Many thanks to all who entered their songs in our 2009 competition - we're currently judging the results, which will be announced at the BSHS Annual Conference in early July.
This blog will continue to run and be updated as an online resource for history of science songs.
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Sunday, 19 April 2009
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
A Function of the Time - reminder
A reminder that tomorrow evening Jeff Hughes will be speaking at the Whipple Museum for the History of Science on: ‘A Function of the Time’: The Cavendish Society and its Postprandial Proceedings.
As the number of research students grew at the Cavendish Laboratory in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so did their collective sense of social and professional identity. At their annual dinner, the research students sang humorous songs specially written by members of the laboratory to well-known tunes or airs, or even Gilbert and Sullivan numbers. With teasing affection, gentle parody and witty wordplay, the songs celebrated the scientific work and social life of the laboratory, its exemplary past achievements and its iconic figures. This talk will show how the ‘Postprandial Proceedings of the Cavendish Society’ helped constitute the research community, and will explore what the songs reveal about the culture of the Cavendish Laboratory and Cambridge physics in the ‘string and sealing wax’ era of Rayleigh, Thomson and Rutherford.
The 'HPS chorus' will be singing 'Ions Mine', 'Isotopes', and 'hv' as part of his presentation.
The museum will open from 5.30 with the talk beginning at 6 - you are advised to arrive early to ensure a place.
This event is also part of the Cambridge Science Festival.
As the number of research students grew at the Cavendish Laboratory in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so did their collective sense of social and professional identity. At their annual dinner, the research students sang humorous songs specially written by members of the laboratory to well-known tunes or airs, or even Gilbert and Sullivan numbers. With teasing affection, gentle parody and witty wordplay, the songs celebrated the scientific work and social life of the laboratory, its exemplary past achievements and its iconic figures. This talk will show how the ‘Postprandial Proceedings of the Cavendish Society’ helped constitute the research community, and will explore what the songs reveal about the culture of the Cavendish Laboratory and Cambridge physics in the ‘string and sealing wax’ era of Rayleigh, Thomson and Rutherford.
The 'HPS chorus' will be singing 'Ions Mine', 'Isotopes', and 'hv' as part of his presentation.
The museum will open from 5.30 with the talk beginning at 6 - you are advised to arrive early to ensure a place.
This event is also part of the Cambridge Science Festival.
Saturday, 7 March 2009
Science Songwriters' Association
The Science Songwriters' Association website includes links to many contemporary songs about science.
Geekpop - Virtual Science Songs Festival
To coincide with National Science and Engineering Week, the 'Geekpop' online festival of science-inspired music is running from 6th-15th March here.
Friday, 20 February 2009
A Function of the Time - The Cavendish Society and its Postprandial Proceedings
Thursday 12th March, 5.30-7pm, talk at 6pm
Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Free School Lane, Cambridge
A century ago, students in the Cavendish Laboratory wrote and sang humorous songs about science at their annual dinner, to well-known tunes. This talk will explore what the proceedings reveal about the culture of the Cambridge physics research community, and will include performances of these songs by the HPS chorus.
Further details on the Whipple Museum pages here, and the Cambridge Science Festival pages here.
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Song Competition launches!
Monday, 26 January 2009
How do I enter?
• The competition opens on 17th February 2009.
• Pick one of the five traditional tunes detailed below, several of which have actually been used for scientific songs, and set your own words that introduce a particular theme in the history of science. Think creatively!
• If you’re having trouble getting started, then have a look at the inspirational historical examples that will be posted online on this blog. Please provide a minimum of two verses, and a maximum of eight. Don’t forget the chorus!
• It’s fine to enter with the lyrics alone but if you would like to then please do include performance directions, suggestions for instrumentation and voices, tempi and dynamics, musical genre, etc. However, please format your entry as a text file or pdf file, not one that uses specialist music-making software.
• Also, why not record a version of yourself or your friends, your band, or your choir singing the song and submit it to our supplementary competition as an audio or video file, preferably as an mp3 or mp4 file?
• Send your song lyrics and performances to historyofsciencesongs@googlemail.com by Friday 17th April. You should receive a message in reply confirming your entry.
• Prize-winners will be announced at our Annual Conference in Leicester on Saturday 4th July 2009, and immediately thereafter on the BSHS website.
Enquiries about this competition should be sent to melanie.keene@gmail.com with the subject header OEC Song Competition
Please note that by entering this competition you guarantee that your lyrics are your own original work. The BSHS will use the winning entries in our activities to bring topics in the history of science, technology and medicine to new audiences.
• Pick one of the five traditional tunes detailed below, several of which have actually been used for scientific songs, and set your own words that introduce a particular theme in the history of science. Think creatively!
- ‘Clementine’
- ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’
- ‘What Shall we Do with the Drunken Sailor?’
- ‘O God Our Help in Ages Past’
- ‘English Country Garden’
• If you’re having trouble getting started, then have a look at the inspirational historical examples that will be posted online on this blog. Please provide a minimum of two verses, and a maximum of eight. Don’t forget the chorus!
• It’s fine to enter with the lyrics alone but if you would like to then please do include performance directions, suggestions for instrumentation and voices, tempi and dynamics, musical genre, etc. However, please format your entry as a text file or pdf file, not one that uses specialist music-making software.
• Also, why not record a version of yourself or your friends, your band, or your choir singing the song and submit it to our supplementary competition as an audio or video file, preferably as an mp3 or mp4 file?
• Send your song lyrics and performances to historyofsciencesongs@googlemail.com by Friday 17th April. You should receive a message in reply confirming your entry.
• Prize-winners will be announced at our Annual Conference in Leicester on Saturday 4th July 2009, and immediately thereafter on the BSHS website.
Enquiries about this competition should be sent to melanie.keene@gmail.com with the subject header OEC Song Competition
Please note that by entering this competition you guarantee that your lyrics are your own original work. The BSHS will use the winning entries in our activities to bring topics in the history of science, technology and medicine to new audiences.
Friday, 16 January 2009
OEC Competition 2009 – History of Science Songs
This year the Outreach and Education Committee of the British Society for the History of Science invites you to rewrite your favourite tunes with lyrics about a theme, episode, or character in the history of science, technology or medicine, and have a chance of winning a £100 cash prize!
Ever wondered whether ‘Cholera!’ would have been a more entertaining Andrew Lloyd Webber musical than ‘Oliver!’? Always wanted precise zoological information from Flanders and Swann’s ‘Hippopotamus’, or felt that ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ should really have provided more details about the Apollo landings? Now’s your chance to put those thoughts into practice.
By entering our competition you’ll be following in a fine tradition of scientific music-making to well-known melodies, from the Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory’s ‘Ions Mine’ to the tune of ‘Clementine’, to a satirical celebration of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable that rewrote ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’, and Tom Lehrer’s tongue-twisting version of Gilbert and Sullivan in ‘The Elements’.
Entries will be judged on their historical content and choice of topic, on their wit and imaginative use of language and rhyme schemes, and on their fit to the original tune.
One £100 first prize will be won, alongside two £50 runners-up prizes. We’ll also be awarding two £50 prizes for the best amateur performance of a song – so why not send in an audio or video recording of you singing your entry? You can submit more than one entry, but a maximum of one prize per person in each category can be won.
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