Mercy Street — Peter Gabriel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoVVxom8GpY

Watching a planetarium show today, they show a glimpse of one of the Voyager spacecraft which left the solar system armed with messages from planet earth: patterns to represent chemical, physical, and astronomical knowledge. They play a clip of a child saying "Hello from the children of planet earth."

I think the best way to communicate with aliens would be to send them music: to communicate the fine harmonies, rhythms and patterns of music would demonstrate more culture than a specific clip of language.

If Biology is specific to earth, so is language. But, as Physics and Chemistry and Astronomical knowledge are independent — worth communicating across the stars — so too is music, showing harmonic frequencies, rhythm and repetition, motifs and patterns, a form of art based on mathematics.

My vote would be for Mercy Street.