~~April 8, 2014~~
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.
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.
John Boswell attended Gonzaga Preparatory School and graduated from college with a degree in economics. Soon after, Boswell started Colorpulse, an electronica music project, and began to focus on production. He released an album in 2010, titled Escaping the Tangle, which included some of these productions. Boswell lives in Bellingham, Washington. His current music project, Symphony of Science, “aims to spread scientific knowledge and philosophy through musical remixes” and to “deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form”.
After his first few videos, Boswell began seeking permission to use the clips he uses in his project. In addition to Symphony of Science, Boswell is also working on a project called Remixes for the Soul, which he works on, in addition to Symphony of Science, under the moniker of melodysheep.
~~SOURCES~~
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_of_Science
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/symphony-of-science
http://melodysheep.bandcamp.com/album/symphony-of-science-collectors-edition
How Symphony of Science auto-tuned TED2012: Q&A with John Boswell
There are many videos that you can watch at your leisure. In the meantime, I will
show you these, three of my favorites!
Official Website: http://symphonyofscience.com/
~~Uploaded on Sep 17, 2009~~
MP3: http://www.symphonyofscience.com
My own musical tribute to two great men of science. Carl Sagan and his cosmologist companion Stephen Hawking present: A Glorious Dawn – Cosmos remixed. Almost all samples and footage taken from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and Stephen Hawking’s Universe series.
RIP Dr. Sagan, you will be missed!!
~~Uploaded on Nov 23, 2009~~
MP3: http://symphonyofscience.com
“Our Place in the Cosmos“, the third video from the Symphony of Science, was crafted using samples from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, Richard Dawkins’ Genius of Charles Darwin series, Dawkins’ TED Talk, Stephen Hawking’s Universe series, Michio Kaku’s interview on Physics and aliens, plus added visuals from Baraka, Koyaanisqatsi, History Channel’s Universe series, and IMAX Cosmic Voyage.
The themes present in this song are intended to explore our understanding of our origins within the universe, and to challenge the commonplace notion that humans have a superior or privleged position, both on our home planet and in the universe itself.
RIP Dr. Sagan and Dr. Jastrow!
~~Uploaded on Jul 6, 2011~~
A musical celebration of humanity, its origins, and achievements, contrasted with a somber look at our environmentally destructive tendencies and deep similarities with other primates. Featuring Jacob Bronowski, Alice Roberts, Carolyn Porco, Jane Goodall, Robert Sapolsky, Neil deGrasse Tyson and David Attenborough.
“Children of Africa” is the tenth installment in the ongoing Symphony of Science music video series.
I encourage you to go to the official website and check all the videos that they have to offer. When I saw one for the first time, I thought: “If they’ve had this while I was in school, it would have been so much fun to learn science”. Enjoy!!
We ALL are connected through SCIENCE!!
We ALL are ONE!!
It Is What It Is 