Sunday, September 29, 2002

From the book I'm going to read to my second graders this week . . .
The first Voyager spacecraft was launched in 1977.
On the spacecraft there is a recording of sounds from Earth.
Should the spacecraft encounter any life beyond our galaxy,
the first sound that will be heard is the music of
Johann Sebastian Bach

That's so cool - I wonder what pieces they picked - and who picked them. Bach's a great choice (Although I'd have thrown in some Copland too!) I wonder if they included music outside the Classical Western Tradition (African Drums or Japanese flutes). I wonder what aliens will think of Bach - - I wonder if they'll think we are 200 years behind ourselves in music history - - I wonder if they'll see our 1970's "space age" technology and think we are 25 years behind ourselves in science. I wonder how NASA formatted the music (Tape?? 8Trac??)