Symphony of Science
The Symphony of Science is a music project created by Washington-based electronic musician John Boswell. The project seeks to "spread scientific knowledge and philosophy through musical remixes." Boswell uses pitch-corrected audio and video samples from television programs featuring popular scientists and educators. The audio and video clips are mixed into digital mashups and scored with Boswell's original compositions. Two of Boswell's music videos, "A Glorious Dawn" and "We are All Connected", feature appearances from Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, and Stephen Hawking. The audio and video is sampled from popular science television shows including Cosmos, The Universe, The Eyes of Nye, The Elegant Universe, and Stephen Hawking's Universe.
Unruly Media, a viral video tracking service, first charted "A Glorious Dawn" on September 21, 2009. A month later, the video had received more than a million views and was ranked in the music category on YouTube as one of the top rated videos of all time. On November 9, 2009, Third Man Records released a 7-inch single of "A Glorious Dawn" for the 75th anniversary of the birth of Carl Sagan.
John Boswell
Composer John Boswell had been experimenting with sampling and remixing for some time before creating his first YouTube videos. Boswell had worked with Auto-Tune in the past and thought people might be interested in hearing American astronomer Carl Sagan sing. He first saw Cosmos in 2004 and soon after bought the set of DVDs. Boswell looked through these episodes for "profound quotes" that lacked music in the background. Once he found these quotes, Boswell Auto-Tuned Sagan's voice and picked from the best ones. After completing what became "A Glorious Dawn", Boswell posted the video on YouTube in September 2009 and to his surprise, the video went viral within a week.[1][2] To date, the video has received more than seven million views and is ranked as one of the top rated videos of all time in the music category.[3]
John Boswell attended Gonzaga Preparatory School[2] and graduated from college with a degree in economics. Soon after, Boswell started Colorpulse, an electronica music project, and began to focus on production.[4] Boswell lives in Bellingham, Washington.[2] His current music project, Symphony of Science, "aims to spread scientific knowledge and philosophy through musical remixes"[5] and to "deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form".[6] After his first few videos, Boswell began seeking permission to use the clips he uses in his project.[citation needed]
Music and video
A Glorious Dawn
| "Symphony of Science" | |
|---|---|
| Song | |
| A-side | "A Glorious Dawn" |
| B-side | "(Etched Design)" |
Boswell's first video in the Symphony of Science series is 3 minutes, 34 seconds long and features Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. Samples include clips from Cosmos (1980) and Stephen Hawking's Universe (1997).[6] On September 21, 2009, Unruly Media, a viral video tracking service, began to chart the popularity of the video.[7] At the end of the first week of October, the video had received 800,000 views[2] and, by the end of the month, more than a million. By the end of 2010, the video had surpassed 5 million views.
The title takes its name from the chorus spoken by Carl Sagan, remixed from an episode of Cosmos:
- A still more glorious dawn awaits
- Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
- A morning filled with 400 billion suns
- The rising of the milky way[6]
Third Man Records released a 7-inch recording of "A Glorious Dawn" on November 9, 2009, in honor of the 75th anniversary of the birth of Carl Sagan.[8] The one-sided single was created by United Record Pressing in a unique "Cosmos Colored Vinyl", limited pressing of 150 copies; it was then re-pressed on regular vinyl in a larger run. The flipside is etched with a copy of the diagram found on the Voyager Golden Record.[8]
We Are All Connected
The second video in the series is 4 minutes, 12 seconds in length and features Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye. Audio and video samples are taken from The History Channel's Universe series, Carl Sagan's Cosmos, interviews with Richard Feynman in 1983, Neil deGrasse Tyson's cosmic sermon, and Bill Nye's The Eyes of Nye series. Additional visuals come from NOVA's The Elegant Universe, Stephen Hawking's Universe, and Cosmos, among others. On January 23, 2010, the video was shown at the South Nassau Unitarian Universalist Church in Long Island NY, as part of a youth-directed service. The video has been used in other churches and classrooms.
The title comes from the chorus spoken by Neil deGrasse Tyson and remixed by Boswell:
- We are all connected
- To each other, biologically
- To the earth, chemically
- To the rest of the universe atomically[6]
Our Place in the Cosmos
The third video in the series is 4 minutes, 21 seconds in length and was released on November 23, 2009. "Our Place in the Cosmos" features Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Michio Kaku, and Robert Jastrow. Samples were taken from Cosmos, Genius of Charles Darwin, a TED talk, Stephen Hawking's Universe, interviews and visuals from Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi, History Channel's Universe series, and Cosmic Voyage.
The title comes from words spoken by Carl Sagan and remixed by Boswell:
- The exploration of the cosmos
- Is a voyage of self discovery
- As long as there have been humans
- We have searched for our place in the cosmos[6]
The Unbroken Thread
The fourth video in the series is 4 minutes in length and was released on January 6, 2010. "The Unbroken Thread" is themed around biology and evolution rather than the cosmos, and features Carl Sagan, David Attenborough, and Jane Goodall.
The video uses clips from Cosmos, several David Attenborough documentaries (Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life, The Life of Mammals, The Living Planet, and BBC Life), XVIVO Scientific Animations, IMAX Cosmic Voyage, Jane Goodall's TED Talk, and a Guinness commercial.
The title comes from Sagan's Cosmos, and features in the refrain:
- The secrets of evolution
- Are time and death
- There's an unbroken thread that stretches
- From those first cells to us[6]
The Poetry of Reality (An Anthem for Science)
The fifth installment uses clips from various prominent scientists and speakers - including Jacob Bronowski, Sagan, Feynman, Dawkins, Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking, PZ Myers, Lawrence Krauss, Michael Shermer, and deGrasse Tyson - to explain and promote science, its process, and its benefits. It uses clips from many sources, including Cosmos and The Genius of Charles Darwin. The chorus in this piece is sung by Dawkins and Sagan:
- There's real poetry in the real world
- Science is the poetry of reality
- We can do science and with it
- We can improve our lives[6]
The Case for Mars
The sixth installment is about the colonization of Mars. It features Sagan, Robert Zubrin, Brian Cox, and Penelope Boston, and it features clips from The Mars Underground (2007), Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, and Wonders of the Solar System. The title of this song stems from Zubrin's book The Case For Mars.
The chorus is sung by Sagan and Cox:
- Mars is a world of wonders
- It has canyons, river valleys,
- and giant ice sheets[6]
A Wave of Reason
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The seventh installment, released on November 23, 2010, is about reasoning and skepticism. It features Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, Lawrence Krauss, Carolyn Porco, Richard Dawkins, Richard Feynman, Phil Plait, and James Randi. It is intended to promote scientific reasoning and skepticism in the face of growing amounts of pseudoscientific pursuits, such as Astrology and Homeopathy, and also to "promote the scientific worldview as equally enlightening as religion."[9] The chorus is sung by Dawkins, except for the last line which is Phil Plait's:
- There is a new wave of reason
- Sweeping across America, Britain, Europe, Australia
- South America, the Middle East and Africa
- There is a new wave of reason
- Where superstition had a firm hold
- Teach a man to reason, and he'll think for a lifetime[6]
The Big Beginning
"The Big Beginning" is the eighth installment in the Symphony of Science music video series, released on January 20, 2011. It deals with the origins of our universe, covering the Big Bang theory, expansion and cooling of the universe, formation of galaxies, the interplay between matter and anti-matter, and cosmic radiation. The music video features Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Tara Shears, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Videos sampled for this installment include Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking; God, the Universe, and Everything Else; The Universe on The History Channel; NOVA scienceNOW; interviews with Richard Dawkins and Tara Shears; and Carl Sagan's Cosmos. There is no clear chorus, but two quotes from Hawking and Dawkins come back several times:
- [Hawking] It was the beginning of the universe, and of time itself
- [Dawkins] Science is opening your eyes, to the poetry of the expanding universe
Ode to the Brain
"Ode to the Brain" is the ninth episode in the Symphony of Science series about the brain including its evolution, folding, and neuron networks. It features Carl Sagan, Robert Winston, Vilayanur Ramachandran, Jill Bolte Taylor, Bill Nye and Oliver Sacks. It features clips from Carl Sagan's Cosmos, BBC's The Human Body, Discovery Channel's Human Body: Pushing the Limits and various TED Talks. It was released on March 23, 2011. The chorus is sung by Taylor:
- Information in the form of energy
- Streams in simultaneously
- Through all of our sensory systems
- In the form of energy
- And then it explodes into this enormous collage
- Of what this present moment looks like
- What it feels like
- And what it sounds like
- And then it explodes into this enormous collage
- And in this moment we are perfect
- We are whole and we are beautiful[6]
Children of Africa (The Story of Us)
"Children of Africa" is the tenth installment of the Symphony of Science series, released on July 6, 2011. It deals with the cultural evolution of humans from their origins in Africa, through the conquest of Europe from the Neanderthals to the space age. It features Alice Roberts, Jacob Bronowski, Carolyn Porco, Jane Goodall, Robert Sapolsky, Neil deGrasse Tyson and David Attenborough. Programs sampled for this installment include Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, Alice Roberts' The Incredible Human Journey, along with BBC documentaries Life of Mammals, Walking With Cavemen, and Human Planet. The refrain is sung by Carolyn Porco:
- These beings with soaring imagination
- Eventually flung themselves and their machines
- Into interplanetary space[6]
The Quantum World
"The Quantum World" is the eleventh instalment of the Symphony of Science series, released on September 6, 2011. It deals with the bizarre discoveries made in the field of quantum mechanics, through "a musical investigation into the nature of atoms and subatomic particles." It features Morgan Freeman, Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, Brian Cox, Richard Feynman, and Frank Close. Programs sampled for this instalment include Richard Feynman's Fun to Imagine, Morgan Freeman's Through the Wormhole, Brian Cox's TED Talk, along with BBC documentaries Visions of the Future, What Time is it, Wonders of the Universe, and What Is Reality. The refrain is sung by Cox:
- The universe is made of
- Twelve particles of matter
- Four forces of nature
- That's a wonderful and significant story[6]
Onward to the Edge
"Onward to the Edge," "a musical investigation into the importance and inspirational qualities of space exploration (human and robotic), as well as a look at some of the amazing worlds in our solar system," is the twelfth installment of the Symphony of Science series, released on November 9, 2011. It features Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, and Carolyn Porco. Programs sampled for this installment include Wonders of the Solar System, My Favorite Universe, A Traveler's Guide to the Planets, and Carolyn Porco's TED Talk. The refrain is sung by Tyson:
- Onward to the edge
- We're moving onward to the edge
- Here we are together
- This fragile little world[6]
The Greatest Show on Earth
"The Greatest Show on Earth," the thirteenth installment of the Symphony of Science series, released on January 17, 2012, is a "musical celebration of the wonders of biology, including evolution, natural selection, DNA, and more." It features David Attenborough, Bill Nye, and Richard Dawkins. Programs sampled include Life (BBC TV series), Planet Earth (TV series), David Attenborough's First Life, Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life, Bill Nye the Science Guy's episode on evolution, and Dawkins' "There is grandeur in this view of life" speech. The refrain is sung by Dawkins:
- We are surrounded by endless forms
- Most beautiful, most wonderful
- Evolution - the greatest show on Earth
- There is grandeur in this view of life
- Evolution - the greatest show on Earth[6]
The World of the Dinosaurs
"The World of the Dinosaurs," released on March 20, 2012, is the fourteenth installment of the Symphony of Science series. It is a "musical celebration of dinosaurs" and investigates their habits, extinction, and how we learn about them. It features Alice Roberts, Bill Nye, Nigel Marvin, Dallas Campbell and more. The refrain is sung by Roberts and Campbell:
- [Roberts]
- The more we find
- The more complete our understanding
- Utterly awe-inspiring
- The world of the dinosaurs
- [Campbell]
- There are always new discoveries out there
- Waiting to be found
- [Roberts]
- Utterly awe-inspiring
- The world of the dinosaurs[6]
Related project
Symphony of Bang Goes The Theory
Not strictly part of the Symphony of Science series as this was made for the BBC science show Bang Goes the Theory, it nevertheless uses the same formula of pitch correction of spoken words over an original music track. It celebrates the tantalising questions that science throws up, as well as being an entertaining showreel for the show itself. In addition to the four presenters - Liz Bonnin, Dallas Campbell, Jem Stansfield, and Yan Wong - there are guest spots for Jim Al-Khalili and Tara Shears. The clips are all taken from the TV show or its website.[10]
The chorus is sung by Yan Wong:
- The more questions you answer
- The more you find there is to investigate
- And the more questions you pose
- And that's the beauty of science
You can watch the Symphony of Bang video[11] on YouTube.
Reviews
Musician Carrie Brownstein found the idea behind Symphony of Science "quite beautiful and amazing in both its sincerity and aims". She also enjoyed the "hip-hop stylings" of the camera angle on Bill Nye while he is moving his hands around and expressing himself on "We Are All Connected".[12] Writer Nick Sagan, son of Carl Sagan, was impressed with "A Glorious Dawn", giving it a favorable review and stamp of approval. Sagan writes, "John Boswell over at Colorpulse Music is a mad genius, sampling both Cosmos and Stephen Hawking's Universe series into three minutes and thirty-four seconds of pure, concentrated awesomeness... Love it, love it, love it. Dad would have loved it, too."[13]
Columnist Franklin Harris argues that Boswell's videos show that science can arouse the minds of artists just as much as religion and mythology have in the past. Harris calls the videos "art for the Information Age, inspired by science".[14]
New Music Transmission, a podcast who featured Symphony of Science in 2009, gave "A Glorious Dawn" positive reviews and called Symphony of Science as "A thinking man's Pogo", referring to the Australian electro artist who was featured 2 weeks before. [15]
See also
References
- ^ "GWC Podcast #191". publisher = Galactic Watercooler (Podcast). 2009-10-24. Retrieved October 25, 2009.
{{cite podcast}}: Missing pipe in:|website=(help) Interview with John Boswell. (60.8 MB MP3) - ^ a b c d Sowa, Tom (2009-10-09). "'Cosmos,' Carl Sagan and John Boswell's YouTube video hit". The Spokesman-Review.
{{cite news}}: More than one of|work=and|newspaper=specified (help) - ^ Melodysheep (2009-09-17). "Carl Sagan - 'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)". YouTube. Retrieved 2009-10-25.
- ^ Boswell, John. "About". The Symphony of Science - Spreading scientific knowledge and philosophy through music. Retrieved 2009-10-28.
- ^ "Melodysheep". YouTube. Retrieved 2009-10-26.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Spreading scientific knowledge and philosophy through music". The Symphony of Science. Retrieved 2009-10-26.
- ^ "Carl Sagan - 'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)". Viral Video Chart. Unruly Media. Retrieved 2009-10-25.
- ^ a b Blackwell, Ben (2009-11-02). "A Glorious Dawn!". News. Third Man Records. Retrieved 2009-11-03.
- ^ "Symphony of Science: A Wave of Reason" Punctuated Equilibrium 1 December 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2010/dec/01/1
- ^ "One Programmes - Bang Goes the Theory". BBC. 2011-10-13. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
- ^ BBC. "The Symphony of Bang Goes The Theory - BBC One". YouTube. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
- ^ Brownstein, Carrie (2009-10-20). "The Symphony Of Science". National Public Radio. Retrieved 2009-10-25.
- ^ Sagan, Nick (2009-09-25). "A Glorious Dawn". Nick Sagan Online. Retrieved 2009-10-25.
- ^ Harris, Franklin (2009-10-22). "Gap between art, science no longer so wide". The Decatur Daily. Tennessee Valley Printing Company.
{{cite news}}: More than one of|work=and|newspaper=specified (help) - ^ Hunter, Stephen (2010-12-18). "Featured Artist Profile: Symphony of Science". New Music Transmission.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help)
Further reading
- Arbsjö, Karin (2009-10-28). "Robotrösten perfekt för forskarremix". Sydsvenskan.
- Gallaga, Omar L. (2009-09-28). "Carl Sagan Auto-Tuned, AT&T's Network Future And More". National Public Radio.
- Lewinski, John Scott (2009-10-15). "Carl Sagan Goes Techno Trance With Cosmos Video". Underwire: The Beat Goes On. Wired.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - Lyons, Margaret (2009-10-20). "Clip du jour: Autotune the scientists". Entertainment Weekly.
- Makice, Kevin (2009-10-27). "Science Legends Remixed Into Educational Music Video". GeekDad. Wired.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - Shea, Christopher (2009-11-01). "Judging a book's cover: Carl Sagan, the remix". The Boston Globe.
- "Stephen Hawking 'sings' on pop single tribute to scientist Carl Sagan". The Daily Telegraph. 2009-11-09.
{{cite news}}: More than one of|work=and|newspaper=specified (help) - Wilson, Tracy V. (2009-11-09). "Q&A with John Boswell, Creator of 'A Glorious Dawn'". FanStuff: The Blogs at HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help)