Music Made With Sounds of Outer Space
Energy sources in the atmosphere, such as lightning, can produce sounds (sferics, tweeks, and whistlers) in the very low frequency (VLF) radio band.
Objects in space - the Sun, planets, stars, quasars, pulsars, galaxies, and active galaxies - all produce signals that, if received (usually through radio astronomy dishes and processed), can be used by a musician as the basis for any kind of composition imaginable.
Scientists with an interest in space-based sounds include:
- Don Gurnett.
- Stephen P. McGreevy.
- Alexander Kosovichev, a Stanford scientist whose researches into the sun's oscillations (and who uploaded the sounds to the net) encouraged Stephen Taylor (see below) to create his album.
- Dr. Fiorella Terenzi has created several works that use sounds derived from celestial radio signals homepage, Space.com entry.
- NASA produced a CD in 1992 from Voyager 1 & 2 recordings of electromagnetic fields processed with digital sampling techniques.
Artists/bands who have included such sounds in their works include:
- Terry Riley, along with the Kronos Quartet, in their album Sun Rings, which used "sounds of the planets recorded by the Voyager mission on its journey to deep space" .
- Stephen Taylor, in the album The Heart of the Sun.
- Robert Schroeder's album Galaxie Cygnus-A used interstellar noise from the distant galaxy in the title
Read more about this topic: Space-themed Music
Famous quotes containing the words outer space, music, sounds, outer and/or space:
“I know, it must have been my imagination, but it makes me realize how desperately alone the Earth is. Hanging in space like a speck of food floating in the ocean. Sooner or later to be swallowed up by some creature floating by.... Time will tell, Dr. Mason. We can only wait and wonder. Wonder how, wonder when.”
—Tom Graeff. Tom Graeff. Young astronomer, Teenagers from Outer Space, after just seeing the invading spaceship through his telescope, and dismissing it (1959)
“For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“Johann Strauss—Forty couples dancing ... one by one they slip from the hall ... sounds of kisses ... the lights go out”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“When human beings have been fascinated by the contemplation of their own hearts, the more intricate biological pattern of the female has become a model for the artist, the mystic, and the saint. When mankind turns instead to what can be done, altered, built, invented, in the outer world, all natural properties of men, animals, or metals become handicaps to be altered rather than clues to be followed.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“I would have broke mine eye-strings, cracked them, but
To look upon him, till the diminution
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;
Nay, followed him till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air, and then
Have turned mine eye and wept.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)