mickey hart cosmic tunes

MICKEY HART, Drummer, Grateful Dead: This is really the sounds of the universe. This is
what the cosmos sounds like.
Pythagoras found the secrets of the universe, the rhythm of the universe, the mathematics of the
universe through just a long string which vibrated. If I had any guru, it would have to be
Pythagoras, and of course rhythm is the god.
MIKE CERRE: In the pantheon of rock n roll gods, the Grateful Dead have always been
known for their somewhat cosmic approach to music. As one of its founding drummers, Mickey
Hart has spent the better part of his professional life outside of the Grateful Dead exploring the
cultural and scientific basis of good vibrations.
MICKEY HART: The universe is made up of vibrations. I have been very interested in
sonifying the universe, the cosmos, the sun, the Big Bang, taking those radiations from
telescopes, radio telescopes, and turning that radiation into sound, which I make music out of and
compose with, in the macro, and now in the micro with the brain waves, heart rhythms, DNA,
stem cells.
All of these have a sound. And so we take these sounds in and we embed them in the music.
MIKE CERRE: Mickeys search for the universal source of rhythm has gone intergalactic and
all the way back to the beginning of the cosmos.
MICKEY HART: The moment of creation, beginning of time and space, when the blank page
of the universe exploded and it created the stars, the planets, black holes, pulsars, supernovas,
this was the beginning of time and space, and then us. And then we are still now toying with this
rhythmic stimuli that was created 13.7 billion years ago.
GEORGE SMOOT, University of California, Berkeley: What is needed is someone who is
artistic to hear these sounds and be inspired by them and turn them into something that is really
pleasing for people to hear.
MIKE CERRE: Astrophysicist George Smoot earned a Nobel Prize for his work in charting the
origins of what many believe to be the beginning of creation, with the Big Bang. Hes also a
longtime Dead Head.
MICKEY HART: He can show me waveforms of the first million years and all that. And thats
really great. But as soon as I see it, I said, give me those waveforms, George. And lets see what
they sound like. And lets dance to those things. And George said, yes.
MIKE CERRE: With the help of the University of California at Berkeleys supercomputer,
Smoots team converted light wave traces from the Big Bang into sound waves for Mickey to
work with.
MICKEY HART: Because its very inharmonic [enharmonic?]. Its very dense. Theres a lot of
collisions up there, and theres a lot of bumps and grinds and pulses and stuff and noise, which
you wouldnt call music.
But I take it, and I make it into what the human ear would call music, so we can enjoy it.
Were getting there, George. Im getting there, George.
MIKE CERRE: This was one of Mickey Harts first laboratories for his scientific experiments.
He and the Grateful Deads Jerry Garcia used to sneak onto the Golden Gate Bridge at night
when it was closed to pedestrians, sometimes armed with rubber mallets, so they could record
the vibrations of the bridge and include them in the Grateful Dead performances in the 60s and
70s, during the bands heyday.