Task 8: Golden Record Curation

10 Songs from the Golden Record

From the Voyager’s Golden Record, I narrowed the playlist down to 10 songs.

1. Tchenhoukoumen recorded by Charles Duvelle | Senegal
2. Flowing Streams performed by Kuan P’ing-hu | China
3. Kinds of Flowers recorded by Robert Brown | Java
4. The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. by Mozart, Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor
5. Tchakrulo collected by Radio Moscow | Georgian S.S.R
6. Johnny B Goode by Chuck Berry | USA
7. El Cascabel performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México | Mexico
8. Morning Star and Devil Bird recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes | Australia
9. Melanesian Panpipes collected by the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service | Solomon Islands
10. Panpipes and drum song collected by Casa de la Cultura, Lima | Peru

Selection Criteria and Process

My overarching criterion was to represent all the continents. I was hoping to also show a temporal evolution of music and showcase a diversity of instruments.

With this, I made an Excel spreadsheet to organize all the songs (title, artist, country of origin, continent, instruments, notes on the sounds including genre, type of music, and historical context). When I started populating my Excel spreadsheet, I realized how my music classes really influenced how I created the headings!

Once I populated the spreadsheet, I used the following steps for selection:

1. Sort data by continent.
   1. This is when I noticed that the majority of the music came from Europe!
2. Re-listen to all the songs within each continent grouping and select one.
   1. With six continents represented, I knew there would only be four “free spots”
      1. Africa: I really liked the percussion sounds and rhythm so chose Tchenhoukoumen.
      2. South America: I found the lyrics of the Wedding Song to be sad so ended up choosing the Panpipes and drum song
      3. Oceania: I wanted to put on all three of the songs but chose the Melanesian Panpipes for the sound and Morning Star and Devil Bird for the low frequency and didgeridoo (I think).
      4. North America: I chose El Cascabel because it’s so upbeat and really like the genre. I really wanted to include a song from the USA to contextualize where the Voyager’s Golden Record came from and to provide another timestamp. With this, I chose Johnny B Goode since it’s a more recent genre and closest in time to 1978.
      5. Asia: From music history, I’m aware that there are specific sounds associated with music from Asia. It was hard to pick just one song for the continent and I realized it’s because Asia is such a large landmass that it’s difficult to conclude that one song is sufficient for representation. I chose Flowing Streams for the penatonic scales and Kinds of Flowers for South East Asia. Kinds of Flowers comes from Java which is located in Indonesia. Interestingly, there’s a merging of cultural influences in South East Asia which you can hear in the song. I also love the ethereal aural effects of Kinds of Flowers.
      6. Europe: Examining the songs from Europe and re-calling the historical context of 1978, I decided to choose one song for East Europe and one song for West Europe.
3. Once 10 songs are chosen, do not re-visit the list
   1. I’m notoriously indecisive and didn’t want to ruminate over my original selection. In the end, there is no correct answer for the curation.

Choosing between songs in the Europe category was difficult because I’m more familiar with some of the songs due to my classical piano training. Before I started the process, my thoughts were to include songs that mark different periods like Baroque, Classical, and Romantic. Plus, I wanted to showcase solo instruments, like piano and violin, and share orchestral music.

With East Europe, I wanted to include Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring because it was such a controversial song at the time and the recording we listen to was also conducted by Stravinsky. With West Europe, I love Fairie Round because of how bright it is and how it reminds me of The Procession of Celestial Beings from The Tale of Princess Kaguya. I wanted to include Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier because I love his music and have so much respect for how difficult it is to play Baroque music. I remember learning that early claviers only had one volume setting so to draw attention to specific parts of a song composers would include ornaments. Another feature of Baroque music is the overlapping voices which is technically difficult because of the rhythm. The recording of Well-Tempered Clavier is also played by Glenn Gould, a Canadian.

I ended up choosing Tchakrulo and The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. I decided that The Rite of Spring was too evocative to include in a recording for someone you do not know. Tchakrulo showcases a choir with overlapping voices and this reminds me a bit of Baroque music, although the genre is different. I chose Queen of the Night because it features an orchestra and a soprano. This piece has the highest frequency as well.

I did look into the meaning of the lyrics for some of the songs (e.g., Kinds of Flowers, Tchakrulo, Queen of the Night, Wedding Song) which did influence my decisions at the beginning. However, towards the end I decided not to exclude songs for having controversial topics because the reality is that songs are stories, dreams, and realities. To exclude their existence for this would be to deny a listener of what songs are and what songs can be.