The Scientific Troubadour Pledge

FULL membership in the guild is restricted only to those musicians capable of keeping the Guild Pledge:

To write, record and submit one (1) song per month based on a story in one of a number of scientific publications.

These may include:

• Discover
• LiveScience
• Nature
• New Scientist
• PhysOrg
• Science
• Science News
• Scientific American
• Space
• any peer-reviewed academic journal.

The discipline is guaranteed to make you a better songwriter. The subject matter is guaranteed to make you better informed. And the internet, of course, is how people become famous.

So…

Do you so pledge?

Congratulations, you’re a member of the guild. Welcome to a new world of obligation, enlightenment and honor!

To enjoy the adulation of an adoring, information-hungry internet, simply email your original songs to The Guildmaster once a month. Please, include a short note explaining who you are, where you might be found elsewhere on the web, and a link to the scientific report that inspired your song.

Since these songs are intended to spread scientific knowledge in the spirit of the medieval troubadours, instrumentals are generally frowned upon by the guildmaster.

“…[I]nvisible colleges prize members who give up research productivity to serve in or near seats of power, as well as members, dubbed “scientific troubadours” by Price, who specialize in carrying up-to-date news and gossip from stop to stop on the commuting circuit.” — William Paisley, “The Role of Invisible Colleges in Scientific Information Transfer.”