Voyager's Golden Record: What Would You Have Sent?

[Thropplenoggin]

Here's a novel take on the list-based thread (hopefully Saly will approve!): the classical music contents of the Voyager Golden Record.

Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. First Movement, Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, conductor. 4:40
Bach, "Gavotte en rondeaux" from the Partita No. 3 in E major for Violin, performed by Arthur Grumiaux. 2:55
Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. Glenn Gould, piano. 4:48
Mozart, The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor. 2:55
Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor. 7:20
Beethoven, String Quartet No. 13 in B flat, Opus 130, Cavatina, performed by Budapest String Quartet. 6:37
Stravinsky, Rite of Spring, Sacrificial Dance, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Igor Stravinsky, conductor. 4:35

The first movement from Beethoven's Fifth and the Stravinsky seem rather aggressive things to send, since the general message of the disc seems to be "We come in peace!" Couple that with some of the sound samples sent, such as "volcanoes, earthquakes, thunder", it might explain why extra-terrestrial intelligent life has kept away.

Also included on the disc were folk music from various tribes and cultures, including Javanese gamelan, lots of panpipes (perhaps this explain why E.T. has stayed away?), Navajo chants, etc. There's a full list here: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/music.html. It would make me laugh if any aliens found the Pygmy girls' initiation song from Zaire far more to their taste than our exalted Western icons of harmony, such as Bach.

The Wikipedia page also includes other info regarding the languages of the various greetings and what they said, such as the very hippy-ish English "Greetings from the children of planet Earth" and the French: "Bonjour tout le monde".

Here's a Spotify playlist of all tracks: http://open.spotify.com/user/ulysses...Iw7OgL149bgJmZ and you can also hear samples of everything on the disc by clicking on the Voyager spaceship here: http://goldenrecord.org/

So, what music would you have put on the golden record to convince intelligent life that it's worth making contacting with the "children of planet Earth"?

[richardfinegold]

The opening of Carmina Burana. Scare the heck out of them!

[MrGongGong]

The opening of Carmina Burana. Scare the heck out of them!

A bit MOR for my taste
if you really want to scare them then Black Angels


(I'm assuming you don't need the "Bring More Tuna" clip again ?)

[Boilk]

As a preemptive strike against hostile alien invasion, anything by The Brotherhood of Man should keep them well away. Birtwistle's Tragoedia should also do the trick, if for different reasons.

[arthroceph]

I think insistence is needed on the high chances that the first aliens to be found will be: primitive, something like unicellular bacteria, or, at most, simple multicellular nematode worms.

This is down to Earth's history being populated by these organisms for most of the time (4.5 billion years) while more complex life really only got a hold in the last 500 million years (roughly speaking).

So this Golden record is highly likely to fall on deaf ears, or - if you will - organisms with no ears at all. In the 1970's there was probably nothing we could send to animals like that, but today there is, and it's called the Harlem Shake. Its effect on such creatures can be amply seen in this video and it's the only thing aliens are likely to understand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U4N9MQXcgc

[Ferretfancy]

Strauss J II The Blue Danube Waltz
Strauss R Also Sprach Zarathustra
Ligeti Atmospheres

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Strauss J II The Blue Danube Waltz
Strauss R Also Sprach Zarathustra
Ligeti Atmospheres

[Thropplenoggin]

I think insistence is needed on the high chances that the first aliens to be found will be: primitive, something like unicellular bacteria, or, at most, simple multicellular nematode worms...In the 1970's there was probably nothing we could send to animals like that, but today there is, and it's called the Harlem Shake. Its effect on such creatures can be amply seen in this video and it's the only thing aliens are likely to understand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U4N9MQXcgc

Utterly inspired posting, sir!

[antongould]

Good one Thropps in the spirit of lists hereabouts.........

I suppose first we need to decry the use of bleeding chunks and treating these aliens like 4/5 year olds.....

As always this could all change by midnight

But I'd switch Gould to the Gouldbergs (1981)
Beethoven SQ Opus 131 Quartetto Italiano
Prokofiev Violin Concerto 2 Heifetz
Shostakovich Symphony 7 Bernstein Chicago Symphony
and and of course the Symphony that tops all our lists - Bruckner 8 Wand WDR Sinfonieorchester

[JFLL]

So, what music would you have put on the golden record to convince intelligent life that it's worth making contacting with the "children of planet Earth"?

'If a lion could speak, we could not understand him' (Wittgenstein). And would an alien intelligence necessarily understand what music -- producing sounds in a pattern which pleases us -- was? (And, more practically, would they have CD players? )

[Thropplenoggin]

'If a lion could speak, we could not understand him' (Wittgenstein). And would an alien intelligence necessarily understand what music -- producing sounds in a pattern which pleases us -- was? (And, more practically, would they have CD players? )

'Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent' (Wittgenstein).

The golden record was engraved with instructions on how the LP was to be played. I expect these days they would send an Apple-sponsored gimcrack hooked up to wireless speakers.

[JFLL]

'Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent' (Wittgenstein).

The golden record was engraved with instructions on how the LP was to be played.

In English or Martian?

[EdgeleyRob]

I thought they'd already made contact.