--Richard Feynman
If you are interested in my "Blazar Music" please click HERE
Playing guitar is a great diversion from thinking about relativistic jets and supermassive black holes! I play a Alvarez Classical acoustic (Nylon strings), an Alvarez-Yairi CY128, and an Epiphone Les Paul electric guitar LP 100. My travel guitar is a Martin "Backpacker" guitar, which I frequently take to conferences and meetings.
Here are a couple of Buffett songs I just recorded.
Also check out the Scientific Jam web site. Really great rock music with a "Scientific Twist".
Dr. Fiorella Terenzi, an astrophysicist, author and musician made some really great CD's containing music based on radio emission from galaxies transformed into sound. You can actually hear the radiation emitted from the jets! Dr. Terenzi's web page is: www.fiorella.com and her excellent multi-media CD-Rom called "The Invisible Universe" is also excellent.
I am a member of the Florida East Coast Classical Guitar Society, the Florida Guitar Alliance, and the Miami Classical Guitar Society.
| Songs on "Cosmic Guitar" | Songs on "Out in Space" |
|---|---|
| Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain (Rose) | Across the Universe (Lennon/McCartney) |
| Classical Gas (Williams) | The Astronomer |
| My Guitar Gently Weeps (Harrison) | I Can't Believe They Pay me For This(J. Webb) |
| Mood for a Day (Howe) | Rocket Man (John) (Vocals by Tom Barnello) |
| Greensleeves (Traditional) | The Human Race |
| Yesterday (Lennon-McCartney) | Black Holes in the Universe (dialog by J. Webb) |
| Concerto in D, 2nd Movement (Vivaldi) | "The Black Hole Song". (D.Webb and J. Webb) |
| Etude in D (Sor) | Demon Haunted World (J. Webb) |
| Vincent (McClean) | Third Stone from the Sun (Hendrix) |
| I'll Have to Say I Love You (Croce) | PKS 1156+295 (J. Webb and the Universe) |
| Everlasting Love (Webb) | Here Comes the Sun (Harrison) |
| Here Comes the Sun (Harrison) | The Cycle |
| Nights in White Satin (Haywood) | Reaching for the Stars |
| Layla (Clapton) | |
| The Ancient (Anderson-Howe) | |
| Bouree in Em (Bach) |
The first song I ever co-wrote was "The Black Hole Song". I wrote this with my late brother, Daniel J. Webb. We wrote it after reading about an article about Soviet Cosmonauts who supposedly never made it back from their space journey! I Can't Believe They Pay me For This.
is a song about my life and career in astronomy. The first verse talks about driving up to Kitt Peak National Observatory to use the SARA telescope, the second verse is about working at Goddard Space Flight Center, the third verse is about teaching here at FIU, and finally the fourth verse describes how I spend many an evening here in Florida on my back porch. "The Human Race" addresses our responsibility to the Earth and its other tenants as a technical, and supposedly intelligent civilization. A good friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Matt Wood, gave me an idea to write a song based on Carl Sagan's book, "The Demon Haunted World". I immediately wrote some versus and Matt suggested a minor chord progression. I took the chords, and with the help of my wife, finished the song. Some people may find it a bit disturbing, but everyone remembers it whether they like it or not. If you want more details as to what it is about, either listen to the song or read Dr. Sagan's excellent book!
A few of my songs are not incorporated into the CD's. I wrote a song called "Hurricane Season" after Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida. One of my favorite artists is Jimmy Buffett. He has a great song entitled, "Trying to Reason with the Hurricane Season" and I thought it was a fantastic name for a song. I was surprised when I listened to it that he didn't use that line anywhere in the song. I had that line and a tune running through my head and one morning I woke up and wrote a "Buffett-like" song using that phrase. My apologies to Jimmy Buffett but I think he might like it if he ever heard it; everyone I play it for at parties really gets into it.
If you are wondering about the quasar music on "Out in Space", the track called PKS 1156, there is a rather technical description about how I made it on the following page: quasar music