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.