Late Junction - agenda?

[MrGongGong]

i think merit is self explanatory.

I don't

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01npj8w/
well, it started at A and finished at A. .

I think they find the gold at the end ?

But why would you get so "angry" about it ?

Thanks for the link having now listened to it

I love it

not being a great enthusiast of "songs" I frequently hear things and wish that the singing wouldn't be there
this is a wonderful bit of almost highlife guitar playing .....great travelling music and i'm inclined to go and buy the album

[teamsaint]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01npj8w/

It starts at 26:10. I've now listened to it in the comfort of my own home - no distractions, no cyclists and good speakers. I could hear a lot more detail, especially in the bass. The performance could definitely NOT be managed by the average 6 year-old. But it still drove me bonkers. Uniform dynamic level. Melodic range was zilch (both in pitch and ideas) and its journey? - well, it started at A and finished at A. However, in his intro Max did include the health warning, 'country music'............

Oh...Its not like its laboratory invented disease, or something !!

Warning...Patsy Cline/Johnny Cash ahead.

[kevmusic]

But why would you get so "angry" about it ?

I think it's because of the rank repetition. That rising 4-note scale - drives me nuts. And also, as I now discover, it's African music; and African music and I do not get along. Okay, I think it probably deserves airtime, but I'd rather it wasn't R3. I enjoyed LJ when it was a portal for oddball, off-the-wall types of music, and there's room for that away from the standard repertoire, but let's keep it as music which makes you think. World music? Other cultures' pop or folk songs? I didn't grow up with it; I think it should be readily accessible for those that want it, but it's really not for me and I don't think R3 should be the place for it.

I keep R3 on by default and some music I like less than other music but it still, generally, passes over the threshold. However we're hearing more and more music that used to be the preserve of R2 and the dilution is coming in by another name in the form of 'world' music.

So there!

[Serial_Apologist]

I think it's because of the rank repetition. That rising 4-note scale - drives me nuts. And also, as I now discover, it's African music; and African music and I do not get along. Okay, I think it probably deserves airtime, but I'd rather it wasn't R3. I enjoyed LJ when it was a portal for oddball, off-the-wall types of music, and there's room for that away from the standard repertoire, but let's keep it as music which makes you think. World music? Other cultures' pop or folk songs? I didn't grow up with it; I think it should be readily accessible for those that want it, but it's really not for me and I don't think R3 should be the place for it.

I keep R3 on by default and some music I like less than other music but it still, generally, passes over the threshold. However we're hearing more and more music that used to be the preserve of R2 and the dilution is coming in by another name in the form of 'world' music.

So there!

I can hear you visibly cooling off as I write, kev.

I avoid Late Junction in the same way I avoid Womad and suchlike festacles, feeling that a bazaar is the wrong way to take nonwestern musics on board. That there is probably no other way today inevitably involves compromise; I'm compromised - so is the music - at least I realise it, but at the same time I'm distanced*. This is probably a misunderstanding because I love jazz; I just don't conceive of jazz as coming out of a forcing factory in the same ineluctable way that has made eg Balinese Gamelan a tourist spectacle. Whereas Takemitsu's November Steps (and likeminded cultural meldings) was I feel undertaken in full consciousness of the stakes involved, and expressed in the means used.

(*Isn't the same intent the point of postmodernism? I can't affird to be disengaged when it comes to things I love)

[MrGongGong]

I can hear you visibly cooling off as I write, kev.

I avoid Late Junction in the same way I avoid Womad and suchlike festacles, feeling that a bazaar is the wrong way to take nonwestern musics on board. That there is probably no other way today inevitably involves compromise; I'm compromised - so is the music - at least I realise it, but at the same time I'm distanced*. This is probably a misunderstanding because I love jazz; I just don't conceive of jazz as coming out of a forcing factory in the same ineluctable way that has made eg Balinese Gamelan a tourist spectacle.

That's interesting as i was recently talking with a friend who spends a lot of time studying gamelan in Java and Bali and he was saying that the Balinese don't seem to have any problem with the music existing in different places. I think there has been a tendency for people in Europe to approach other musics in the style of old school ethnomusicology , at a distance and with great reverence. There is much to gain from this but also much to gain from engaging in a wide range of musics in a more participatory way, I learn't more about North Indian Classical Music by having Sitar lessons than by reading the classic texts.

[Serial_Apologist]

That's interesting as i was recently talking with a friend who spends a lot of time studying gamelan in Java and Bali and he was saying that the Balinese don't seem to have any problem with the music existing in different places. I think there has been a tendency for people in Europe to approach other musics in the style of old school ethnomusicology , at a distance and with great reverence. There is much to gain from this but also much to gain from engaging in a wide range of musics in a more participatory way, I learn't more about North Indian Classical Music by having Sitar lessons than by reading the classic texts.

You're no doubt right GG. Some cultures "travel" more easy than others I guess. Paraded stuff at western festivals just doesn't seem right somehow - which isn't quite the same as featuring one group at eg the Proms, where an atmosphere can hopefully be conduced. And of course tutelage in a discipline. I'd have no trouble were I to live abroad as it would involved that culture appropriating me rather than vice-versa.

[MrGongGong]

Some cultures "travel" more easy than others I guess. Paraded stuff at western festivals just doesn't seem right somehow - which isn't quite the same as featuring one group at eg the Proms, where an atmosphere can hopefully be conduced.

I really am not sure about this
sure, for some musics the formality of the Proms is perfect
but for others I think that the festival experience is much more appropriate
dance music is for dancing ......... etc etc (though I'm more than happy to sit out The Rite Of Spring )

[Serial_Apologist]

I really am not sure about this
sure, for some musics the formality of the Proms is perfect
but for others I think that the festival experience is much more appropriate
dance music is for dancing ......... etc etc (though I'm more than happy to sit out The Rite Of Spring )

I remember, many literal moons ago in my longhaired, bearded days, a whole roomful of stoned people (including me - this was a long time ago, mind!) dancing to Stockhausen's "Hymnen""!

[MrGongGong]

I remember, many literal moons ago in my longhaired, bearded days, a whole roomful of stoned people (including me - this was a long time ago, mind!) dancing to Stockhausen's "Hymnen""!

Not one of his finer moments either IMV

[gingerjon]

I'll defend Late Junction until the cows come home but that particular piece makes me want to commit violence.

I am now off to find a picture of Michael Gove to sate my fury.

[Barbirollians]

Judging by tonight's episode which i caught after the intermittently interesting Free Thinking this is now a programme of pop and rock music from the 1970s- no doubt Nick Luscombe will shortly be replaced by Bob Harris.

[Honoured Guest]

Yes, "agenda" was doubly appropriate this week, with protest songs featuring prominently as one of the strands running through all three editions.

When I occasionally listen, it seems that the presenter of the week has enormous influence on the programme. Is that fair comment? If so, what do the producers do? Just facilitate the vision of each individual presenter? Who chooses the presenters? Does each presenter have their own personal programme producer? Is there an executive producer for the whole Late Junction strand?

Late Junction's often too easy to switch off, and I miss what I'd really like to hear, because its content varies so wildly and unpredictably from track to track. I think the skill of the presenter/programmer should be to keep me from switching off, by linking items and by trailing what's to come.

[jean]

Bob Dylan (was it?) intercut with slices of a Nunc Dimittis at the start of yesterday's programme was one of the more bizarre juxtapositions...I'm afraid I didn't last longer.

[french frank]

No idea about individual or station 'agendas'. Ever since the programme started it was likely to appeal to some listeners and not others. So tune in or not, as you please and as your experience dictates.

The only point I would make about an 'agenda' is that it isn't and never was a specially "Radio 3" programme (when it began it was described - approvingly, I think - in an Annual Report as 'music not normally associated with Radio 3'. One must make of that what one wishes...) It would appear that a large chunk of the audience is not especially keen on classical music (they don't, for example, listen to the evening concert) and their average age is lower than that of Radio 3 as a whole.

[Domeyhead]

I was a big devotee of Late Junction a year or two back, and though my ardour has cooled of late I am still a fan. I am unsure whether the programme itself has changed or whether it has educated me in world and art music to the extent that I can now make informed and critical choices of my own, which is about as much praise as you could give any programme. I always found a clear distinction on LJ between music I could "appreciate" and music that I actually "liked", and the proportion varied between presenters, so they clearly have a very large input to their programmes. I have poured out a lot of bile on this site around other R3 presenters so it is only fair that I acknowledge the huge amount of new music introduced to me by particularly by Fiona Talkington, Max Reinhardt and Verity Sharp and more recently Mick Luscombe who each brought their own selections to broaden my own musical horizons to my own benefit. I now hear more pieces on LJ that I neither like nor appreciate, but in a strange backhanded way that is to the programme's credit.