Vol. 1 • No. 1 • 2017

Out of this World

Edited by Lukas Christensen and Daniel K. L. Chua

For our first issue of IMS Musicological Brainfood we are launching two short, interconnected essays into cyberspace. “Music Theory in Space” by Daniel K. L. Chua, president of the International Musicological Society (among other things), and “Musicologists in Space” by Alexander Rehding, former editor of the IMS’s peer-reviewed journal Acta Musicologica (among other things). We have chosen an auspicious day for the launch. Read on to find out . . .

Editors’ note: The IMS is a global organization and currently has no extraterrestrial ambitions.

Music Theory in Space

Forty years ago to this day, September 5, 1977, NASA rocketed the space probe Voyager I into space. While music theory at that time was busy circling within its own orbit exploring “the music itself,” the astronomer Carl Sagan placed on …

Musicologists in Space

Is musicology limited to human culture? The NASA team that put together the Voyager mission forty years ago didn’t think so. They included on board of their two spacecraft a “Golden Record” that included greetings in more than fifty languages, …