Here’s a recording I made in 2004, after just a few months with Transom in my life. It’s an odd one – me with a MiniDisc in Beijing’s Black Bamboo Gardens park. Mostly me yakking with pauses. I’ve stumbled across it and found it more enjoyable than I would have expected!
At the time I was working in China Radio International, but had already committed to leaving, to return to Europe. I had my own weekly feature but wanted better guidance, better standards.
Listening now, I think this would make a great programme for CRI, introducing China to foreigners. I would have called it a “meditation”, though now I’d require something more… considered to give it that title.
I seem to have used the pause button on the recorder to edit it on the fly. The audio here is as-transferred from the minidisc.
As wallpaper, I like it! Really been a pleasant surprise this week.

I can’t remember if it was a ABC thing or a Thirdcoast The Falling Show. Googling got me nowhere. So I tried checking thorough old backup drives in case I had this podcast somewhere.

No joy.

Sorry, I meant, I didn’t find that show, but did find joy. Field recordings I had made in New Zealand. Lots of tuis, some bellbirds, rushing rivers, rain, thunder, and the echos of that disused train tunnel outside Wellington.

Many were my first experiments at Mid-Side Stereo recording, and to be honest, I still don’t really know how to turn those into stereo we can hear.

On this recording, I’ve tried using an image plugin, but I don’t know how much is right much for the figures. AND leaving it as is gives more delay, and greater resonance. So here you go, an unmatrixed recording of me faffing about in a train tunnel. No editing other then when I pressed Record and Stop, and bouncing down to mp3.

I think it sounds cool!

And, well, I didn’t get good tape while I was there last week. (music builds for The Connor Excuse) Well I was with my mother and I’m not yet comfortable being the outgoing Radio-Connor when I feel she’d be made uncomfortable.

So it’s all ears! And that’s great too of course, enriching without being terribly responsible. Yeah maybe I don’t live and love production as much as I do listening!

Hum. I’ve attached a binaural recording I made at Long Beach – but because I wrote this partially on my phone and partially on the MacBook, somehow the description of the audio has vanished. Pfff. It’s binaural, I probably turned my head too much, and I bang the mics a couple of times. But it’s still got nice bits yaw.

Maymorn is a request stop on the Wellington – Wairarapa line. At the station, they write the stop name on the ticket with pen, and the ticket collector makes a note of it, telling the train driver to stop there when the time comes.

Likewise on the return leg, the train will only stop if there is someone on the platform.

It’s a bit of a walk up to the disused railway tunnel. There’s a nature reserve and mountain nearby, where I seem to remember there were longer disused railway tunnels – over a km.

I use adjectives in the recording to note the cold. Really they were alluding to how scared I was! Almost like going into shock the first time. With each subsequent trip in, the tunnel changed and the response was easier too.

It was an eara I just skirted the end of – waiting by the phone, relying on the phone, the shared phone, the box that rang – or didn’t.

A time captured in this great dramatic piece: Scanner’s version of Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice, on Ubuweb. Blurb here.

And the Skyped-up kids today think they have it tough…

And by field recording, I mean iPhone Voice Memo!

Tada! The first new audio I’m posting here for quite a while: Angus Graham, A Profile.

Angus Graham (1919 – 1991) was professor of Classical Chinese at SOAS. For more on him, please listen to the programme :-)

The intended audience is Sinologists; scholars with a knowledge of pre-modern Chinese or Chinese philosophy.

I’ve made this to mark the start of the AC Graham Memorial Lecture series at SOAS. It’s being hosted by OpenAir.fm. The blurb there will relate directly to the programme and the audience.

I’ve learned quite a lot making this doc. From nitty gritty about techniques in Soundtrack Pro (like using zero crossings), to another step on my long road to the use of music.

I was on the home stretch when I had the pleasure of hosting an informal Q & A with Francesca Pannetta and Alein Dein at In The Dark. They have a fair smattering of Sony’s between them, and in particular Francesca’s description of layering, not just sounds but also narrative, gave me food for thought. I couldn’t see how to add additional, subtle narrative beyond the basic chronology I have there. That is however a new goal for me, for projects yet to come.

And the other big learning point has been towards the end. I’ve had it ready for a few days, but have been sitting on it, figuring out the best way to export it and so on. It’s been a few years since I carried out this role at the BBC Chinese Service, and that was only ever for 14:30 programmes, not 42 minutes as here. I’d welcome any guidance on this!

Oh and 15 years after I bought the LP in a junk shop, I’ve been able to use Chu Chin Chow in a programme!

Some tech notes: most interviews were recorded over Skype, one was in the OpenAir Studio and two were in offices in SOAS. For those, I held a Beyerdynamic M58 and Sennheiser MKH-60 in one hand, each recording to their own channel on a Fostex FR-2LE.

No seriously, this is an exclusive preview. This will be episode two of In The Beginning, a series I’ve worked on at OpenAir.fm. The series isn’t ready for the off yet, but this one is, and I’m kinda proud of it – even more so of the stereo version which will go up on OpenAir. Comments welcome!

If you ignore me, you’ll not know I’m a thrilled volunteer for In The Dark Radio.

Well, I is.

Listening to five excellent long-form documentaries and a handful of shorts, is good for your sense of radio. Being forced by the situation to focus on the audio is good for your sense of radio. Listening to Alan Hall discuss the programmes with the producers is good for your sense of radio. And hanging out with them in the bar afterwards, cross-introducing friends and colleagues, is good all round.

Hearing great montage work, for instance, has had me going back to items I have on this here website, and thinking Gaaghbuluegh. “It’s a demo for news people” isn’t much of an excuse, I now reckon, coz they are humans and will prefer to hear something good and moving and – wait for it – effective.

The finest learning experience, for me, was Little Women – What Now? by Berit Hedemann. The techniques had been widely spoken of, especially in the UK with its po-faced, unintelligent understanding of journalism.  The best known are the very close micing of the lead character, and the distant micing of a group who, as it happens, don’t win much sympathy from us. But there  was another technique.

She gave a group of 11 years old girls a microphone, and left the room. In a few hours, she had tape you couldn’t dream of. Then meeting her in the bar afterwards, I was struck at how keen she was for people to try new things, how she wished young recruits to NRK’s features unit weren’t intimidated by the reputation but rather tore up the rules and created newness. Properly inspirational.

Other, less professional, high points included: being normal around Alan Hall so not seeing like the brown-nose I would have if I were to say how much I like his work; meeting a real live Radiolab fan (I claimed my first in the wild, though as World Service SM Lisa Hack pointed out, this was more like in the zoo); catching up with radio peeps I’ve not met for years; and hearing Nina Perry’s experiences of working with Radiolab at the World Memory Championships.

]]> http://www.coffeeflavouredtea.net/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=671 0 http://www.coffeeflavouredtea.net/wordpress/?p=668 http://www.coffeeflavouredtea.net/wordpress/?p=668#comments Mon, 03 May 2010 09:52:27 +0000 admin http://www.coffeeflavouredtea.net/wordpress/?p=668 Continue reading →]]> You know what I want? I want to be able to tag or better yet rate, a chapter in an enhanced podcast while listening on the iPhone, and then have iTunes put it in a smart playlist. Coz I love, for instance, the DNTO podcast, but I see something more than an hour and am not sure I want to listen to it all – even though I know many epoisodes have sparked lightbulbs above my head, and smiles and awwws of empathy. I’d like to have that handy!

C’est tout.

I’ve been putting my foot in my mouth rather a bit too much recently.

At the first In The Dark and Lidf event, I so mis-framed an admiring question, that the photographer to whom it was addressed took offence. Way to mix with the great and the good, Connor.

Last night, while preparing the second event in the series, Alan Hall mentioned that he back-times everything. “Really?” I said, dumbfounded.

“Well, not features, of course” he replied.

He was talking about lectures and such.

So to cover that faux pas, while hopefully also distracting from the others (like getting two only vaguely similar people mixed up), I am pondering: has there been any great movement to define radio features by the passing of time,  rather than emotional triggers?

For example, by deciding a certain element – clip, music, atmos, whatever, should happen at a certain time before the end. And another, and another.

So rather than the perceived or emotional time taking precedence, the actual ticking of the clock matters. I’m talking about crafted features here (a phrase I borrow from Alan Hall’s intro last night, and finally filling a gap in my vocabulary), rather than, say, heavily clocked news sequences or magazines on NPR or the BBC World Service.

Of course, the sounds used will have  a certain emotional resonance and (more than likely) purpose.

Now I haven’t looked into existing theory of this. When I get the chance I’ll check the Resonance FM magazine I got a few years ago to see if it’s been written up.

And you know, it’s just struck me what I’ve been describing.

]]> http://www.coffeeflavouredtea.net/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=663 0 http://www.coffeeflavouredtea.net/wordpress/?p=652 http://www.coffeeflavouredtea.net/wordpress/?p=652#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 05:39:36 +0000 admin http://www.coffeeflavouredtea.net/wordpress/?p=652 Continue reading →]]> The great circus that is Formula 1 has returned to China. It’s back in Shanghai. I covered the first Chinese Grand Prix there in 2004.

I follow a lot of F1 journalists and some team comms people on Twitter – and of course, Twitter is banned in China. I know some websites are banned in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, where F1 also races – but I don’t think it goes to any country as restrictive on the media as China.

Many of the journalists have commented, either before leaving or on arrival, that they’d be looking for techniques to tweet, from China-hands, and most seem to have succeeded.

In 2004, Twitter, as far as I’m aware, didn’t exist. China Radio International English service knew they wanted my expertise reporting on the event, but couldn’t decide which section would pay – so none of them did. I had to pay my own train ticket and hotel. But they did agree to pay for my internet access at the track media centre (I went for the $500 option).

And that, super-fast connection, was different from the ones I got at home, or in the office: it was unfiltered. The BBC websites came in without a problem, in the media centre.

I suspect it will be the same this weekend, and possibly even outside the circuit. The F1 journalists are interested in covering the sport and associated spectacle of Shanghai, and that’s why the race is paid for by the government. I would be surprised to see any F1 peeps breaking away mid-race to talk about imprisoned academics, their families cowed by surveillance, or any of the more brutal practices.

For a sample of the F1 Tweeters in Shanghai, check out: @NobleF1, @CroftyF1, @claireVWilliams, @andystobart and @5liveF1.

And for some perspective on the world outside the circus, follow @melissakchan, Aljazeera English’s China Correspondent who is tweeting from far-off Qinghai on the earthquake there.

There is something so evocative.

“For me and a number of other people in the field, he’s very much in the same league as Arthur Waley as a translator”, says my interviewee, over and over again as I fine-tune this part.

It’s my documentary on Angus Graham, the late professor of Classical Chinese at SOAS. The interviewee is one of his friends and colleagues, Professor Henry Rosemont.

It’s inevitable now that I root out the clip from Setting Sail, on the Death of Arthur Waley. The Third Coast Festival hosted that clip when giving a special award to its producer Piers Plowright.

It features Arthur Waley’s wife describing his death. It’s one of my  favourite radio pieces, one which I listen to, sometimes before heading out on an interview, sometimes when the financial strain makes me think of chucking it all in.

Both Arthur Waley and Angus Graham translated the ancient philosophy, and Tang poetry. One was based in SOAS, the other associated with it.

And somehow, listening to Arthur Waley’s wife, looking out a wood-framed London window, I feel tied in, seeing or feeling how they did, understanding the role. The path, if you will.

Anyway, it was in one of the most beautiful places I’ve been, and I need to get some audio here (albeit from 2008) while I’m busy working on my Angus Graham documentary.

By the way, the jacket is a Páramo Alta II. Trousers by the same people, and the Brasher boots had a pair of the tour company’s crampons on.

You probably know, most online audio from BBC radio vanishes after a week.

This is short-selling both the BBC, and the people who fund it.

Much BBC Radio programming is of very high value; social insights, living history. It’s produced to high standards. But we might not know that, if it’s gone after a week.

On the other hand, removing audio after a week, the BBC at times can hide some of its shortcomings. How many programmes from Radio 4 would not stand up to their budget and minor celebrity presenter costs, if they can be compared with the treatment of the same topics by other broadcasters? That’s the sort of accountability that I suspect many producers in the BBC would be happy to have keeping the management in line!

A process of increasing online audio content should absolutely incorporate Andrew Dubber’s “Modcasts” proposal, where the key elements of, say, the breakfast programme are prerecorded and delivered as a pick ‘n’ mix podcast before listeners start the commute.

I understand the one week limit is tied to the standard contracts, and to change those would be a big a long process. But lord knows “it will take five million years” never stopped the BBC before.

Categorising and cutting up the hourly output certainly wouldn’t be cheap – probably requiring about 600 people to work on the 60 or so stations, would cost roughly £12 million a year – similar to the cost of Asian Network, I think. Storage and bandwidth would also be significant, I imagine.

(update – I just saw the xml file of the subtitles for Wonders of the Solar System, an hour long TV programme. From a script, I assume, so for a lot of radio, can’t we at least have that?)

And who would have time to listen to it all? Shame there aren’t places where people share links to stuff they like, isn’t it? More to the point, there’s no reason the new contracts should prevent content from being made available to commercial operators.

Imagine Spotify feeds of BBC programmes, according to host, topic, area, genre etc. Winner, eh?

Do I think this is going to happen? Nope, not anytime soon. However if the BBC really is in the mood to close flailing radio stations like 6 Music and the Asian Network, maybe, just maybe, they’ll see the point in getting better value from what they have, and what they’ll continue to make. Public service, that would provide more models to shove up daily quality, and raise the reputation and value of the organisation.

Another step back to sinology on the radio. I had the privilege of preparing this radio version of the inaugural Angus Charles Graham Memorial Lecture. It was presented by Professor Emeritus Robert H Gassmann of Zurich, at SOAS, on 23 February 2010. It’s available as an enhanced podcast, here, and as a flash presentation, at OpenAir.FM.

Professor Emeritus Robert H Gassmann was the first AC Graham Memorial Lecturer.

The blurb goes like this:

SOAS researcher Malin Petzell introduces Kagulu, a language in Tanzania that is being squeezed by the state-promotion of Swahili. Hear the musicality and the music, along with a taste of Malin’s fieldwork in Tanzania.

Comments welcome!