And What’s It Doing on An Astronomy Blog?
One of the things that fascinates me about blogs and blogging is the huge diversity of subjects that people write about in their daily entries. Just as I know I’m one of many folks who write about topics related to astronomy and space science, there are millions of people out there writing about everything you can possibly imagine. Some are fun to read, others are less so, but each one offers a window into some reality we might not otherwise get to experience.
About a year ago I ran across a virtual “stock exchange” in blogs called Blogshares.com. You might have noticed an icon for it over in my ever-growing list of links on the left. It’s actually a game site where you can register your own blog and “play investor” by buying shares in other blogs. The stock market is not just limited to blog shares, however. Traders also seek out and purchase ideas (which are linked to blog subjects), and artefacts (which are also linked to ideas industries). It’s a fascinating game to play, and I might add, a way to learn about the inexorable laws of supply and demand!
When I first joined I thought I might the only space blog registered, but it turns out there are lots of people who think “space is the place” and they blog about it! So, I got to looking around for other blog writers who chronicle a couple of my other interests—space music and planetariums.
Space music comes naturally for me, considering I’m married to and run a business with Mark Petersen—one of the world’s foremost space music composers. Now, space music is a pretty “niche” genre. In most record stores it doesn’t even have its own bin anymore (although it used to), so you have to look for it in the Ambient and New Age bins. Despite this unfortunate placement, space music IS thriving, particularly on the Web, where people like Mark sell their CDs and music to a dedicated following.
Space music is evocative of the wide-open spaces beyond the stars, going beyond the confines of traditional orchestral or electronic genres. Yet, it has roots in other genres: electronic music, ambient music, and I’d even say it might owe some of its existence to composers like Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughn Williams, and Alan Hovhaness. Certainly it has come to be best known in the planetarium, where it is used to help paint aural images for cosmic scenes like starbirth areas, distant galaxy clusters, and the longed-for dream of travel between the stars. Mark takes scenes like these and fuses them with music that fits the vast spacescapes made possible in the planetarium.
Some of the blogs about space music that I’ve run across are quite interesting indeed, and give us a peek into this very rarefied world. There are many, many blogs to visit about some aspect of ambient, space, and electronic music. Here are three that I visited lately:
Astreaux World Blog about ambient, space, and new age music.
Dr. Tom’s music blog.
Now, Blogshares does have a music industry under which all kinds of ideas are swapped, so I think it would be neat to have a sub-industry called “space and ambient” music, and another called “new age” music. If that’s too specialized, then perhaps these could become sub sub-industries under “Indie and Alternative Music.” And, if the powers that be who run the game want a new artefact, then how about “synthesizer” since much of space music is created using these unique and facile instruments?
Of course, talking about space music brings me to planetariums, which also come easy for me, since I’ve been working in, with, or for them in one form or another since the early 1980s. They’re fascinating facilities—capable of taking us anywhere in the universe we want to go, in a quest for an understanding of the cosmos. Now, when I talk about planetariums, I’m thinking of the round rooms with the star projector in the center. There are also planetarium software programs, which also make stars for you, but only on your computer screen. However, there are few smart folks (like Sky-Skan, Inc., of Nashua, NH), who have harnessed the computer-generated starfield programs and are using computer systems and projectors to blast them up to the dome, but those aren’t in people’s homes— yet. Chances are when you’ve been to a planetarium, you’ve heard space music. It was probably what made you feel right at home in space!
So, are there blogs and blog entries about planetarium space theaters? Well, yes there are. In a cursory Google search I found hundreds of entries about experiences in the planetarium, ranging from that first visit to one as a grade-school child to the absolute awe and wonder these places spark in our minds. Here are a couple of examples:
Gone to Carolina, with an entry about going to the planetarium.
Planetarium visits seem to be a recurring theme across these blogs. While planetaria aren’t things you visit every day (unless you happen to be IN the biz), they ARE a part of our landscape, and I hope they continue this way for a long time!
As far as Blogshares goes, I think that the game could use a new entry under “Media” called “Planetariums”, with an artefact called “Planetarium show” and another called “Planetarium Instrument.” Sure, they’re esoteric, but life isn’t always about the everyday things. It’s also about the experiences we share in places like planetariums, where science, music, art, and the human voice all combine in new kinds of media vehicles that can take us to the stars.
