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Besides the Curiosity rovers's rendition of Happy Birthday and Chris Hadfields guitar playing aboard the ISS, is there a list of music played in space live (robots playing music counts too)?

Note: Music added during a Livestream (ie falcon heavy) does not count.

Organic Marble
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Dragongeek
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  • I almost made an edit changing "played" to "performed" because I assumed you didn't want to include people playing music on their MP3 players or laptops. But when I saw "robots playing music" I decided I'm not sure what you mean yet. Do you want to exclude the laptops and MP3 players from your list? – uhoh Aug 05 '18 at 21:07
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    @uhoh Well I assume that astronauts on the ISS listen to music all the time but that's not what I'm going for--but calling curiosity's happy birthday a performance is up to interpretation :) I just wanted to make sure to include events like curiosity's happy birthday. – Dragongeek Aug 05 '18 at 21:11
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    @uhoh astronaut responds with picture of iTunes account – Magic Octopus Urn Aug 05 '18 at 22:56
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    There is one music that always plays in space: 4'33 by John Cage :) – Siegfried Aug 06 '18 at 12:34
  • Space Oddity and Is there Life On Mars? from the Roadster? – SF. Aug 28 '18 at 03:32
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    Let's not forget "The Internationale" played from Luna 10 in orbit of the Moon. – SF. Aug 28 '18 at 07:17
  • @Siegfried I love it! – uhoh Aug 28 '18 at 08:56
  • Wouldn’t be surprised if they played something in MIR during the jean Michel jarr oxygène concert but I can’t tell... – Antzi Dec 31 '19 at 14:08
  • I think anyone who didn't listen to Chris Hadfield's awesome rendition of Space Oddity is severely missing out. It's not just the guitar - the vocals, the video, it's a professional recording! Allegedly David Bowie fought with his publisher to keep this recording available on Youtube. – SF. Dec 31 '19 at 16:23

6 Answers6

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Ellen Ochoa, space flautist.

STS-56, launched April 1993.

enter image description here

Cady Coleman, space flautist.

Expedition 27, March 2011.

enter image description here

Carl Walz, space keyboardist

Expedition 4, Dec 2001 - June 2002

enter image description here

Ed Lu, space keyboardist

Expedition 7, 2003

Thomas Pesquet, space saxophonist

Expedition 50/51, Nov 2016 to June 2017

enter image description here

Don Pettit, space vacuum-cleaner-ist/didgeridooist

Expedition 6 Nov 2002 to May 2003, Expedition 30/31 Dec 2011 to July 2012

enter image description here

Ron McNair, space saxophonist

STS-41B, Feb 1984.

enter image description here

Wally Schirra / Tom Stafford, bells and harmonica

Gemini 6, Dec 1965

enter image description here

Naoko Yamazaki on koto

enter image description here

Soichi Noguchi on ryuteki

enter image description here

Useful information on crew wakeup music

Organic Marble
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    Flautists eh? Youd think with aeronautics potentially crossing over with military somebody wouldve tried a trumpet or taps. – Magic Octopus Urn Aug 05 '18 at 22:51
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    It's possible, I'm still looking. – Organic Marble Aug 05 '18 at 22:52
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    Nothing wrong with flutes! I enjoyed playing for 4 years-- I kind of want to ask which instruments wouldnt function in zero gravity now. Honestly curious which mechanical instruments have reliance on gravity. – Magic Octopus Urn Aug 05 '18 at 22:54
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    I love that picture of Ellen with the checklists flying around her. – Organic Marble Aug 05 '18 at 23:02
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    The main thing I love about ISS photos-- especially the interior-- is how many things you notice when you zoom in that youd absolutely miss on a precusory glance! A ziploc of bandaids attached to the wall behind the keyboardist for example. I wonder how many stubbed toes and 0g accidents before that happened ha! – Magic Octopus Urn Aug 05 '18 at 23:05
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    RTFM = Reading The Flute Manual – DrSheldon Aug 06 '18 at 03:21
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    Reading The Flute Music – WGroleau Aug 06 '18 at 03:51
  • @MagicOctopusUrn Off the top of my head all I can think of is something like a rainstick or the hammers of a piano that have a direct reliance on gravity. Edit: it's already been asked on Physics SE. – Jack Aug 06 '18 at 08:05
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    Draining the spit out of wind instruments might get tricky, so you could play a trumpet, but perhaps for only a few hours ... –  Aug 06 '18 at 11:51
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    As a note: my wife, a professional flutist, tells me there is a lot of contention over the use of "flautist" vs "flutist" in the USA (http://flutetoday.com/flutist-flautist-flute-player/). Coincidentally, she teaches at Ronald McNair middle school. – Ogre Psalm33 Aug 06 '18 at 17:56
  • @OgrePsalm33 very interesting! I had to look up how to spell it.... – Organic Marble Aug 06 '18 at 17:57
  • @MagicOctopusUrn I've got to imagine that a trumpet would be terribly loud in the limited space. Additionally, see JCRM's comment on the spit... – Tin Wizard Aug 06 '18 at 18:16
  • Somebody should edit the Wikipedia page adding that a Hohner harmonica was in space with Gemini 6. – Uwe Aug 28 '18 at 12:14
  • @MagicOctopusUrn The classic non electronic piano would need gravity as its means of return its hammers to a state of rest. The iron frame of the piano would be to heavy for a transport to the ISS anyway. – Uwe Jul 30 '23 at 17:17
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Quite recently, Alexander Gerst performed on a tablet, using a Launchpad-like app:

On 20 July 2018 around 21:50 local time, ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst welcomed the legendary electronic band Kraftwerk and 7500 visitors to the Jazz Open Festival on Stuttgart's Schlossplatz – live from the International Space Station, where he will live and work until mid-December 2018.

Stanley F.
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An addition to Organic Marble's answer.

Alexander Ivanchenkov plays guitar

Salyut-6, 1978

Ivanchenkov plays Guitar

Volkov plays guitar and Krikalev plays (an improvised?) drum.

Mir, 1989

Volkov plays guitar

Talgat Musabaev playes another guitar

Mir, 1998

Musabaev playes guitar

There WAS a guitar on Salyut-7, but I can't find a picture right away.

Sergiy Lenzion
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In addition to previous answers:

  • 2013 Luca Parmitano played synthesizer keyboard from ISS in duplex with Didier Marouani live concert (2:37 in the following video)

  • 2018 Andrew Feustel and Scott Tingle play guitars enter image description here

  • 2018 "international space band". Anton Shkaplerov and Oleg Artemyev learned to play Peruvian pipes; Andrew Feustel and Scott Tingle performed with the guitar, and Richard Arnold with the Hawaiian drum enter image description here
  • 2019 If robots playing music counts too, then this (perhaps) deserves mentioning as well: the first space DJ, Luca Parmitano performed a 12-minute DJ set from a tablet with built-in DJ software. 14:16, 16:03 in the following video
Sergiy Lenzion
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0

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launch carried a Tesla roadster that was playing 'Life on Mars'. Link: Here

Awesomepotato29
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Here is a project that is making progress towards playing a record of Carl Sagan (and Stephen Hawking) "singing" in space.

Currently they seem to have only gotten to 28.5 km, but I have a hunch they won't stop until they can play beyond the Karman line.

You can read further in the question What technical challenges would be playing this LP in (actual) space?

The "original soundtrack":

uhoh
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