “human ground” as possible. Similarly, I have tried to pick songs that embody the core elements of music, that are uniquely rhythmic, melodic, instrumental, solo voice/instrument, choir, or improvisation. Some of these pieces are picked for their isolated development as well.

• Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08 – Rhythm is at the core of musical expression and Western African traditions have developed some of the most advanced rhythmic traditions in the world. Through the slave trade, these rhythmic tradition made their way into North, Central, and South America and have transformed the way the world listens to music.
• “Melancholy Blues,” performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05 – This is a fantastic example of the melting pot of “American” musical expressions. Centered around western harmony, Afro-cuban rhythms, and improvisation, jazz is a very unique art form and has had a global influence over the last 100 years.
• Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38 – This is a great example of solo voice. There is also a unique melodic quality to it.
• Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26 – Uniquely developed the isolation of Australia contains examples of indigenous instrumentation and voice.
• Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. Glenn Gould, piano. 4:48 – Bach is known as the grandfather of Western Harmony and is literally and mythologically responsible for the harmonic patterns we hear on the radio today.
• New Guinea, men’s house song, recorded by Robert MacLennan. 1:20 – This is an example of instrumental rhythm, melody, and repetition. Expressions like this have been used by Western minimalist composers and sounds like this have made their way into film, loops, and sound design.
• Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14 – I love this piece because it is rooted in Western harmony and instrumentation and yet there is a remarkable uniqueness about the rhythmic and melodic expression that we would not hear in Western traditions. It is a great example of cultures remixing musical technology.
• Bulgaria, “Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin,” sung by Valya Balkanska. 4:59 – Drone is a big part of many musical expression. Bagpipes typically play over a drone and many cultures included in this list like the Hindustani and Australian cultures use drone. This also has very expressive vocal accompaniment which can be found in many cultures.
• Zaire, Pygmy girls’ initiation song, recorded by Colin Turnbull. 0:56 – A great example of vocal choir and harmony outside of Western traditions.
• Japan, shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (“Crane’s Nest,”) performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51 – This was a piece I chose to represent a geographical area as well as it being a solo instrument.