BBC Sounds

[Old Grumpy]

I have stopped looking at R3 Schedules, but now have two programmes I routinely download from "Sounds" to listen to later: JRR and EMS...


... just been on Sounds to download them - neither broadcast this week due to Proms interference

Oh well - fewer downloads to catch up with...

...I find I've been losing a few due to expiry anyway!

[Nick Armstrong]

I have stopped looking at R3 Schedules, but now have two programmes I routinely download from "Sounds" to listen to later: JRR and EMS...


... just been on Sounds to download them - neither broadcast this week due to Proms interference

Oh well - fewer downloads to catch up with...

...I find I've been losing a few due to expiry anyway!

Same here, with the addition of Sound of Cinema… On its monthly hiatus this weekend due the ‘Gaming’ - but also no edition last weekend due to Prom interference as aforesaid

[AuntDaisy]

I have stopped looking at R3 Schedules, but now have two programmes I routinely download from "Sounds" to listen to later: JRR and EMS...


... just been on Sounds to download them - neither broadcast this week due to Proms interference

Oh well - fewer downloads to catch up with...

...I find I've been losing a few due to expiry anyway!

As a replacement, how about joining the endless "Home of Vile Music" etc. adverts into an uninterrupted loop for your pure delight and delectation?

I missed EMS as well, but there's "Gold" on Sunday and after it a vague EMS where "Hannah French explores the world of early music."

[oddoneout]

As a replacement, how about joining the endless "Home of Vile Music" etc. adverts into an uninterrupted loop for your pure delight and delectation?

I missed EMS as well, but there's "Gold" on Sunday and after it a vague EMS where "Hannah French explores the world of early music."

Private Passions and the Choral Evensong repeat were other casualties, but there is a more normal offering next Sunday. The timing of EMS is different though so I'll have to remember that - I don't want to miss the final(!) of Hannah's interesting challenge.

[AuntDaisy]

Private Passions and the Choral Evensong repeat were other casualties, but there is a more normal offering next Sunday. The timing of EMS is different though so I'll have to remember that - I don't want to miss the final(!) of Hannah's interesting challenge.

Thanks for the time change reminder ooo.

[Dave2002]

The CFM-isation of R3 seems to have turned it into a kind of digital juke box. In recent weeks for various domestic reasons I have found myself listening from early morning - Breakfast - then Essential Classics - then Classical Live - currently with the supposedly best of the Proms I think.

Actually there are some interesting pieces in the mix, and some old favourites, but surely this is really lazy programming. There is no discussion of music matters of any sort - not even any commentary on the lives of the composers or the pieces broadcast.

About all I can say at the moment is that the dog I sometimes have to look after doesn't object and seems happy enough to go to sleep with this as background.
This has prompted me to wonder whether animals such as dogs and cats actually do have any enjoyment or understanding of music. I gather that they do show dislike sometimes, but I'm not sure whether going to sleep counts as like, or merely passive acceptance.

Mercifully though the phone in or other social media inputs with requests or suggestions seem to have stopped for the moment.

[smittims]

My cat Billy seeks me out when I'm playing music and after a few minutes settles down next to me, facing the speakers, and sits still. If it were a human one would say he was listening to the music. He certainly has much sharper hearing than mine, but whether he identifies music as such, one cannot say.

[Serial_Apologist]

I've no idea if and how animals respond to music, although one has heard of cows producing extra milk when Mozart is played to them! I have noticed many cats' ears flicking, particularly when high-pitched sounds are loud, in that way which is said to indicate irritation or discomfort. I have also noticed cats leaving when music starts being played, either recorded or on instruments in the room. One cat - an intelligent Siamese - would actually enter the piano room at my parents' house, and yowl loudly until the music was stopped!

[oddoneout]

The CFM-isation of R3 seems to have turned it into a kind of digital juke box. In recent weeks for various domestic reasons I have found myself listening from early morning - Breakfast - then Essential Classics - then Classical Live - currently with the supposedly best of the Proms I think.

Actually there are some interesting pieces in the mix, and some old favourites, but surely this is really lazy programming. There is no discussion of music matters of any sort - not even any commentary on the lives of the composers or the pieces broadcast.

About all I can say at the moment is that the dog I sometimes have to look after doesn't object and seems happy enough to go to sleep with this as background.
This has prompted me to wonder whether animals such as dogs and cats actually do have any enjoyment or understanding of music. I gather that they do show dislike sometimes, but I'm not sure whether going to sleep counts as like, or merely passive acceptance.

Mercifully though the phone in or other social media inputs with requests or suggestions seem to have stopped for the moment.

The phone-in stopped years ago, thank heavens, but email/other contact input still continues, although its general prevalence, or incidence in a given broadcast, varies. Petroc will pass on information about the music played(recollections, filling in details and the like) or perhaps an item in the news, that a listener sends in. The contributions are sometimes amusing but I don't get the impression that he is required to make an entertainment of such material, or to include a set quota of listener input. I don't "listen" to the rest of the morning; although the radio sometimes stays on beyond Breakfast for a while I block out presenter and other non-music content so don't know what the situation is with listener input.

[LMcD]

The phone-in stopped years ago, thank heavens, but email/other contact input still continues, although its general prevalence, or incidence in a given broadcast, varies. Petroc will pass on information about the music played(recollections, filling in details and the like) or perhaps an item in the news, that a listener sends in. The contributions are sometimes amusing but I don't get the impression that he is required to make an entertainment of such material, or to include a set quota of listener input. I don't "listen" to the rest of the morning; although the radio sometimes stays on beyond Breakfast for a while I block out presenter and other non-music content so don't know what the situation is with listener input.

Petroc often provides very informative mini-biographies of composers and details of the circumstances surrounding the composition of a work, especially if the latter are unfamiliar..

[oddoneout]

Petroc often provides very informative mini-biographies of composers and details of the circumstances surrounding the composition of a work, especially if the latter are unfamiliar..

Indeed, and sometimes the listener input adds to that which he provides - personal knowledge etc.

[french frank]

Indeed, and sometimes the listener input adds to that which he provides - personal knowledge etc.

I think this must be related to my inability to listen to music while I'm reading. I tend to put aside time specifically for listening to music when I won't be disturbed or don't have other things to think about. Anything that requires concentration I do in silence. So too much of programmes like Breakfast are just distraction (why aren't they just playing the entire piece of music?).

[LMcD]

I think this must be related to my inability to listen to music while I'm reading. I tend to put aside time specifically for listening to music when I won't be disturbed or don't have other things to think about. Anything that requires concentration I do in silence. So too much of programmes like Breakfast are just distraction (why aren't they just playing the entire piece of music?).

I rarely read anything other than the news headlines or Forum posts before 9.30 a.m. and more often than not don't find time to settle down with a book until early in the afternoon.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think this must be related to my inability to listen to music while I'm reading. I tend to put aside time specifically for listening to music when I won't be disturbed or don't have other things to think about. Anything that requires concentration I do in silence. So too much of programmes like Breakfast are just distraction (why aren't they just playing the entire piece of music?).

I'm the same. I think this stems for me from an occasion at a friend's house when during detailed conversation he happened to put on a recording of the Bach cello suites, and the power of the music was so strong a draw that I faltered to a halt, having completely lost track of what we had been talking about. This is the kind of music that for me is the most worth devoting my full attention to; and it doesn't have to shout any childish demand for attention by having to be loud like so much mass commercial musical product - in fact often the quieter the greater the "spiritual" value derivable therefrom: the "world in a grain of sand" kind of viewpoint. The next sound to come along can be tantamount to a revelation in this kind of listening, and so having someone interrupt and undermine what the composer or maybe just improvising musicians are communicating to me negates the whole point. I can, I have to say, listen to music in this way if I am at the same time undertaking some quiet menial task, such as ironing or darning... or even drawing or painting, which (for me) are essentially non-cognitive activities in the narrative-descriptive "this is what I am doing or needing to do at this point" and so on. Musical experience can approximate meditation in the spiritual sense.

[french frank]

Musical experience can approximate meditation in the spiritual sense.

I think I agree with that too. Yesterday it was time to listen to some music. I selected the Bella string quartets because I hadn't listened to them for a long time. This is not The Greatest Music Ever Written. It was two string quartets by JL Bella, followed by his Notturno composed c 1930. It was what I did yesterday evening. And it was rewarding in ways I don't need to analyse further.