2019-12-08

When The Musical Instruments are tuned into the Genre of Astronomy

Introducing New Technologies in an Unlimited Language of Music and Film

By launching a startup and conducting extensive studies and extensive researches, a team of music and engineering scholars, prepared music albums with the attitude of introducing technologies in the field of space and astronomy, which has led them to work with the Iranian Space Agency as well as some international observatories.

According to a report from ISNA- Iranian Students News Agency- it is reasonable to say that from the beginning of human creation, there were music, the sound of birds, the sound of water, the sound of wind when it blows through the trees, the sound of rain and all those inspired people who repeated the sounds of nature as a language to refine their souls.

Music has awoken our minds and our imagination, and it has become a reason for the development of science music, therefore we can define a composer, as an author of music, because the composer who is fully surrounded by the science of music, would be able to write his ideas in the alphabet of music.

With this attitude, the Bijan Norouz’s group, has moved forward into the realm of science music, by trying to introduce astronomical phenomena via using the seven musical letters. By producing musical works in the fields of Film, Science Documentaries, Astronomy, the Universe, Physics and Quantum, Bijan Norouz’s team have been working passionately to combine music and science together.

Bijan Norouz, has studied simultaneously in the fields of Physics, sound engineering and music. In this way he has combined the boundless language of music to the eternal field of astronomy. Bijan Norouz has tried to revive science music which has been forgotten, just for the excuse of not being popular, for years by making a successful startup team of researchers in the fields of Astronomy, Physics and Engineering.

This music band, has been successful in publishing high quality albums in the field of astronomy, according to the highest standards in the world, not by using computers but by using musical equipment and is set to hold its first astronomical concert focused on the introduction of technologies in the fields of astronomy and science.

According to Bijan Norouz, the group is trying to consider music as a technology and science, and to execute the process of producing songs, music playing, recordings and producing processes in a form of a startup team.

He believes that being aware of the concept of worldview, is essential for all composers, in order for them to have a good influence on society, which could result in having a healthy mind.

Science and technology at the service of music

In an interview with ISNA, Bijan Norouz, The Chief Executive Officer – CEO and the founder of Bijan Norouz Worldwide Music Co. who is the director of this plan, said: “As a team of experts in the field of music and as active researchers in the field of astronomy, based on astronomical topics and scientific concepts, our composition has been according to standards in the world”.

As he mentioned, producing music and audio CDs, is a part of the band’s job in the company. “We also provide our audience Dolby Surround Audio, available on 5.1 and 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound Systems.”

Bijan Norouz also referred to the group’s field of work and the startup: “It has always been considerable to us not to provide any narration on the astronomical documentaries, because audio speech comes together with scientific explanations, which could make it complicated and sometimes quite boring to the audience.”

“As you know, Music is a universal language,” he said. “There are other musicians in the world who work in the field of producing astronomical music, although there is not such a purposeful activity to produce astronomical albums every year. We consider defined targets in our project, in a way to provide specialized topics in the genre of music every year. Therefore, we can change our musical platform based on the defined topics.

By a defined music genre, he means a combination of Electronic Music and New-Age Music which, as he mentioned, “are not possible to compose using computer software.”

He emphasized that we have taken advantage of recording studio equipment in producing every music track, which we have composed. He said: “If we need a synthesizer in producing a sound or in a case any acoustic instrument or symphonic instrument is needed, first we write the notes of which, then, using the orchestral group, we record the live multitrack which is played in the studio.”

By mentioning that we need to do some studies in the branch of Research and Development (R&D), Bijan Norouz as a composer and researcher in the field of astronomical music, said: “We are trying to consider music as a technology and science. Besides, the entire processes including music note writing, composing, playing, mixing, mastering and production, is accomplished in the personal studio of Bijan Norouz.

Bijan Norouz explained about the production of astronomical films and translating scientific books in the field of artificial intelligence along with music related to artificial intelligence. He added that along with being a music band, we have a technical and engineering research group, including Mr. Ehsan Mehrjoo and some other friends, who have led us to cooperate with space centers in other countries.

Cooperation with Universal Space Centers

“Content production has been a part of activities of all Space Centers around the world” he said. “By content production, I mean producing Multimedia, Film and Documentary, which music is considered as their essential part. Our duty is to cooperate with those space centers, who need music for content production, by producing music with the highest standards.

He continued: “We are going to start some activities in the field of cinematic astronomical documentaries in the country. Based on our programing, we decided to plan related events once every 3 months in which we are going to play astronomical documentaries with Dolby surround sound and music.”

He said: “In these astronomical events, we are trying to introduce technologies related to astronomy rather than just talking about new celestial events. Our main concern would be introducing new space technologies, such as new satellites, solar batteries, and scientific topics in general.”

As he mentioned: “The main problems now, are that most of the produced media programs are about astronomical events and they give no information about the new technologies in this field. Our experts are intending to introduce new technologies which are made in the field of astronomy and space.”

He announced a consultation on developing cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Space Agency and the European Southern Observatory, saying that these collaborations are in the field of making astronomical music.

Mysterious Astronomical Music Albums

In early 2018, the group put out their first album named G.R.A.V.I.T.Y., which is in DVD format. Now it is available on Audio CD version in the market, while all our products come along with astronomical video clips.

The group has produced some music for the planetarium and as he mentioned, they need videos to make astronomical documentaries, these videos are both made by the team or by the space agency.

Bijan Norouz had studied Physics, Audio Engineering and Music at the same time, therefore he knows many international researchers around the world. He produces music with the approach of science for them.

Bijan Norouz believes that being aware of the concept of worldview, is an essential fact in science. “The field of composing is a scientific and complex one, so composers must have a worldview in order to comprehend any phenomena. In this way a magnificent work could be produced and could have an impact on society which results in having a healthy mind.”

As he mentioned the single tracks of the album are available to download on the website: https://www.bijannorouz.com/, however people abroad have downloaded them more than Iranian people.

The researcher and composer added that: “An astronomical album has been released and the album number 2 is in its final stage. Our style of work is to have a longtime plan for the next 5 years, concentrating on all the details related to the albums, track names, content of the music and even their relationship with the previous and future albums.”

About his first released album named G.R.A.V.I.T.Y., Bijan Norouz said: “This album has been made in a way to make every audience to think about the cosmos and astronomy, while in every album there is a secret which the curious audience must discover.

As he explained, there are full stops marks in abbreviation of the word “Gravity”- G.R.A.V.I.T.Y. – which is the audience’s business to find out its secret, then they need to wait for the next album which is going to reveal the reason for such a punctuating.

Moreover, he mentioned about using the voice of Stephen Hawking- an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author, who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge- in the first track of this album, named “Life on the Sun” and said we are the second licensed band in the world to use the Hawking’s voice in a music album.

Bijan Norouz added: “In the fifth track of the album about the nuclear explosion, we can hear the sound of a nuclear explosion in a clip in which the entire process of nuclear explosion and the phenomenon of nuclear fusion is displayed in HD resolution.”

He also mentioned that they have started the video of “The Universe”, by showing the formation of the spheres of the solar system to the end of the universe in 9 minutes. The video starts with the moon, then the galaxies, their gases and finishes with the end of the universe. This single track has not been released yet.

Extensive studies of producing music albums

Bijan Norouz, noted that most musicians around the world usually use some very powerful software and computers in composing music. This style of composing does not enhance the quality of a sound from a certain level and impede the musician at some stages of composing. Therefore, every musician needs to improve their knowledge about exploiting new equipment.

The optimum exploiting of technological modern equipment in the audio industry and the field of music is one of the main plans of Bijan Norouz music band, as he mentioned: “The astronomical music albums which are produced so far, are as a result of many years of research and study. Therefore, the resulting product is according to the highest standards in the world, available for the audience”.

As he mentioned Bijan Norouz’s team intend to correspond the Audio CDs exactly the same as the live music, which is based on the fact that there is no playback in performing the albums. Having the same quality in both Audio CD and the live performance is considered as a new idea in this field.

“Some people keep criticizing about not releasing the downloadable version of the album. Although they believe that in such way we will have fewer chance on the market, we are not going to release any downloadable version of the album, because by no means decreasing the quality of the Audio CD is not acceptable to us.  It is better that people get used to the highest qualities.” As he says the best music bands in the world release their albums just in Audio Cd version.

Music equipment which are useless in studios

Referring to the condition of music recording studios in the country Bijan Norouz said: “We did our best in order to communicate with some fully equipped studios in Iran, which own the most expensive digital and analogue mixers, that the best studios in the world cannot afford buying them. Lacking of the required knowledge of operating such systems, has resulted in accumulating those equipments in studios for years, without using them.”

Bijan Norouz – as a composer and music researcher in the field of astronomy science- explained about the developments of music in other countries in comparison to Iran: “Maybe the reason that there is not enough improvement in the quality of music in Iran, is that people just consider playing music as being a musician, no matter the quality. As we can see in other countries, even the street bands care about the high quality.”

Holding an Astronomical Concert

Pointing out the importance of the group’s basic knowledge achievements, Bijan Norouz explained: “Supposed that we are going to show the country’s spatial scientific achievements in an exhibition. It is more influential if we exhibit them using the highest quality documentary films.”

He announced about holding an astronomical concert in the near future and said: “By using big monitors together with the produced astronomical music, we are going to introduce astronomical facts to the audience.”

As an active person in the field of scientific music Bijan Norouz reminded: “All of our products are licensed by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Moreover, they have Drop-off number of the National Library and Archives of Iran, Registration of Literary or Artistic, Global Trade Item Number, National Product Identification number and International Standard Recording Code.”

Imaginary Sounds from Earth to the Galaxies

Mostafa Talebian who is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and researcher at Bijan Norouz Worldwide Music Co. in an interview with ISNA introduced music as a very old language in the world. He explained that this language has been used since the ancient Greek for which notes were written. He said: “The music itself doesn’t fundamentally have a lot usage, however it can help a lot in making the speech beautiful, while being the best way to express emotions.”

He considers explaining the natural phenomena as one of the other usages of music and continued: “With the powerful language of music, there is no need for a narrator on documentaries to explain any phenomena.”

As Mostafa Talebian explained, music is an international language, which is understandable by animals and even the plants, that’s why we are trying to use a combination of our musical knowledge and understanding of the scientific phenomena, to transfer that knowledge to the audience.”

As a composer and researcher, Mostafa Talebian said: “We were actually intended to present such emotions to explain astronomical phenomena in an international language. To do so, we needed some equipment, because the acoustic instruments such as Piano and Guitar are not so useful for our purpose in describing astronomical phenomena, except for some special cases.”

As he explained, to achieve such a purpose, we needed to make imaginary sounds which were not possible to make using the available musical instruments, therefore we decided to use the electronic instruments because not only they can produce imaginary sounds, but also it is possible to make simple sine waves using them.

Mostafa Talebian continued; “As a result the sounds in our album are not any defined sounds, they are rather a mixture of sounds which are made by a lot of devices.

Mostafa Talebian added: “In many cases we make use of the sounds of existing instruments, then we change the sound with some instruments to produce the special one which we need for the album.”

Mostafa Talebian confirmed that based on the type of astronomical phenomena, we decide which instruments to use.”

For the first time in history, astronomers captured an image of a black hole with the camera of The Event Horizon Telescope. It measures 40 billion kilometers across and is located in a distant galaxy. With the advantage of The Event Horizon Telescope, people are now able to see the new horizon of a black hole, which is 500 million trillion kilometers from Earth. Enjoy listening to this phenomenon via the music of Bijan Norouz.

Translated by: Fatemeh Hematian

Source: ISNA