There are 27 pieces of music that are on the Voyager Golden Record that draw from the diversity of the human culture around the world. For this task, we listened to the Golden Record and then we were asked to narrow down the 27 pieces of music to just 10. 

Narrowing down the music choices from 27 to 10 pieces was difficult. As I listened to each piece of music, I tried to further consider the significance of each piece of music and just why it was chosen. Having listened to the Twenty Thousand Hertz (2019) podcast, I had some ideas of why the music may have been chosen but I needed to fully listen for myself to see if I could also draw on the significance of the chosen musical pieces. Although the Golden Record does not explain the history of Earth, it does still provide a good glimpse and sampling of the varied musical sounds that provides a listener somewhere in the cosmos a good first impression of Earth. As mentioned towards the end of the Twenty Thousand Hertz (2019) podcast, a quote from Einstein said that, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” I reflected on what that quote meant while I listened to the musical pieces.  

While I listened to the pieces of music I also felt drawn to just what the conversations might have been among Carl Sagan and the team of contributors as they began to curate this historical record and how in the end they decided to choose the music. I suppose a consideration to remember was that this is only a highlight of the viewpoints and opinions of a select group of individuals. I imagine those conversations must have been rather wild and lively in order to determine the final significance of each piece of music. I am sure this was not an easy process and as I listened to those pieces of music myself, I could see some of the diversity of the music chosen from around the world. I did however find that in terms of a balance of that music, that there seemed to be a heavier emphasis on more of a western influence of artists. 

A thought from Dr. Rumsey that stuck with me and reminded me of what we were learning in the course was that, “We do not add text to the technology, the texts are the technology.” It also reminded me of what The New London Group was talking about in terms of multiliteracies and how all texts are multimodal. Overall, text is the technology because of the variety of ways we are able to represent information. Representation of information and the ways in which we collect that information has become more diverse and complex over the years. The way the text is portrayed on the Golden Record from the musical pieces to the symbols on the outside, shows the diversity of text technologies that are coming from Earth. It reminds me of the last thought from the Twenty Thousand Hertz (2019) podcast stating that it is, “A message to the cosmos. We are here and we are listening.” (31:22) or as quoted on the NASA website (n.d) by Carl Sagan, “The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space faring civilizations in interstellar space.”

When trying to decide on the type of music, I was reminded of the questions posed in this week’s readings; “What can we afford to keep?” and “What can we afford to lose?” These questions did not make this task any easier. My mind went right away to trying to show a progression and growth of music over the ages; however, after listening to the music, I realised that would be difficult to do with the seeming imbalance of the musical selections. When I finally selected my 10 pieces I kept in mind the original intent that this is, “Music from Earth.” I then tried to make sure my list provided a global diversity of music from around the world while also trying to show the various temporal diversities of sound of voice and types of instrumentation. I have further categorized the songs according to continent to show a diversity of locations from around the world. The song choices also show the varied types of instrumentation, sound rhythms, beats and of course lyrical influences. 

Here are the 10 pieces I selected and have broken them down by Continent:

African Continent:

• Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08

Australian Continent:

• Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26

European Continent:

• Germany, Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
• Bulgaria, “Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin,” sung by Valya Balkanska. 4:59
• Azerbaijan, S.S.R., bagpipes, recorded by Radio Moscow. 2:30

North American Continent:

• United States, “Melancholy Blues,” performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05
• Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14

Asian Continent:

• China, ch’in, “Flowing Streams,” performed by Kuan P’ing-hu. 7:37
• India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30

South American Continent:

• Peru, panpipes and drum, collected by Casa de la Cultura, Lima. 0:52

 

References:

McDonald, L. (2019). Twenty Thousand Hertz, #65 Voyager Golden Record. Retrieved from https://www.20k.org/episodes/voyagergoldenrecord

NASA. (n.d) Voyager-The Golden Record. https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/