Space Whales

From the alien dolphins in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (so long and thanks for all the fish) to the whale on the cover of the They Might be Giants album "Apollo 18," there are numerous examples of cosmic-dwelling cetaceans in science fiction and other space imaginings. Even more interestingly, these space whales' cosmic nature is often tied to their musical nature. In this episode, we ponder why this may be, and touch on some of our favorite space-whale-music examples. While we leave the details of several whale-themed musical works for other episodes (see references below), we consider instead the affordances and potential pitfalls of hearing whale vocalizations as music.   References  Roger Payne, Songs of the Humpback Whale  Roger Payne National Geographic flexidisc  Alan Hovhaness, “And God Created Great Whales”  George Crumb, “Vox Balaenae”  Star Trek: The Voyage Home Fantasia 2000  Respighi “Pines of Rome” recording was by Pierre Monteaux and the Orchestre National de France, available at IMSLPAlien Listening

On Monday, April 8, a total solar eclipse will sweep across much of North America, within view of millions of people. Most excitingly, the path of totality is coming by Bloomington, Indiana, current home of Cosmophonia! Your hosts have been involved in several music-space events in town, including our very own recital, where we have programmed a number of excellent on-topic pieces. The piece we discuss on this episode is the proverbial one that got away - Stuart Saunders Smith's "The Narrow Path" for two vibraphone players and one orchestral bells (or glockenspiel) player. While our conversation occasionally strays off the "narrow path," we keep coming back to why this piece is a compelling reminder of eclipses and space more generally, including issues of alignment and the twinkly sounds of metallophones.    Our eclipse recital will be on Sunday, April 7 at 8pm eastern time. It will be livestreamed, so you can view from anywhere!   References Stuart Saunders Smith, "The Narrow Path" Charles Ives, "The Unanswered Question" John Cage, "Atlas Eclipticalis" Music break was "Birds" from Featuring Birds by Quasi  

Probably the most well-known piece of space themed classical music is Gustav Holst's The Planets. In this episode, we focus on the last movement of the suite, "Neptune," discussing how the timbre and harmony create its signature icy, watery,  mysterious soundscape. The suite was completed in 1918, but while selected movements were performed several times in the following years, it did not receive its full premiere with the "Neptune" movement until 1920. Despite the movement being an unusual choice for a finale, it was and still is extremely effective. We also discuss how the astrological inspiration for the suite led Holst to order the movements in the way that he did.   References Alan Leo, "The Art of Synthesis" Raymond Head, "Astrology and Modernism in 'The Planets'"

In this new series, Uncharted Cosmophony, we choose a random, previously unknown to us album that seems to have some spacey elements, listen to it, and then talk about it. This time we chose the 1973 record "Intergalactic Trot" by Stardrive with Robert Mason. The album prominently shows off the capabilities of an early multi-voiced synthesizer, backed by a full band, but unlike ambient "space" music is energetic and driven. Our conversation moves in interesting directions, including how the blending of technology and pastoral musical topics can be used to depict an alien landscape.    References Pastoral music John Adams, Short Ride in a Fast Machine For more on the use of the pastoral to represent space, see Rebecca Leydon, "The Post-War Pastoral in Space-Age-Bachelor-Pad Music" Boss music - music in video games that accompanies the battle with the final, or otherwise major enemy

Sonification is when scientific data is "visualized" or communicated through non-verbal sound. In this episode we discuss the affordances (and some cautions) of sonification in science and science communication as well as in musical compositions. The practice of sonification, especially of astronomical data, brings together aesthetic and objective representations of the universe in a way that can be seen as hearkening back to the tradition of the Quadrivium.    References Alvin Lucier, "Sferics" Chandra sonifications LIGO chirps * Gerard Grisey, "Le Noir de L'Etoile"     * "This research has made use of data or software obtained from the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center (gwosc.org), a service of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration, and KAGRA. This material is based upon work supported by NSF's LIGO Laboratory which is a major facility fully funded by the National Science Foundation, as well as the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) of the United Kingdom, the Max-Planck-Society (MPS), and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for support of the construction of Advanced LIGO and construction and operation of the GEO600 detector. Additional support for Advanced LIGO was provided by the Australian Research Council. Virgo is funded, through the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO), by the French Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) and the Dutch Nikhef, with contributions by institutions from Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Monaco, Poland, Portugal, Spain. KAGRA is supported by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) in Japan; National Research Foundation (NRF) and Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) in Korea; Academia Sinica (AS) and National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) in Taiwan."  

On this Halloween special, we discuss the music and sound design in Ridley Scott's movie "Alien." Blending science fiction and horror aesthetics, the film relies quite a bit on musical cues and jarring juxtapositions of sound environments to create a tense and unsettling atmosphere.    References Jerry Goldsmith, Soundtrack for "Alien" Toru Takemitsu, Flock Descends on a Pentagonal Garden Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik "Romanze" Howard Hanson, Symphony No. 2: "Romantic"

What connects Dante's 14th century Paradiso, an early 20th century science fiction novel, and a 13-minute "symphony" for concert band written in the 1980s? It may be surprising but the answer is that they all involve a story where a human travels to Mars and finds it not harsh and warlike but beautiful and awe-inspiring. Like Dante and C. S. Lewis, composer Alan Hovhaness found an incredible source of spiritual inspiration from outer space. He made it his mission to reawaken humanity's connection to spirituality and nature by inspiring a sense of wonder, and his piece "Star Dawn" is part of that effort. In this episode we discuss a wide range of connected issues from the history of ideas about colonizing Mars to the questions of whether basic elements of Western music are the best tools for inspiring all of humanity.   References "Star Dawn" recording directed by Keith Brion Dante Alighieri, "Paradiso" translated by John D. Sinclair Sylvia Engdahl, "The Planet Girded Suns" C. S. Lewis, "Out of the Silent Planet"  

On this Super Blue Moon, we discuss the superstar tune "Blue Moon." We begin our conversation assessing the contested definition of an astronomical "blue moon," finding surprising parallels with the human-centered vision of the moon that the song exhibits. We then delve into the muddy and fraught history of how the song emerged into the public consciousness and marvel at is ability to remain universally appealing, appearing fresh and new with each new performance, arrangement, and recording through the decades.  Special thanks to Liz Roman Gallese, who kindly answered our inquiries about particular details. She infers that discrepancies between the settlement amounts her father received can be explained by subtracting the attorney fee.  References Sky and Telescope, "Blue Moons - Origins and History" The first music break is The Melachrino Strings, "Blue Moon" Lorenz Hart, Dorothy Hart, and Robert Kimball, "The Complete Lyrics of Lorenz Hart" Liz Roman Gallese, https://bluemoonsong.org/  The Marcels, "Blue Moon" (1961) For a fun "weird" treatment of the song, check out Duke Ellington's version

For proof that the ideas of the Quadrivium continue to resonate in modern culture, we need not look further than Sir Paul McCartney. By pure coincidence, we happened to fall in love with the song "The Kiss of Venus" from his 2020 self-titled album, and decide to do an episode based partly on the book "A Little Book of Coincidence" around the same time, not realizing that said song was inspired by said book! After making the connection we decided we had to do the song on the show. It turns out that the song has several subtle but exciting connections with the "Kiss of Venus" phenomenon as described in the book, both in the lyrics and in the harmonies and musical form.    References Paul McCartney, "The Kiss of Venus" from McCartney III The Paul McCartney Project website (very helpful compilation of McCartney's interviews and comments) John Martineau, A Little Book of Coincidence More on the venus pentagram  More on planetary conjunctions and retrograde motion Animation of Messenger probe trajectory Dominic Fike version of "The Kiss of Venus"

The idea that music and the cosmos are intrinsically connected has very deep roots in many human cultures. In Western cultures, one of the most long-lasting ways that this relationship manifest was in the Quadrivium. These four "number arts" were the ancestors of modern sciences and consisted of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Learning how number and numerical relationships worked across these disciplines allowed educated individuals to see the inherent order, or "harmony," of nature. It is no wonder that many great astronomers from antiquity to the 18th century, from Ptolemy to Kepler and beyond, wrote treatises on both music and astronomy. In this episode we discuss some of the implications of this education system both on scientific thinking during its time and on our modern education systems.    References Miranda Lundy et. al., Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology Orbital Resonance Peter Pesic and Alex Volmar, "Pythagorean Longings" Eugene Wigner, "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences"