To Thread - Forum Home

The Mudcat Café TM
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=117555
10 messages

BS: Music of the spheres, no, Really!

06 Jan 09 - 01:26 AM (#2532637)
Subject: BS: Music of the Spheres, no, Really!
From: Skivee

This link is from the www.spaceweather.com site. It's recordings of meteors dying. Trails of ions muck with the lower ionosphere. This creats detectable variation in reflected TV carrier signals*. When properly processed the info results in this etherial sound:

Turn up the speakers a twek

I copied to a media player, slowed it down for a spookier sound.


* Or so I've been told by much bigger brains than me.

06 Jan 09 - 05:37 AM (#2532701)
Subject: RE: BS: Music of the spheres, no, Really!
From: Sleepy Rosie

Wow, yes, I've heard some of these recordings before.

They could form the backdrop or inspirational jump board for some extremely interesting experimental and conceptual music.

They have I believe made various similar recordings related to the planets in our Solar system.

06 Jan 09 - 07:00 AM (#2532729)
Subject: RE: BS: Music of the spheres, no, Really!
From: Donuel

The recordings of Earth from space sound just like song birds.
It is beautiful.

Saturn and Jupiter are ominous and haunting whistles.

06 Jan 09 - 07:56 AM (#2532760)
Subject: RE: BS: Music of the spheres, no, Really!
From: Nigel Parsons

"Music of the spheres"

Pinball Wizard?

06 Jan 09 - 10:50 AM (#2532875)
Subject: RE: BS: Music of the spheres, no, Really!
From: GUEST,leeneia

Interesting, Skivee. Thanks for posting.

06 Jan 09 - 01:00 PM (#2533066)
Subject: RE: BS: Music of the spheres, no, Really!
From: Paul Burke

Meteorites aren't usually spheres, but "music of the irregular lumps" doesn't sound so good.

06 Jan 09 - 01:20 PM (#2533098)
Subject: RE: BS: Music of the spheres, no, Really!
From: Amos

It is remearkable to me how similar these sounds are to the early recordings of the song of the Humpback Whale produced in an LP in the 70's (was that Paul Winters' work??). (Never mind...I just looked it up. No. See quote below.)

This is the re-mastered reissue of the long out-of-print original album of humpback whale songs that have touched the hearts of millions of people around the world. The rare recordings are from a 'Bel Canto' era of whale singing. Even though Humpbacks change their songs every year, none from recent years has been so beautiful as these they sang in the 1960's.

DEEP VOICES, the sequel to SONGS OF THE HUMPBACK WHALE, was also produced by Dr. Roger Payne.

"When I think of what grand arias, cantatas, and recitatives have filled the sea, echoing through its vast vaults, only to diappear and be lost forever, I am keenly grateful for those included here, made by sound-pioneer Frank Watlington, who captured what I consider to be the greatest of all humpback whale performances, 'Solo Whale'. It was recorded at a depth of 1500 feet using an extraordinary array of deep-water microphones that were part of a cold-water experiment by the US Navy, costing tens of millions of dollars, and now claimed by the sea. That project will never be repeated. And such songs may never be heard again."
Dr. Roger Payne

"Hearing this album was a milestone experience in my musical life. I was thrilled by the haunting beauty of these humpback whale voices, much as I had been when I first heard jazz saxophonists like Charlie Parker. Studying the long, complex songs which the whales repeat again and again, I was amazed by their musical intelligence, and shocked to learn that these magnificent beings were rapidly being hunted to extinction. The whales opened my ears to the whole symphony of nature, and expanded my world forever. " Paul Winter


From this site.


A

06 Jan 09 - 06:02 PM (#2533489)
Subject: RE: BS: Music of the spheres, no, Really!
From: Skivee

I think it sounds a lot like the choral works of Georg Ligetti. But that just my humble opinion.

06 Jan 09 - 07:16 PM (#2533575)
Subject: RE: BS: Music of the spheres, no, Really!
From: katlaughing

Amos, I was just going to say they remind me of the humpback whale songs I've heard, esp. on a paper/vinyl? record which came in a National Geographic when I was a kid.

Skivee, it's beautiful, thank you! I am going to be sure my brother, a composer who has written about the music of the spheres, hears it.

07 Jan 09 - 01:19 AM (#2533728)
Subject: RE: BS: Music of the spheres, no, Really!
From: Skivee

I looped it last night and listened many times back to back.