This was a very engaging activity to think about… and very challenging to try to come up with some kind of criteria to cull down the list of 27 songs from the Golden Record to only 10! I decided to curate my selections based on both Diversity of Representation (continental origin) as well as Variety of Sounds/Genres. The Golden Record was curated to feature cultural diversity already, but several of the selections feature classical music of European origin. I decided to only select one of these songs, and ensure the rest of my selections represented more geographical variety. Additionally, I chose songs that had the most diversity in instrumental/vocal sounds. It was mentioned in the Voyager Golden Record podcast (2019) that any kind of alien intelligence may not have the same capacity to hear sound frequencies in the same way humans can, so in selecting a variety of instrumental sounds, we maximize the potential that some of these sounds could be identified or mean something to other life forms.
Here is my curated list:
- Wedding song – (Peru, South America)
- Tchenhoukoumen, percussion (Senegal, Africa)
- Kinds of Flowers (Indonesia, Asia)
- Flowing Streams (China, Asia)
- El Cascabel (Mexico, North America)
- Ugam – Azerbaijan bagpipes (Azerbaijan, Europe/Asia)
- Jaat Kahan Ho (India, Asia)
- Navajo Night Chant (America, North America)
- Morning Star and Devil Bird (Australia/Oceania)
- Bach – WTK 2, no 1, Glenn Gould (Germany, Europe)
Reference:
Taylor, D. (Host). (2019, April). Voyager golden record. [Audio podcast episode]. In Twenty thousand hertz. Defacto Sound.
Hi Lachelle,
I like the very different approach you had for this task. As a result of my very limited musical background, I trusted the creators to have selected a great variety of songs from different geographical regions and with different instruments and styles. Therefore, I focused on choosing tracks that had personal meaning to me or that represented the project’s message of peace and joy. Whereas I selected the tracks based on emotions and values, you were focusing more on their musicality. You mentioned the importance of choosing different instruments in the hopes that alien lifeforms would be able to hear the sound frequencies. That was something that I had not considered at all. I was so focused on how to represent humanity that I completely disregarded the audience. I also really liked what you said on Steve’s post about how “by the time any life form ostensibly finds this Golden Record, music will likely have changed to something beyond our current comprehension.” Indeed, it is interesting to think about how the selection of tracks would change as time goes on. If we were to do this task again in 10 years, would we still choose the same 10 tracks?