River of Music: 12 hrs Non-stop Music: Sunday 30 October

[MrGongGong]

The difference is that I can listen to the CD and experience the music in a way which is not utterly dissimilar to the experience I would have in church or concert hall, but if I attempt to eat the picture of the cheese, the best I can hope for is indigestion.

(Shades of a past discussion creeping in)

I would say (badly summarising the great Trevor Wishart) that the two listening experiences are as different as looking at the cheese picture and devouring the Stinking Bishop

[doversoul1]

How do you know what you like though if you never listen to things you don't know about in advance?

One of the reasons I value playlist in advance is that it enables me to listen to the music I don’t know or want to get to know better without having to depend on a sheer chance.

[MrGongGong]

One of the reasons I value playlist in advance is that it enables me to listen to the music I don’t know or want to get to know better without having to depend on a sheer chance.

A good strategy IMV
BUT I don't understand why folks are so opposed to ONE sequence of music that might work in a different way?
It's not as if human beings have somehow worked out HOW to present music on the radio in a way that will always be successful.
There are many ways of doing things
I often work with people who don't use any words BUT have extraordinary listening abilities

[teamsaint]

Nonsense
I'm not suggesting anyone does anything different at all
Or even that the way I SOMETIMES listen is 'superior' or anything like it
those of us who spend lots of time listening intently to stuff are odd

Other people can do what they like
It's just interesting to sometimes base things on listening rather than words

Recordings and performances are like cheese and pictures of cheese
not the same but related

like Gordon music learning theory?

I wonder if there are other methods for things like Mathematics. There must surely be?

[french frank]

Nonsense
I'm not suggesting anyone does anything different at all

Then I take back what I said I was going by the number of posts you had taken today to say something as simple as "It's just interesting to sometimes base things on listening rather than words".

[MrGongGong]

like Gordon music learning theory?

I wonder if there are other methods for things like Mathematics. There must surely be?

Gordon?
I'm sure there are many methods

Then I take back what I said I was going by the number of posts you had taken today to say something as simple as "It's just interesting to sometimes base things on listening rather than words".

I'm a musician
I'm not as eloquent as Eddie Prevost (nor am I as good a musician as he is)

[teamsaint]

Gordon?
I'm sure there are many methods

http://giml.org/

[Sir Velo]

There is a valid argument to be made for not knowing in advance what music is to be played, and I for one listened to much of it with an open mind, prepared to be intrigued by the connections that we were promised would reveal themselves through the day.

Having said that, most of the music chosen for this sequence was of the kind that would be played on most ordinary Sundays in the course of "Sunday Morning", "Private Passions", "Words and Music"; "The Choir" etc. Very little pushed the envelope. A few interesting juxtapositions but none that really begged one to sit up and think about what was being played.

Like one of the other contributors, I was slightly nonplussed by how little attempt seemed to have been made on the website and/or social media to elaborate on the themes that we were led to believe underpinned the selections. There was clearly myth and death (perhaps alluding subliminally to the station's own demise?) throughout, but by and large it just seemed to be the usual ragbag of pieces chosen with no discernible connection other than some link (which I gave up trying to identify) to each of the last 70 years.

The blog was appalling - the usual bit of BBC inconsequential puffery, comprising sycophantic twitterings and reminiscing from listeners, with only the occasional useful contextualising of the pieces performed.

[DracoM]

Yup, saw the blog and reached for ye bucket.
Facebook was much more varied and critical, and this site, dedicated to Radio Three was less than acclamatory.....read above.

Yes, there are some good things in an Innocent Ear format / stuff, and as you say Words and Music is one in similar vein we get every week, so hardly atom-splitting. But the more I listened, the less I understood what the linkage might be. I nearly said 'bore' in its alluvial sense. of course.

[doversoul1]

MrGongGong

BUT I don't understand why folks are so opposed to ONE sequence of music that might work in a different way?

My main opposition to this programme is not the way the music was played but it is the way in which Radio3 so cheerily and excitedly ditched the listeners, most of them likely to be long-standing, to whom having to depend continuously on digital media in order to have the basic information was not an option. Yes, even Radio3 has to go along with the flow of the river of technology but it could have shown some respect in some way to its minority listeners.

[kernelbogey]

As I've been reading this interesting discussion, I've recalled that this was 'a Something Else' production', and wonder how much of the choices become delegated to a commercial provider.

Certainly the blog was disappointing (rather than appalling, IMV). The playlist grew very much in fits and starts - I was on tenterhooks for a long time wondering about the hand-clapping piece that turned out to be by Anna Meredith, who is new to me. I too would have liked to understand more about how the pieces were chosen, but perhaps there were no R3 staff sufficiently connected to the process of choice to be able to explain it on the website. (I don't do Facebook, so have no idea about what was said there.)

[MrGongGong]

MrGongGong


My main opposition to this programme is not the way the music was played but it is the way in which Radio3 so cheerily and excitedly ditched the listeners, most of them likely to be long-standing, to whom having to depend continuously on digital media in order to have the basic information was not an option. Yes, even Radio3 has to go along with the flow of the river of technology but it could have shown some respect in some way to its minority listeners.

I guess you either have no announcements or you have announcements
Those of us who make performances often agonise about whether to say something before the music, after the music, in a programme or say nothing at all.
It seems to me that the essence of this gig was to say nothing in advance. I guess there could be a programme on afterwards consisting of a list of all the names of the pieces.

[french frank]

Any point in doing a poll? It would be a bit of a blunt instrument (not much more than: on a scale of 1 to 5) because there are so many angles to consider.

[vinteuil]

My main opposition to this programme is not the way the music was played but it is the way in which Radio3 so cheerily and excitedly ditched the listeners, most of them likely to be long-standing, to whom having to depend continuously on digital media in order to have the basic information was not an option. Yes, even Radio3 has to go along with the flow of the river of technology but it could have shown some respect in some way to its minority listeners.

... altho' I have the computers at home which wd have enabled me to find out / follow up on what was being played - as it happened on that Sunday most of the day I was driving. I got little pleasure from this particular 'innocent ear' experience, tho' I dipped in from time - in the end it was frustrating rather than rewarding. I had half a dozen CDs which I did enjoy...

[MrGongGong]

Any point in doing a poll? It would be a bit of a blunt instrument (not much more than: on a scale of 1 to 5) because there are so many angles to consider.

A vote? NO thanks
yeah look what happened last time we had one of those