In Tune Mix Tape

[arthroceph]

I think the timeslot is important. Timepoint and duration.

I don't recall Homewardbound, was it also on at 7pm or thereabouts? ... its name suggests: yes.

Half-an-hour strikes me as short as a programme: emulating the length of one side of C60 cassette tape, I guess.

As an dance and electronic music fan, I listen to alot of mixes and mixtapes and they are always a hit-and-miss affair. A well known phenomenon is to really like a piece when it's couched inside a mixtape, and then being less enthusiastic about it when listening to it in isolation. So expecting to be continuously inspired by a mixtape is the wrong approach. They are about transition and juxtaposition as much as they are about the pieces of music themselves.

Definitely there is a bit of muzak and wallpaper about them. Disposability I suppose. Definitely it won't be liked by some listeners and they will skip it. Even those that like the format will find a few of them fall entirely flat.

It comes across as an early evening Late Junction spin-off. Actually, Late Junction already has stretches of musical pieces not stitched together by commentary. And also experiments with transitions and juxtapositions.

Having over-used the word juxtaposition, I get a feeling .. it was used in the name of an R3 programme? I forget. ANyway, just my 2cents on the In Tune Mixtape.

[french frank]

I think the timeslot is important. Timepoint and duration. […]

It's another one where the timeslot is a break from one thing (repeat of CotW) to something different, with no particular reason why the core audience for one will like the other. So one audience deprived, another served. And the one that is deprived is probably the one which has suffered more of the deprivation since Radio 3 started to 'diversify'. Curiously, while Radio 3 diversifies, other stations specialise more.

I have to confess (well, I don't really as I've probably said it before ) 'juxtaposition' does nothing for me. I hate it. I like to feel that I'm really getting inside music, hearing what is similar, connected, for concentrated, extended periods of time. [Well, tough luck, dude: it's not like that any more]

[Beresford]

'juxtaposition' does nothing for me. I hate it....[/I]]

Is 'juxtaposition' an excuse for not playing anything that lasts longer than about 10 minutes?
So that you don't switch channels just because you don't like a piece, because there may be something that you do like in about 5 minutes? In the mornings, all Radio 3 seems to be short pieces.

[Serial_Apologist]

Is 'juxtaposition' an excuse for not playing anything that lasts longer than about 10 minutes?
So that you don't switch channels just because you don't like a piece, because there may be something that you do like in about 5 minutes? In the mornings, all Radio 3 seems to be short pieces.

I don't think it has anything much to do with "genre" per se. The composers whose music long-term Radio 3 listeners complain of being robbed of wouldn't have composed as they did in integrated concertos, string quartets, concertos and sonatas, had they known that capitalism would one day come along and ordain that everything has to be broken up into little bits for consumption by the mindset that marketers need to appeal to for maximum sales, together with other little bits from wherever - jazz, pop, a bitesized chunk of Renaissance to momentarily remind people of a lost spiritual world followed by, oh I don't know... why not Vivaldi, being tunefully digestible - that only make authentic sense situated in the contexts that produced them by people who catered or still cater for those societies. Who cares so long as the BBC is doing it's bit for selling product, even if this premise is at blatant odds with any original principle of inculcating knowledge?

Nothing will change until people wake up to why we're being manipulated, and work out how to get rid of the system that perpetuates this, and challenges the power of those who benefit at the expense of the rest thereby.

The point I was maybe clumsily trying to make above is that the BBC is getting into this market way of promotion which aligns listenership numbers and demographics with profitability in its narrowest sense, and which requires the mind to be constantly distracted from anything that is not product, and thereby, like a helpless child incapable of concentrating for any length of time, trained for perpetuity into short-term spans of attention in ever-readiness for all that is gold being in the glistening.

[Beresford]

.... trained for perpetuity into short-term spans of attention in ever-readiness for all that is gold being in the glistening.

Yes!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This isn't an innovation at all. It's just like the Rivers of Music gimmick.

Have we ever complained about someone telling us what is to be played? No.
Have we ever complained about presenters spouting drivel? Yes.
Have we ever complained about presenters being over-chummy to one another? Yes.


This compilation of musical tit-bits idea is very old indeed. The Radio 3 team is behaving like politicians when they can't bear to lose face by admitting they're doing something that doesn't work, so they throw out a few crumbs, and then wonder why people aren't fooled by it.

[french frank]

As far as Serial's view is concerned, I think it's chicken and egg. I think that, factually, 'most people' don't listen to the radio/music to be 'inculcated with knowledge'. They want to be entertained in a playful, noisy, cheerful way. The mechanism by which they arrived at this state, and the sinister undercurrents, can be argued about, but the purveyors of consumerism exploit the trivial side of human nature. How does the BBC - or Radio 3 - reverse that in a consumerist society? They follow the trends like the rest of them, pandering to popular tastes.

In my view

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm sorry, but this is just another example of Radio 3 becoming a wallpaper station of almost endless drivel.

Rivers of Muzak, alternating with Rivers of Drivel.

Take Monday's offering:

6.30 a.m. - 12.00 noon: Essential drivel with marmalade.
12.00 noon - 1.00 p.m. Composer of the Week. One of a few good surviving programmes, but there's no repeat at 6.30 for working people.
1.00 - 2.00 p.m. Live Lunchtime Concert. Great, but ...
2.00 - 5.00 p.m. Afternoon Concert. Also great, except that broadcasting a concert after a concert isn't exactly thoughtful, imaginative programming.
4.30 - 7.00 p.m. In Tune Pompous Drivel.
7.00 - 10.00 p.m. Live Radio 3 in Concert. Great, unless they play more music during the interval.
10.00 - 10.45 p.m. Music Matters - more of a Radio 4 documentary about the musical life in Huddersfield. Perhaps the kind of thing they could have used in the concert interval.
10.45 - 11.00 p.m. The Essay. Possibly the only 15 minutes of intelligent spoken word on the channel for the whole 24 hours.
11.00 p.m - 12.30 a.m. Jazz Now. Not really my cup of tea, but good to see it in the schedule.
12.30 a.m. - 6.30 a.m. Through the Night. I'm told this is a good programme, but what's the use of that, when most people will be asleep. I certainly hope to be.

There are still a few things worthy of Radio 3, but overall, they seem to have lost the plot.

[DracoM]

A thought: if they really are obsessed with mixtapes of various kinds - and all the indications seem to be that they are - then.....why not play a segment of whatever the previous Saturday's BAL chosen recommendation is from RR is - e.g. the Monday?
On another day: the vols from the week's two CEs?

[Dave2002]

Not sure about the programme content. It's pleasant enough right now - MixTape Thursday. What is a pain is trying to get reliable sound through my speakers from my laptop. Now I'm getting messages about adjusting my settings (cookies) or installing an app. Surely there isn't an app I can install on a MacOS X system, and anyway, it's a realy pain if I have to install and verify such tools for each browser I use. What was wrong with the old ways - just turn on and listen? No unwanted updates - just get the **** thing working!

[oddoneout]

What was wrong with the old ways - just turn on and listen? No unwanted updates - just get the **** thing working!

Like a radio you mean......?

[Dave2002]

Like a radio you mean......?

[Barbirollians]

Driving up from London last night I was unfortunate enough to come across this programme . A desperate name attempting to be trendy and a number of completely unconnected pieces jarring against each other.

If there was an episode of W1A about Radio 3 this is just the sort of thing Siobhan and Perfect Curve would have come up with !

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Driving up from London last night I was unfortunate enough to come across this programme . A desperate name attempting to be trendy and a number of completely unconnected pieces jarring against each other.

If there was an episode of W1A about Radio 3 this is just the sort of thing Siobhan and Perfect Curve would have come up with !

It really is a radio station run by i***ts.

[DracoM]

Yes, and an immediate switch-off for me too.
I simply cannot understand the R3 policy here - is it just money saving?