by Carl Sagan
’My soul, you move with ease,
And like a strong swimmer in rapture in the wave
You wing your way blithely through boundless space
With virile joy unspeakable.’ ”
(From Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du Mal”)
Syed Azmat Hassan of Pakistan (Punjabi):
“… on behalf of my countrymen I am sending a message of friendship and greetings to our friends in space. It is our heartiest desire that there should be peace in the whole world and this peace is in all facets of life.”
Peter Jankowitsch of Austria (German):
“As the chairman of the Outer Space Committee of the UN and the representative of Austria, I am pleased to extend to you our greetings in this way.”
Robert B. Edmonds of Canada (English):
“I should like to extend the greetings of the government and people of Canada to the extraterrestrial inhabitants of outer space.”
Wallace R. T. Macaulay of Nigeria (Efik):
“To extraterrestrial intelligent beings: We are supposed to inhabit this planet alone but we know this is not quite so. In Africa, we want to believe that we have you and you are all-knowing, and perhaps possess high intelligence and therefore can help us solve the many problems of our world here.”
James F. Leonard of the United States of America (English):
“I wish to extend greetings and friendly wishes to all who may encounter this Voyager and receive this message.”
Juan Carlos Valero of Chile (Spanish):
“[We] send to all beings in the universe an affectionate greeting of peace and happiness. May the future give us the opportunity [of getting together].”
Eric Duchěne of Belgium (Flemish):
“Belgium sends its greetings on board the Voyager and hopes that this message will reach the people of outer space.”
Samuel Ramsay Nicol of Sierra Leone (English):
“… and good luck. Sierra Leone is a member of the Committee on
Outer Space and we believe that this committee good for …”
Wallace R. T. Macaulay of Nigeria (English):
“My dear friends in outer space, as you probably know, my country is situated on the west coast of the continent of Africa, a land mass more or less in the shape of a question mark in the center of our planet.”
Bahram Moghtaderi of Iran (Persian):
“[As a representative] of the Committee of the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, I have the honor of sending the greeting of the people and government [of Iran.]”
Ralph Harry of Australia (Esperanto):
“We seek to live in peace with the peoples of the whole world, of the whole universe …”
Anders Thunboig of Sweden (Swedish):
“We saw a nebula in a telescope.
A golden mistcluster we thought we saw.
In larger telescopes it could seem as
the fathomless space of a thousand suns.
Our spinning thoughts made it appear
to rise, high above earth’s wars,
away from time and space—our lives’ naïveté—
to other dimensions’ majesty.
No law rules there as in this life.
There reign the laws for the world of worlds.
There surge the suns away, mature,
and ring into the source of all the suns.
A multitude of suns are to be found.
Each sun there beats with cosmic law
in the unbearable light of greater suns.
And all is clearness there, the day of days.”
(The poem “Visit to the Observatory” by the late Harry Martinson from Passad. Copyright 1945 by Harry Martinson. Published by permission of Albert Bonniers Förlag AB, Stockholm, Sweden. Unofficial translation by Marna Feldt, information officer, Swedish Information Service, with the help of Verne Moberg, translator.)
Appendix C
Robert Brown’s Recommendations on Musical Repertoire
* * *
May 9, 1977
Dear Dr. Sagan:
I was glad to learn from you on Thursday that there might be a chance to extend the time allotted for human music on the Voyager recording.
My selection amounts to about thirty-eight minutes and is limited to pieces that are complete in themselves and are available on commercial recordings. I have tried, as far as possible, to make selections in a logical way from the whole range of human music, without the distinction of Western and non-Western or other ethnocentric viewpoints. Included are some different uses and timbres of the human voice; principal types of instruments, alone or in various densities of combination; a range of scales, modes and tuning systems to suggest the human variety thereof; different types of meter, rhythm, and tempo; examples of different kinds of harmony and counterpoint; and textures ranging from simple to complex. Without trying to reconstruct historical items from the Western past, I have at the same time attempted to glean living examples from different stages of human musical development.
Although all of these measurable elements are interesting and would, I hope, suggest some of the parameters of human music to an intelligence otherwise quite unfamiliar with it, they are obviously only secondary considerations for most listeners and performers here on earth. Music being primarily a means of communicating emotional, spiritual, and intellectual states, I have chosen only examples that have for me personally, a deep musical meaning. In the final analysis, then, the selection is subjective, and I believe that it has to be. I don’t think that such comprehensive artistic choices are ever well decided by committees. The fact that no two ethnomusicologists would compile the same list is, after all, directly related to the characteristics of human nature responsible for the staggering number of items one has to choose from. The problem is rather like that which would confront a botanist asked to select a half-dozen varieties to represent the world’s flowers. Let us hope that, among other things, he wouldn’t have forgotten that most people think of them in terms of visual beauty and fragrance. If I could extend the list, it would include the following: a lively mridangam solo from India (in a tala of five beats, played by Palghat Mani Iyer, who may well be the world’s best drummer); a representative piece of electronic music (hard to decide upon); a Balinese gamelan piece (my choice would be the ancient Gamelan Selundeng, recorded on Boite à Musique LD 096M); a piece of Renaissance vocal polyphony by Des Pres, Dufay, or Ockeghem, bristling with contrapuntal devices; a Chinese ch’in solo; a West African dance piece with drum ensemble and voices; a Mozart aria; a Bulgarian folk song in diaphonic style; Melanesian panpipes, to relate to the Bach and shakuhachi; and a symphony of Beethoven’s, probably the Eighth. This could conceivably produce more insight into human nature than an extraterrestrial intelligence might be prepared to handle!
A survey of the record shops in Portland, Oregon, has failed to produce your Chavez piece. Could it be the Hymn to the Sun? I was told that there are many releases subsidized by the Mexican government that are not available in the United States. Although I admire Chavez, and have performed his piano music, if the piece is an attempt to evoke the spirit of the Indian past, I would be more inclined to go directly to the source and select from one of the living traditions of Indian music in Central or South America (another excellent addition to the list, by the way). By the same token, I would avoid the presumptions inherent in trying to reconstruct ancient Greek, Egyptian, or Mesopotamian music, where the aural tradition is irrevocably lost. On the other hand, if you tell me, as you did, that the Chavez piece was deeply moving and represented special profundities of the human spirit to you, my position collapses. If we don’t send things we passionately care for, why send them at all?
Finally, I have to thank you for providing a fine jolt of energy to my work at a time when it happened to be especially appreciated. In working toward the evolution of a new attitude toward human music commensurate with the present state of knowledge of its diverse manifestations and astonishing range, I sometimes feel
as though I am pushing forward into new mental territory where it is difficult to communicate, even with colleagues in my field. A year ago, for instance, I read a paper concerned with the idea of entropy in world musical traditions before a small group of specialists in Quebec. (Among other things, I feel as concerned with the obliteration of musical species as I do in the case of the flora and fauna.) One of the points of that paper was a proposition that human education in the future might well center on the twin subjects of astronomy and music, representing that which is without (and beyond human), and that which is within (and intimately and exclusively human). I had the impression that no one there felt anything like a burning necessity to try to integrate these two areas of knowledge (the inside and outside? mind and spirit? science and art?), in a way that could make sense out of all the visible diversities of human knowledge and experience. But I sense that you do feel that need, and I have admired both the iconoclastic and benevolent nature of your activities. Having to deal with your request, whatever the results may be, has swept away a lot of mental debris, and helped me to concentrate again on some important realities of my own life’s work. It also provided an immediate focus for an editorial in the Center for World Music Newsletter, with which I have been tussling for some time. I’m enclosing a copy of the whole Newsletter, for context. Perhaps it may amuse you as one of those uncontrollable spin-offs which any powerful idea is likely to generate. There was a lengthy release from UPI concerning the Voyager project and proposed recording in last night’s local paper, so I feel mightily relieved not to have jumped the gun by more than a few days.
Robert E. Brown
Executive Director
Center for World Music and Related Arts
Berkeley, California
REB:py
World Music for Outer Space
proposed by Robert E. Brown
* * *
1. INDIAN VOCAL MUSIC. Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar. HMV EALP 1278.
Time: 3:25. Solo voice; seven-tone modal melody with auxiliary pitches; cyclic meter of fourteen beats; microtones; ornamentation; drone; drum accompaniment; improvisation. Words (probably less important than abstract melody and mood) mean: “Where are you going? Don’t go alone—I haven’t given you permission. Out in the street people are celebrating the Holi festival by throwing saffron color at each other. You are so young.”
2. JAVANESE GAMELAN. Ketawang Puspawarna, with gamelan and singers of the Paku Alaman Palace in Jogyakarta, K.R.T. Wasitodipuro, director. Nonesuch H-72044.
Time: 4:46. Orchestra of percussion instruments, solo and choral singing stratification of parts; pentatonic slendro tuning; colotomic structure of gong patterns. Words relatively unimportant (voices used instrumentally), refer symbolically to different kinds of flowers, related to the nine states (rasa) of Hindu philosophy.
3. BACH ORGAN CHORALE PRELUDE. Michel Chapuis, at the organ of the Erlöser-Kirche in Copenhagen. Das Alte Werk (Telefunken) 6-35083.
Time: 3:55. Based on the chorale melody “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sind” (also used for the text “Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit”). This is said to Bach’s last composition, dictated from his deathbed. Harmony; counterpoint; seven-tone modal melody with auxiliary pitches; organ as a complex wind instrument.
4. PYGMY HONEY-GATHERING SONG. Pygmies of the Ituri Forest, singing antiphonally. Ethnic Folkways FE 4457.
Time: 2:45. Harmony; counterpoint; solo and choral singing; simple rhythmic accompaniment with clapper.
5. JOHN COLTRANE QUARTET. “Giant Steps,” played by John Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Tommy Flanagan, piano; Paul Chambers, string bass; Art Taylor, drums. Atlantic 1311.
Time: 4:43. Chamber music; wind, strings, drums; fast tempo; harmony; solo improvisations.
6. JAPANESE SHAKUHACHI. Shika no Tone, performed by Haruhiko Notomi and Tatsuya Araki. Bärenreiter BM 30 L 2014 (UNESCO Musical Anthology of the Orient, Japan, Volume III).
Time: 7:45. Solo wind instrument; varieties of tone color; development of musical material; range; dynamic variation.
7. DEBUSSY: “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune.” New York Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Columbia MS 6754.
Time: 10:15. Varieties of instruments; contrast of dynamics; orchestration; tempo change; complex harmony; rhythmic variety; form and thematic development.
Appendix D
Jon Lomberg’s Original Suggested Selections on Tape for One-Hour Voyager Record
1. Sioux Medicine Chant 1:00 from Music of the Sioux and Navaho (Ethnic Folkways)
2. “Seya wa mama ndalamba” 2:21 from Missa Luba (and Congolese Folk Songs) (Philips)
3. Fugue No. 2 in C minor by Bach 1:33 from Glenn Gould, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 (Columbia)
4. Gavotte en rondeaux by Bach 2:50 from 6 Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin, Arthur Grumiaux, violin (Philips)
5. “Alleluiah” from Exsultate, Jubilate by Mozart 2:40 from Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Mozart and Bach (Seraphim)
6. Beethoven’s Fifth 6:53 from Fifth Symphony, Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic (Columbia)
7. Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copland 1:03 from A Lincoln Portrait (Columbia)
8. First of Six kleine Klavierstücke by Arnold Schoenberg :48 from Schoenberg: The Complete Music for Solo Piano by Glenn Gould (Columbia)
9. “Summertime,” by George Gershwin 2:30 from Porgy and Bess, with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (Verve)
10. “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (reprise) by the Beatles 1:25 from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Capitol)
Appendix E
Voyager Science Teams
* * *
Imaging Science
Bradford A. Smith, University of Arizona, team leader
Geoffrey A. Briggs, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
A. F. Cook, Smithsonian Institution
G. E. Danielson, Jr., Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Merton Davies, Rand Corp.
G. E. Hunt, Meteorological Office, U.K.
Tobias Owen, State University of New York
Carl Sagan, Cornell University
Lawrence Soderblom, U.S. Geological Survey
V. E. Suomi, University of Wisconsin
Harold Masursky, U.S. Geological Survey
Radio Science
Von R. Eshelman, Stanford University, team leader
J. D. Anderson, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
T. A. Croft, Stanford Research Institute
Gunnar Fjeldbo, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
G. S. Levy, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
G. L. Tyler, Stanford University
G. E. Wood, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Plasma Wave
Frederick L. Scarf, TRW Systems, principal investigator
D. A. Gurnett, University of Iowa
Infrared Spectroscopy and Radiometry
Rudolf A. Hanel, Goddard Space Flight Center, principal investigator
B. J. Conrath, Goddard Space Flight Center
P. Gierasch, Cornell University
V. Kunde, Goddard Space Flight Center
P. D. Lowman, Goddard Space Flight Center
W. Maguire, Goddard Space Flight Center
J. Pearl, Goddard Space Flight Center
J. Pirraglia, Goddard Space Flight Center
R. Samuelson, Goddard Space Flight Center
Cyril Ponnamperuma, University of Maryland
D. Gautier, Meudon, France
Ultraviolet Spectroscopy
A. Lyle Broadfoot, Kitt Peak National Observatory, principal investigator
J.B. Bertaux, Service d’Aéronomie du CNRS, France
J. Blamont, Service d’Aéronomie du CNRS, France
T. M. Donahue, University of Michigan
R. M. Goody, Harvard University
A. Dalgarno, Harvard College Observatory
Michael B. McElroy, Harvard University
J. C. McConnell, York University, Canada
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p; H. W. Moos, Johns Hopkins University
M. J. S. Belton, Kitt Peak National Observatory
D. F. Strobel, Naval Research Laboratory
Photopolarimetry
Charles F. Lillie, University of Colorado, principal investigator
Charles W. Hord, University of Colorado
D. L. Coffeen, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
J. E. Hansen, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
K. Pang, Science Applications Inc.
Planetary Radio Astronomy
James W. Warwick, University of Colorado, principal investigator
J. K. Alexander, Goddard Space Flight Center
A. Boischot, Observatoire de Paris, France
W. E. Brown, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
T. D. Carr, University of Florida
Samuel Gulkis, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
F. T. Haddock, University of Michigan
C. C. Harvey, Observatoire de Paris, France
Y. LeBlanc, Observatoire de Paris, France
R. G. Peltzer, University of Colorado
R. J. Phillips, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
D. H. Staelin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Magnetic Fields
Norman F. Ness, Goddard Space Flight Center, principal investigator
Mario H. Acuna, Goddard Space Flight Center
K. W. Behannon, Goddard Space Flight Center
L. F. Burlaga, Goddard Space Flight Center
R. P. Lepping, Goddard Space Flight Center
F. M. Neubauer, Technische Universitat, F.R.G.
Plasma Science
Herbert S. Bridge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, principal investigator
J. W. Belcher, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
J. H. Binsack, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A. J. Lazarus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
S. Olbert, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
V. M. Vasyliunas, Max Planck Institute, F.R.G.
L. F. Burlaga, Goddard Space Flight Center
R. E. Hartle, Goddard Space Flight Center