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Containing images, information, and music representing Earth and humanity to the cosmos, NASA put "Golden Records" on the Voyager 1 & 2 spacecrafts. A greeting and introduction to who we are. Those spacecraft are well beyond our solar system now, going god knows where, possibly never to be discovered, or possibly hundreds of thousands of years away from discovery. Beautiful idea though, I think.
I recall doing a school project on this at the time in 1977. Not that this would have registered when I was 8 years old, but considering my interests now, I was pleased to just read that one of the pieces of music chosen to represent humanity was shakuhachi: Tsuru No Sugomori, played by Yamaguchi Goro. Plenty of other cultures' music on there also. Maybe a bit heavy on the European classical. List of tracks.
So a fun question... If you were Carl Sagan... and could have slipped any other shakuhachi track onto the record... what (and by who) would have been your ultimate piece to include to represent Earth and/or humanity, until the end of time?
-Darren.
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dstone wrote:
Maybe a bit heavy on the European classical.
I only see 6 European classical unless you count the chant. They got Chuck Berry, but no Beatles while both Bach and Beethoven get two tracks. I think they did very well considering that world music was yet to catch on even here on our own planet at the time. What year was that? We've got to try it again but this time put an Ipod aboard with the thousands of songs those can fit.
Last edited by radi0gnome (2007-03-27 01:57:10)
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Actually a very nice list. "Dark was the night" by Blind Willie Johnson is a brilliant choice.
For shakuhachi Yamaguchi Goro was a great choice and then I'd put up something by Watazumi, maybe "Reiho" off the 'Hocchiku" CD.
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I think Dai Bosatsu would be a good choice for a Watazumi piece, something about "a piece in which one's entire body and entire soul become one with the natural bamboo to produce a reverberant flow" sounds like a good thing to represent humanity.
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radi0gnome wrote:
... They got Chuck Berry, but no Beatles while both Bach and Beethoven get two tracks...
Yes, precisely. No fair. Where is the Beatles "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?"
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Watazumi is a good suggestion. Or anything else raw, yearning, and unpolished. If it wasn't still 1977, I'd vote for any piece played at a glacial pace by Atsuya Okuda.
Or mess with the aliens' heads and fill the record with a few hours of ro buki.
On the Beatles comment... apparently "Here Comes the Sun" was on NASA's short list to include and the band was supportive, but their record company squashed the idea. Seriously, what wisdom was at work there? Maybe it's just as well because if the aliens ever made copies of or played The Beatles track publicly then EMI may have tried to sue them and you just don't want to be pissing off aliens that way.
-Darren.
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Chris Moran wrote:
Yes, precisely. No fair. Where is the Beatles "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?"
Well, I was thinking more along the lines of "Yellow Submarine", but "Help!" and "Fool on the Hill" would be appropriate choices too. BTW, the verses to Yellow Submarine fit well on shakuhachi, but I find the chorus elusive.
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radi0gnome wrote:
BTW, the verses to Yellow Submarine fit well on shakuhachi, but I find the chorus elusive.
Is it the first part of the chorus? Pitch repeated 4 times, then a half step up, etc.?
Just noodling here...
Verse:
re, chi, ri,
chi, re, chi, tsu,
re, chi, chi, re, tsu, ro,
re, chi, chi, re ... (etc.)
Chorus:
ri x4, i-no-meri, re, tsu x4,
tsu, re, tsu x4,
tsu, tsu, tsu-no-meri x4 ... (etc.)
-Darren.
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dstone wrote:
Is it the first part of the chorus? Pitch repeated 4 times, then a half step up, etc.?
Looks like you got it. I'm not sure if it's a terminology that's written in stone, but the chorus is the part that everybody joins in singing and the words don't change much each time the song comes to it. It's usually the part of the song that the record producers want to stick in your mind. Thanks for that, it's an easy way for me to learn the note names.
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Tairaku wrote:
Actually a very nice list. "Dark was the night" by Blind Willie Johnson is a brilliant choice.
For shakuhachi Yamaguchi Goro was a great choice and then I'd put up something by Watazumi, maybe "Reiho" off the 'Hocchiku" CD.
I'd say that in the absence of Watazumi, you couldn't choose a better proxy than Blind Willie Johnson. If you don't know Dark was the Night, you should listen to it soon and often.
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rpowers wrote:
Tairaku wrote:
"Dark was the night" by Blind Willie Johnson is a brilliant choice.
If you don't know Dark was the Night, you should listen to it soon and often.
Hell yes. Buy the album and put yourself in the room with that man. The track has no words, some vocalizing, and it speaks volumes.
As for the other tracks... I dare anyone to play them and not start stomping or bobbing or something as Willie is wailing gravel and drumming on his guitar.
-Darren.
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dstone wrote:
Tsuru No Sugomori, played by Yamaguchi Goro ... List of tracks.
Just released on CD this month: Explorer Series East Asia/Japan: Shakuhachi Music - A Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky
This is the Nonesuch Explorer album of Yamaguchi Goro playing Sokaku Reibo and Kokû Reibo. The liner notes say that it was an excerpt of this recording of Sokaku Reibo ("Tsuru No Sugomori") that flew in on V'ger.
Merry Christmas, you won the Lottery on your birthday!
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Chris Moran wrote:
This is the Nonesuch Explorer album of Yamaguchi Goro playing Sokaku Reibo and Kokû Reibo. The liner notes say that it was an excerpt of this recording of Sokaku Reibo ("Tsuru No Sugomori") that flew in on V'ger.
Thanks for the heads-up, Chris. Amazon lists a newly released CD of that name, on that label, but with more and different tracks and played by Kohachiro Miyata. link
Since you started the film reference, I'll oblige... Touch God...? V'ger's liable to be in for one hell of a disappointment. Apologies to the doctor.
-Darren.
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dstone wrote:
Amazon lists a newly released CD of that name, on that label, but with more and different tracks and played by Kohachiro Miyata. link
-Darren.
Yes, Amazon blew the listing. The artist and track names are shown erroneously the same as the other Explorer Nonesuch shakuhachi CD (Kohachiro Miyata), but this one is the authentic previously out-of-print Yamaguchi Goro album. The CD is fine. The listing in Amazon is not.
Kids with computers.
dstone wrote:
Touch God...? V'ger's liable to be in for one hell of a disappointment. Apologies to the doctor.
Apology accepted.
-- Doc
Last edited by Chris Moran (2007-04-06 05:55:30)
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radi0gnome wrote:
They got Chuck Berry, but no Beatles while both Bach and Beethoven get two tracks.
OK, so in a million years or so, some guys on a very distant planet pull the recording, give it a listen, come across the Bach and say,
"Hey, we got airplay as far away as Earth!" :-)
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