Programme presentation on R3

[Nick Armstrong]

Do you need to subscribe to Twitter?

btw - is the name of the 'service' connected with the verb 'twit' -

...

Unregistered users can read tweets, while registered users can post tweets through the website

The founder described the origin of the name:

"...we came across the word 'twitter', and it was just perfect. The definition was 'a short burst of inconsequential information,' and 'chirps from birds'. And that's exactly what the product was." – Jack Dorsey

[Sir Velo]

No subscription is necessary, but you need to open an account, as you do to post on this forum, for instance.

While some users do "twit" each other in the way defined above, I believe "twitter" is derived from the word which describes the chirping of birds; this is reflected in the organisation's logo.

[Nick Armstrong]

No subscription is necessary, but you need to open an account, as you do to post on this forum, for instance.

While some users do "twit" each other in the way defined above, I believe "twitter" is derived from the word which describes the chirping of birds; this is reflected in the organisation's logo.

See #61 above...

[JFLL]

you don't have to have chattiness, irrelevance, poor research, invitations for phone calls, emails and tweets in order to overcome any risk of stuffiness and élitism, but R3 seems not to care about that.

I agree. There was a point, I think (about 5, 10 years ago?) when we began to hear regional accents (Rob Cowan, Sarah Walker, Ian Macmillan -- so countering possible claims of 'stuffiness'), but when standards of presentation were not compromised to the extent that they are today. That was the right balance, maybe. (Though I never found the old Radio 3 'stuffy' myself, I must say, and I'm not a toff.)

[ahinton]

I agree. There was a point, I think (about 5, 10 years ago?) when we began to hear regional accents (Rob Cowan, Sarah Walker, Ian Macmillan -- so countering possible claims of 'stuffiness'), but when standards of presentation were not compromised to the extent that they are today. That was the right balance, maybe. (Though I never found the old Radio 3 'stuffy' myself, I must say, and I'm not a toff.)

I didn't, either - not Tony Scotland, nor Peter Barker, nor the recently late departed Patricia Hughes - and not even so much because of the ways in which they spoke as the ways in which they didn't; it was all much more about the music and its performance then and presenters didn't get in the way of either.

I don't think that the introduction of presenters with "regional" accents has in itself made the slightest difference, actually; when I listen to Sarah Walker, the last thing I want to - or indeed do - think about is that she hails from Barnsley in South Yorkshire (as distinct from ditto in Gloucestershire), because I'm only interested in what she has to say while she's speaking and what she's presenting when she isn't; I do wish that she didn't have to say some of the kinds of thing that she and others of her colleagues are doubtless prevailed upon to say on programmes whose agenda seems to be to "include" at all costs and irrespective of the question of how the music and its performance might succeed in doing that on its own.

When I was young - well, almost 12 years of age - I was made, for the first time, to listen to music. No person made me do it; only music made me do it. I'd had no previous listening experience of music to speak of - and, given that these first experiences were via the BBC Third Programme (as then it was), I was not encouraged to involve myself by chatty presenters trying to get me on board and make me feel as though I was in some kind of comfortable environment - which is just as well, for when you hear, as I did then, a live performance of John Ogdon playing Chopin's F minor Ballade at that age, knowing nothing about pianos and having never heard of Chopin, let alone Ogdon, you really don't want some talkative presenter getting in the way - and, mercifully, none did. Soon after that, courtesy of the same channel, I heard for the first time Ravel's Piano Trio; I'd never seen, let alone heard, a violin or a cello at that time and I was transfixed once again - and, once again, no one at BBC Third Programme took anything away from that experience by talking at me.

There's much more of a mixed bag in R3 presentation now; one has only to listen to Donald Macleod and Andrew McGregor on the one hand and some of the chattier and sometimes more inconsequential ones on the other hand to realise that there's no longer the same kind of a consistency of presentational approach today as was once the case - and it's certainly not about "stuffiness".

[hedgehog]

When I was young - well, almost 12 years of age - I was made, for the first time, to listen to music. No person made me do it; only music made me do it. I'd had no previous listening experience of music to speak of - and, given that these first experiences were via the BBC Third Programme (as then it was), I was not encouraged to involve myself by chatty presenters trying to get me on board and make me feel as though I was in some kind of comfortable environment - which is just as well, for when you hear, as I did then, a live performance of John Ogdon playing Chopin's F minor Ballade at that age, knowing nothing about pianos and having never heard of Chopin, let alone Ogdon, you really don't want some talkative presenter getting in the way - and, mercifully, none did. Soon after that, courtesy of the same channel, I heard for the first time Ravel's Piano Trio; I'd never seen, let alone heard, a violin or a cello at that time and I was transfixed once again - and, once again, no one at BBC Third Programme took anything away from that experience by talking at me.

ahinton: one of the most pertinent paragraphs that you have written.

[JFLL]

When I was young - well, almost 12 years of age - I was made, for the first time, to listen to music. No person made me do it; only music made me do it. I'd had no previous listening experience of music to speak of - and, given that these first experiences were via the BBC Third Programme (as then it was), I was not encouraged to involve myself by chatty presenters trying to get me on board and make me feel as though I was in some kind of comfortable environment - which is just as well, for when you hear, as I did then, a live performance of John Ogdon playing Chopin's F minor Ballade at that age, knowing nothing about pianos and having never heard of Chopin, let alone Ogdon, you really don't want some talkative presenter getting in the way - and, mercifully, none did. Soon after that, courtesy of the same channel, I heard for the first time Ravel's Piano Trio; I'd never seen, let alone heard, a violin or a cello at that time and I was transfixed once again - and, once again, no one at BBC Third Programme took anything away from that experience by talking at me.

Fine memories. One could contrast with today's style of presentation the minimalism of this transcript from 1945 which I posted a link to elsewhere recently:

‘[Announcer:] This is the B.B.C. Home Service. New Records. Here is Desmond Shawe-Taylor to review some recent issues of new records.’

Not ‘Desmond has got a wonderful line-up for you today, and please let us know what you think by dropping a postcard to ….’

I don’t know whether it’s been commented on yet, but another feature which irritates me is the constant recourse to superlatives, not only before the music but after it, as though we needed to be told how exciting it all was. We can make up our own minds.