COMMUNITY CHOICES

The community that developed once our selections were inputted into Palladio included: Steve S, Georgia, Trista S, Joseph V and myself. These classmates shared many of my selections but there ended up only being three songs that all 5 of us selected out of the 10. There are a couple single sections only chosen by individuals. When examining how we made our choices, there seemed to be an over arching theme of feelings and emotions when it came to our selections. The way the music made us feel or the mood of the music itself helped us to narrow down the selection. Trista was the only lone exception to this rule. Her reasoning came from her music background and the familiarity she had with the songs, which in a way could also lend itself to the theme of emotions, as many times we are drawn to things familiar as they are comfortable.

So what is it about those three songs that we could agree on? “Johnny B Goode” was actually my last choice, and I struggled with picking it. I wasn’t sure if I was picking it just because it was a mainstream song (although that may be just my North American biased view). It is not a song I would choose to listen to, but in its time perhaps I would have played it more for my own enjoyment. Critically, I thought that it may not be as “elevated” a choice for a space record. “Melancholy Blues” has a beat that is cheerful, interesting (not repetitive like I felt many sounded) and different in it’s use of instruments. It feels like a song you would listen to while cruising. “Fairie Round” seems to be a choice amongst many of my classmates. It does have an upbeat, positive vibe, which overall many people gravitated to.

CLASS CHOICES

The blue star is the song, “The Pygmy Girls,” which only one member picked, but then I realized when I went to revisit this song that that the link given in canvas does not have that track to listen to, so we would have had to hunt it down. I imagine it got lost amongst the choices for that reason. Track 27: String Quartet No 13 in B flat, is also not present on the canvas link for listening and three classmates included it in their choices, so my reasoning doesn’t hold up, as there are multiple tracks which three classmates (green star) picked. There is one track (red star) Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin that only made the list of two classmates. Overall, the tracks with the lowest picks do have a similarity in tone. Their mood isn’t positive and some seem a bit aggressive.

I made choices based on enjoyment, but also I wanted a range of examples of humanity. If this record had to be paired down, I wanted whatever found it to understand the diversity of humankind. In my original post, I talked briefly about language not being a factor, but by including many languages, it demonstrates the diversity we have on earth, so perhaps I would look at that element more. Smith (1999) discusses the idea around what we can afford to loose. If we are trying to preserve a fragment of our humankind what made these elements the things chosen. I know they go into some of the reasons in the podcast (Taylor) but I have questions:

Would these still be the picks? (44 years later)

What would give them the authority to make the choices?

Would someone who wasn’t American make the same choices?

Would the country represented be the choice be happy with the one chosen?

Taylor, D. (Host). (Unknown). Voyager Golden Record, InTwenty Thousands Hertz. Defect Sound. https://www.20k.org/episodes/voyagergoldenrecord

Smith Rumsey, A. (1999, February). Why Digitize? Retrieved June 15, 2019, from Council on Library and Information Resources website: https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub80-smith/pub80-2/