Speechification

Here’s another very Radio 4 thing, an “adventure in sound and memory” from 2004. The only reference I can find to it anywhere is this page from radiolistings.co.uk which appears to be another volunteer project, providing archive listings for speech radio. The sounds here “the ring of an old telephone, a treadle sewing machine, the hum of a radiogram” are splendidly evocative, even if I don’t share the actual nostalgia of the contributors. And I suspect it won’t be long before I’m tempted to make a similar programme about the noise of a modem handshaking or the painful banging ring of one of those rock-hard shrunken footballs hitting a cold thigh in a 70s playground. (MP3 here)

You’d think with four contributors (four!) things might have picked up round here. So, just to show we haven’t gone bankrupt or on holiday, here’s an almost perfect Archive Hour from March 2005 about idiosyncratic genius sound recordist (and calypso fanatic) Emory Cook - another man I would really like to have met. That’s all I’m saying. You’ll just have to listen (MP3).

The pic is from The Smithsonian.

I’m sure I’ve raved about Radio Lab (from WNYC) before, but in case you can’t take a hint, here’s another opportunity. There are two programmes here that are as good as any you’ll ever hear, especially in the tiny world of science broadcasting. The first is Space (MP3) which attempts to explain our tininess in the universe’s massiveness through devices like really affecting interviews with Carl Sagan’s widow. The second is about Musical Language, (MP3) and contains fascinating stuff about how the brain adapts to new musical sounds (using the Rite Of Spring as an example). The site also has some great links to things like Diana Deutsch’s audio illusions. Both programmes are well, well, worth listening to.

And if you’re a bit more of an audio/radio nut, you can listen to this lecture/conversation at the Apple store in New York where they talk about how they make the programme, with the helpful addition of genius film editor Walter Murch on the elements of storytelling. Makes you glad to be alive in the age of radio.

Two reasons to post this soggy sound poem: first there’s sound legend Chris Watson’s astounding… er… sound. The man has something going on with the sound fairies. His recordings are so preternaturally authentic - kind of ‘hyper-real’.

In fact, I half expect to learn - in the report of a sweeping internal ‘fakery’ enquiry perhaps - that Watson just makes them all up, never leaving the warmth of his garden shed-cum-studio in leafy Chigwell (”yeah. I just squirt a bit of sea otter in here, bit of cormorant there and Bob’s your Uncle.”).

Second, there’s the very handy explanation of the tides given early on in the show. As a parent of school-age kids who’s had a go at explaining the action of the moon on the earth’s oceans once or twice, I just feel sure I’m going to need this again… (MP3, Real)

I’m writing this with the sounds of Cartoon Network in the background, with my son giggling away and with a jackhammer banging long and hard in the street outside. Plus there’s the miscellaneous bleeping, whirring and cajunking of the average domestic environment. And The Sounds Of Science has made me hear it all anew, wondering why I like what I like and what I’d miss if it wasn’t there. It’s 30 minutes of thinking about the science of sound - why do we hate the sound of vomiting and like the sound of the sea? Is a sense of harmony innate? Why does the music of a barely contacted tribe sound like a 50s traffic jam? (Here’s an MP3 of programme one)

The programme page is well worth visiting too. There’s a bunch of interesting links at the bottom of the page. Quite well hidden, but this is a bit more like it Radio 4. Hurrah! (And here’s a related article)