Task 8: Golden Record Curation
List curated from the Music from Earth by NASA.
- Beethoven 5th Symphony, First Movement. Performed by the Phil Harmonica Orchestra, Otto Klemperer as conductor. 7:20. Germany
- Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. First Movement by Bach, performed by the Munich Bach Orchestra with Karl Richter as conductor. 4:40. Germany
- “El Cascabel” by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi Mexico. 3:14. Mexico
- “Johnny B Goode” by Chuck Berry, 2:38. United States of America
- “Iziel je Delyo Hagdutin” sung by Valya Balkanska. 4:59. Bulgaria
- Wedding song recorded by Joh Cohen. 0:38. Peru
- Azerbaijan bagpipes recorded by Radio Moscow. 2:30. Azerbaijan.
- Men’s house song recorded by Robert MacLennan. 1:20. Papua New Guinea
- Melanesian panpipes collected by the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service. 1:12. Solomon Islands.
- “Melancholy Blues” by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05. United States of America.
I curated the list of musical content down to these ten picks in order to create a narrative for both the record and our human society. I tried to mix as many different cultures while keeping the narrative, but I worry that my own inclination with western media may have come through with the majority of selections being from the northern hemisphere. The first two selections begin with a strong welcome, showing the human spirit and leading into the joy for life with the “El Cascabel” and culminating with Chuck Berry’s song “Johnny B Goode”. Next the Bulgarian song about the “unkillable rebel hero” (Taylor, 2019, 24:31) is not intended as a threat, a view similarly shared by Tim Ferris in Taylor’s podcast (2019), but rather shows our fighting spirit and perseverance. The latter songs are a mix of instrumentals from around the world as we do not know which sound waves extraterrestrial species can hear or understand, the Azerbaijan selection was a personal touch as it is from my home region. Ultimately I ended with “Melancholy Blues”, an ode to the journey of the voyager and Humanity’s call into the emptiness of space.
References:
Music from Earth. (n.d.). NASA.
Taylor, D. (Host). (2019, April). Voyager golden record [Audio podcast episode]. In Twenty thousand hertz. Defacto Sound.
