A Wave of Reason December 5, 2010

A Wave of Reason

By Guest Contributor
December 5, 2010

The Symphony of Science is back: Atheists, scientists, and other voices of reason, all auto-tuned for your pleasure:

John Boswell is the person responsible for these videos; if you don’t subscribe to him already, fix that now.

(Thanks to awesomesauce for the link!)

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  • Anonymous

    Symphony of Science gets me a little verkempt.

    Especially The Unbroken Thread

  • Luciferadi

    Awesome. Thanks for sharing. 🙂

  • Anonymous

    And just a programming note: this footage of Sagan is his last interview. 5/27/96 on Charlie Rose.

  • I love the Symphony of Science videos. They’re amazing!

    This one does not disappoint!

  • Richard Wade

    I love the quotations and the overall message, but I’m sorry, I find auto-tuning very annoying. It’s not just due to my personal taste. Something in the sound is really irritating to my nervous system. Never could stand high frequency tinkling or buzzing noises.

    More importantly, it makes some of the words hard for me to understand. This is a song where the lyrics are much more important than the melody. More than one of the quotations were difficult for me to fully catch, and a couple of them were just lost to me, even though I replayed them three times.

    If their regular voices could be played with music accompanying them in some harmonic, rhythmic way, perhaps? It would still have the nice combination of appeal to both the intellect and the emotions.

    When Cher came out with her auto-tuned song “Believe” I was puzzled why would a singer with so strong, emotive, and distinctive a voice want to sound like a robot, or like somebody talking through wax paper wrapped around a comb?

    Up next: Stephen Hawking sings Sinatra’s greatest hits!

  • It is alright for background musing while I do other things. Although, if I wanted to concentrate one what is being said, I would simply prefer clear un-manipulated audio of the speakers.

  • The music and beat holds my attention long enough for me to listen to what is being said.

    If it were just vocal tracks, I would probably have to do something else while listening. 9/10 (1 point off for recycling choruses, boo!).

  • NotYou007

    That was painful. Why people keep doing this is beyond me. It is not pleasant to the ears.

    Please stop taking videos and doing this to them. It’s dumb and it sounds horrible.

  • MrsWheel

    IMO, these songs and their accompanying videos are a clever way to introduce the ideas being presented to people who would not otherwise be open to them. I’m all for bringing voices of reason to new audiences.

  • Rich Wilson

    if you don’t subscribe to him already, fix that now

    Not for me, thanks. To each their own, but I can’t stand auto-tuning.

  • Man,lots of auto-tune hate. I’m not especially fond of it myself, but yeesh!

  • I’m with Tim on this. (OK, I actually like the sound so that makes me marching to the beat of my own drum apparently.) But I probably wouldn’t be even listening if it were not done so beautifully.

    Say the word science to me and my eyes start to glaze over because it bores the shit out of me but these videos have a huge effect on me. Draw me right in. I sit and watch the videos and listen to scientists who I’d never otherwise do and always left in awe of them.

    I have the stinking suspicion that people like me — the scientifically challenged — are the target audience. If so, great job!

  • Denis Robert

    However much I appreciate the source material, the man who invented auto-tune deserves to be exiled with his invention to a remote deserted island.

  • ATL-Apostate

    Count me among those not hip to the Sagan et al. autotuning.

    Love the message. Not a fan of the delivery.

    To each his own.

  • Drely

    the man who invented auto-tune deserves to be exiled with his invention to a remote deserted island.

    A bit short-sighted, me thinks. Don’t blame Auto-Tune (or competitors like Melodyne), nor its developers. Instead, blame the abuse of this otherwise brilliant technology perpetrated by an endless parade of creativity-challenged (cough) “producers” and the opportunistic label executives who are only too happy to deliver low-budget crap.

    Like many other technological marvels, auto-tune can be used for good purposes and in such a way as to being inaudible. But doing it well takes both skill and time, both a.k.a. money. You know the rest.

    By the way, while I do lament the ubiquitous abuse of Auto-Tune, I actually cheer the British production duo who first abused it with Cher’s “Believe.” It was creative and fresh. It’s the sheepish followers that ought to hang their heads in shame.

    And that’s all I gotta say about that.