How does one decide what are the appropriate sounds to communicate to another species? I have a hard time believing that what we find “tasteful, pleasing, and entertaining” will be enjoyable for other life forms. Do whales, beetles, baboons, or macaws enjoy these sounds? Are there elements that they find threatening or otherwise? Predictably the music is earth-centric, but there were a LOT of assumptions made in what was to be represented. Unless of course, that was the goal, which it was. A survey of earth sounds. I connected when the Twenty-thousand-hertz” podcast discusses the likelihood of the frequencies on the record being audible to whatever listens to it. They may not be able to hear it at all but could cause pain the way a dog whistle gives people a headache.
I also find it difficult to determine which songs, which are inherently value-laden, important enough to keep and unimportant enough to lose. Media in a variety of forms, however innocuous it may seem, is coupled with what the creators (or curators) feel is important, and this is why it’s difficult to pick ten songs. I have my own conscious and unconscious biases that obstruct my objective pics.
Dr. Smith Rumsey mentions in her lecture at Brown in 2017 that “we need to be mindful about how we control the flow of information…we have to think about users not just in the here and now but in the distant future.” In this way, I guess it would be preferable to send something rather than nothing. Aesthetically, I think harmony is an important element that ought to be included, but that flows from my upbringing and culture. Even the instrumentals have a melody that brings with it their own culture and sense of place. If I try to stay as neutral as possible, then in the end you don’t really have anything at all. The most neutral thing is, well, nothing.
Here it goes.
- Bach – WTK 2, no 1, Glenn Gould
- Morning Star and Devil Bird- Australia
- Dark was the night-Blind Willie Johnson
- Bach – Gavotte en Rondo – A Grumiaux
- Tchenhoukoumen, percussion Senegal
- Beethoven 5th, part 1, Otto Klemperer
- Azerbaijan S.S.R., bagpipes, recorded by Radio Moscow
- “Johnny B. Goode,” written and performed by Chuck Berry.
- Bulgaria, “Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin,” sung by Valya Balkanska
- Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México
References
Brown University. (2017). Abby Smith Rumsey: “Digital Memory: What Can We Afford to Lose?”