Task 8

Task 8 - The Golden Record Curation

Made the Cut

• Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. First Movement, Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, conductor. 4:40
  • Kept due to the fact in the podcast it said this one and others were included for their mathematical composure. That seemed like a good reason to be included. And I enjoyed listening to this one, but one Bach was enough, so the other two Bach pieces got cut.
• Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle. 2:08
  • Kept as it was perhaps the only percussion focused piece. The rhythm might be appealing to some, though I did look for one with more bass where one might feel the vibrations of the music/sounds even if one couldn't hear them.
• "Johnny B. Goode," written and performed by Chuck Berry. 2:38
  • If I found this record, this is one of, possibly the only, one I would listen to repeatedly. It has an energizing and uplifting feel to me. It reminds me of the Back to the Future scene where it was new to the audience.
• Mozart, The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor. 2:55
  • I was unsure on this one. I don't particularly like it, but it is one of two female performed pieces, so I kept it.
• AIzerbaijan S.S.R., bagpipes, recorded by Radio Moscow. 2:30
  • There were a few pipes pieces, so I decided to keep this one and eliminate some others. I didn't find it enjoyable to listen to, but it had what sounded almost like a humming to me in the background. It made it different from the Classical music pieces.
• Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
  • Possibly the other track I might listen to repeatedly, but not as a feel good like the Berry track. This one evokes other emotions for me. It has a lot going on, so I can picture different stories being told to this.
• Navajo Indians, Night Chant, recorded by Willard Rhodes. 0:57
  • I kept this one to have a piece that was a chant with little instrumental accompaniment. I thought it stood apart from the other pieces and was perhaps a good selection. I also couldn't tell for sure if it was male or female or both doing the vocals, so I think the ambiguity appealed to me.
• Holborne, Paueans, Galliards, Almains and Other Short Aeirs, "The Fairie Round," performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London. 1:17
  • I found this one to be light and pleasant. Perhaps whimsical, though I might be biased be seeing the title.
• Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen. 0:38
  • I kept this as it was performed by a woman. I was back and forth on keeping it as the podcast said the song is the lamentations of a woman getting married. However, that was own personal bias against marriage, though couldn't a song for women been about something other than men? Childbirth? Healing? Women's work? This was a very male-prominent collection. Could there not have been some female compositions? Or a kids choir or child performance?
• "Dark Was the Night," written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson. 3:15
  • I kept this one as in the podcast it said this song was about a long lonely night alone in the cold. I suppose that is how space travel might seem. It seemed like a good closing.

Didn't Make the Cut

• Georgian S.S.R., chorus, "Tchakrulo," collected by Radio Moscow. 2:18
• New Guinea, men's house song, recorded by Robert MacLennan. 1:20
• Australia, Aborigine songs, "Morning Star" and "Devil Bird," recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes. 1:26
• Solomon Islands, panpipes, collected by the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service. 1:12
• Bulgaria, "Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin," sung by Valya Balkanska. 4:59
• Java, court gamelan, "Kinds of Flowers," recorded by Robert Brown. 4:43
• "Melancholy Blues," performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05
• Bach, "Gavotte en rondeaux" from the Partita No. 3 in E major for Violin, performed by Arthur Grumiaux. 2:55
• Stravinsky, Rite of Spring, Sacrificial Dance, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Igor Stravinsky, conductor. 4:35
• Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. Glenn Gould, piano. 4:48
• Zaire, Pygmy girls' initiation song, recorded by Colin Turnbull. 0:56
• India, raga, "Jaat Kahan Ho," sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. 3:30
• Beethoven, String Quartet No. 13 in B flat, Opus 130, Cavatina, performed by Budapest String Quartet. 6:37
• China, ch'in, "Flowing Streams," performed by Kuan P'ing-hu. 7:37
• Japan, shakuhachi, "Tsuru No Sugomori" ("Crane's Nest,") performed by Goro Yamaguchi. 4:51
• Peru, panpipes and drum, collected by Casa de la Cultura, Lima. 0:52
• Mexico, "El Cascabel," performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México. 3:14

I struggled with this task. First, I have very little musical knowledge and found some pieces had to tell apart. The pipe pieces in particular all sounded alike to me. I also don't really like a lot of music. Some of these pieces - many the ones that were cut - were a bit hard on my ears. I can understand and respect the difficulty in trying to represent a variety of cultures and styles, when many people are brought up one only a few styles of music, and may have a hard time "appreciating" styles very different than those they are used to. I also had a hard time with the number, as ten versus twenty-seven seems to be arbitrary, without having a directed purpose for doing so. I'm imagining in the selection fo the original 27, first there was likely long debates of what number Sagan and committee should choose. In the podcast, Sagan describes the record as Earth's Greatest Hits. How does one chose a number of musical selections to represent the globe's cultures? Were they trying to evenly represent cultures geographically? Or a variety of instruments? Or were they picking the "best" achievements in music? Was there conditions for lengths of pieces? Was data storage capacity an issue? In my curation, do I have any of these considerations? Am I picking what I personally like best? What I think represent the world's diversity of culture the best? In the end, I tried for a blend. But I was stuck a bit on what was missing as opposed to what was included. No Scandinavian representation. No significant drumming - yes percussion, which I included, but that seemed to me as more of a tapping, not heavy duty, feel it in your chest drumming. As mentioned, it seemed women were represented. It didn't go unnoticed that the three 'modern' American selections were black men. Could Etta James not have been chosen instead of one of them? Edith Piaf? Patsy Cline? And no kids music? Could there not have been a spot for Judy Garland or Julie Andrews to sing a child's song or lullaby? To me, it doesn't say much about our global culture, if there was no music for kids. I think about Also noticed there was not overtly religious music, which I am wondering if that was a deliberate choice? I would guess so, to avoid controversy. But ignoring it in itself, when so much of music was and is linked to religious celebration, seems a bit controversial to me. However, considering the vast catalogue of human music, choosing 27 or 10 pieces if a monumental task, which there would never be "correct" playlist, even with a hundred records worth of tracks. However, I do think if this selection were taking place today instead of the 1970's, I would hope for more gender balance, and a representation of children. I think back to Dr. Smith's lecture in the video, about what is lost in digitizing certain pieces for preservation, and that in the podcast, that this probe may last a billion years, and be the only remaining record of humanity - and we didn't preserve the voices of our children in song? I find it odd considering Sagan had quite a few kids, though perhaps with his son being the English greeter, he felt that was enough representation and one of his children were on the record. But with three Bach pieces, one could have been axed for a children's choir, in my very unmusical opinion.

Cheers,

Katherine