The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[Nick Armstrong]

thanks to Caliban I now listen to it every day.
KUSC
Classical music. A member of National Public Radio, and a service of the University of Southern California.

It remains my main fall-back, Jan.

Glad you too get such a lot out of it.

Here's the link to the streaming page http://www.classicalkusc.org/stream/listen.html

[Bax-of-Delights]

I see from the R3 blog that they do seem to be planning to run through the gamut of genres with the Musical Map, currently (following Choral), we move to Baroque. However the blog is now closed for comments following a list of suggestions which amounted to plugs for local choral societies.

Hmmm...that blog for what is obviously going to be a long and on-going venture (one presumes) seems to be have been very prematurely cut short. One wonders to what end the map is intended and how will it be used? Or is it just a merry little device to keep interactive?

Talking of which has anyone noticed how many children are now being name-checked on Breakfast (and I'm only a very occasional listener). It would appear that families with young children are dancing round listening to R3 Breakfast all over the country. And a 7 year-old on the phone-in this morning. Has a call gone out from the R3 muezzin to "get the children involved" - hence the slanting of the music to the jolly old favourites (VW's Wasps, Saint-Saens Bacchanale, Mozart Horn Concerto etc etc etc).

[teamsaint]

B-o-D has it right. Almost all school kids now listen to R3 in the mornings . They plead with their R2 loving mops and pops to listen to "Breakfast".
Hardly any are fiddling with their smartphones, listening to indie rock on ipods, playing hand held computer games, or logging onto social media sites.
No siree. Its R3 they want, and R3 they will have. Check the listening figures.
The R3 wall chart is the talk of the playgrounds.

[antongould]

Hmmm...that blog for what is obviously going to be a long and on-going venture (one presumes) seems to be have been very prematurely cut short. One wonders to what end the map is intended and how will it be used? Or is it just a merry little device to keep interactive?

Talking of which has anyone noticed how many children are now being name-checked on Breakfast (and I'm only a very occasional listener). It would appear that families with young children are dancing round listening to R3 Breakfast all over the country. And a 7 year-old on the phone-in this morning. Has a call gone out from the R3 muezzin to "get the children involved" - hence the slanting of the music to the jolly old favourites (VW's Wasps, Saint-Saens Bacchanale, Mozart Horn Concerto etc etc etc).

Yes this morning's call was a complete waste of space .......sounded to me a bit like PPS though.....

[Resurrection Man]

......
The R3 wall chart is the talk of the playgrounds.

Afternoon tea....splutter...keyboard.

That made my day, ts !

[salymap]

I was mesmerized by the number of times SM-P repeated the word 'Baroque' today. I couldn't listen to the music, I counted 15 repetitions of the 'b' word before switching off.

I think I'll go back to bed. Bestio everyone.

[Suffolkcoastal]

I'm surprised that nobody has yet created a new piece based on sampling all the endless trailers by all the various presenters for all the daft 'fests' these past couple of years. An ideal release for Comic Relief showing what a joke large parts of R3 have now become.

[Bax-of-Delights]

Suffolkcoastal:

While you are here may I ask you if, in the course of your accounting of the R3 music playlists, if it is possible to extract such information as:

A) The percentage of music broadcast that was composed after 1930
B) The percentage of music broadcast that could be described as "Second Viennese School"

In A) one would have to have sub-genres that included such composers as Finzi, Arnold (Padstow, English Dances), Britten (Four Sea Interludes) and the regularly played items from Reich and Gershwin to allow a more accurate picture of how much music from the last 80 years is really broadcast by R3. My instinctive feel is that there is a gradual and on-going dimunition of broadcasting "contemporary" music (if one can describe music 80 years old as such).

[Ferretfancy]

I was mesmerized by the number of times SM-P repeated the word 'Baroque' today. I couldn't listen to the music, I counted 15 repetitions of the 'b' word before switching off.

I think I'll go back to bed. Bestio everyone.

As somebody writing in Music and Musicians once said -- "A pox on Manfredini!"

[amateur51]

B-o-D has it right. Almost all school kids now listen to R3 in the mornings . They plead with their R2 loving mops and pops to listen to "Breakfast".
Hardly any are fiddling with their smartphones, listening to indie rock on ipods, playing hand held computer games, or logging onto social media sites.
No siree. Its R3 they want, and R3 they will have. Check the listening figures.
The R3 wall chart is the talk of the playgrounds.

[aeolium]

My instinctive feel is that there is a gradual and on-going dimunition of broadcasting "contemporary" music (if one can describe music 80 years old as such).

Though this year might slightly reverse that trend, given the year-long SBC "The Rest Is Noise" festival which means there are more likely to be more concerts featuring C20 music, particularly when combined with the centenaries for Britten and Lutoslawski (not that this will necessarily affect music played on Breakfast).

[Suffolkcoastal]

Suffolkcoastal:

While you are here may I ask you if, in the course of your accounting of the R3 music playlists, if it is possible to extract such information as:

A) The percentage of music broadcast that was composed after 1930
B) The percentage of music broadcast that could be described as "Second Viennese School"

In A) one would have to have sub-genres that included such composers as Finzi, Arnold (Padstow, English Dances), Britten (Four Sea Interludes) and the regularly played items from Reich and Gershwin to allow a more accurate picture of how much music from the last 80 years is really broadcast by R3. My instinctive feel is that there is a gradual and on-going dimunition of broadcasting "contemporary" music (if one can describe music 80 years old as such).

Not easily I'm afraid BoD my spreadsheets aren't that detailed. I could give a rough idea of percentage for composers born post 1910 for example and I'd have a very rough idea from that of the percentage that is more 'difficult'. With the three main composers of the 2VS I can give you those figures, but only a proportion of which would be genuinely serial. The Webern is mainly In Sommerwind and the Passacaglia, only rarely do we get some later pure serial pieces. With a composer like Stravinsky anything post 'The Rakes Progress' is nearly non-existant and even for a composer like Copland, I've hardly come across any of his more demanding scores in the the last 4 years (with the exception of Music for a Great City once), even a masterpiece like the Piano Variations has all but vanished.

[alycidon]

My own feeling is that the compilers of Breakfast look out for the shortest pieces of music imaginable so that the chit-chat can start again. The 7.00am to 9.00am slot used to be [early 1950s], mainly music, with a little bit of chat thrown in; now it is mainly chat, with a little bit of music thrown in - and it drives me bonkers!

[salymap]

My own feeling is that the compilers of Breakfast look out for the shortest pieces of music imaginable so that the chit-chat can start again. The 7.00am to 9.00am slot used to be [early 1950s], mainly music, with a little bit of chat thrown in; now it is mainly chat, with a little bit of music thrown in - and it drives me bonkers!

Afternoon alycidon, it's been driving us all bonkers for some months/years now while you've been away from here, but it is certainly getting worse.

[alycidon]

Hello salymap - I've also been away from R3 at breakfast time for quite a few months because the reception got bad and gave me a lot of white noise. All of a sudden it's back with a vengeance [and with a shorter aerial, too], so I don't know what has been going on. That break, however, has made me realise just how much more chat there is, but I could not believe it when I heard the Rondo from Mozart's Clarinet Concerto this morning - what would that be - at least 8 minutesworth? without any chat. A miracle.

Because of the reception difficulties, I don't change over to Classic FM on my two ordinary radios, but sometimes listen through the digital TV, or the car radio. bws.