All You Need Is Lab: How Science and Technology Inspired Innovation in Music
First broadcast: Saturday 15 February 2014, 10:30
Musician and songwriter Midge Ure looks at the many ways scientific and technological innovation have stimulated creativity in pop music.
From the invention of the steel guitar string, through the tape recorder and the synthesiser, to the drum machine and Autotune, musicians have always embraced the latest ideas and adapted or distorted them to produce new sounds.
Musicians Anne Dudley (Art of Noise) and Thomas Dolby join music journalist David Hepworth and blues researcher Tom Attah, exploring how the laboratory has informed and inspired the studio.
Midge demonstrates what you can achieve with just a laptop these days - but laments the passing of an age of invention in popular music.
Featured music includes The Beatles, Chopin, Thomas Dolby, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Charlie Christian, Les Paul and Mary Ford, The Tornados, The Small Faces, Queen, The Sweet, Stevie Wonder, Band Aid, Art of Noise, Donna Summer, Fat Boy Slim, Cher, Daft Punk and Nick Clegg.
Producer: Trevor Dann
A Trevor Dann production for BBC Radio 4.
160/44; 32.7 MB; sound quality excellent
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Replies
Thanks Rick, love to hear how the music was made. Wish someone had some history and how it was done by The Moody Blues. Still one of my favorite bands.............Larry
Thank you
I liked this (a lot). I never knew all those bands
that made greatest use of the synth generally
hired a guy who owned one and knew how to play,
but not necessarily what to play.
Still, in music there is an accepted distinction between
builder/performer/composer and it carries on to
Moog/Carlos/Bach (Switched-On). I've heard bits of
Larry Fast and Beaver & Krause solo material,
left to their own devices.
Their output is greatly improved by the guiding hand of
a first-rate performer/composer like Stevie Wonder or
Peter Gabriel.
Zappa held a lifelong frustration with the inability and
uncooperativeness of symphonies to play accurately
the music he heard in head. In his last few years, he
tried using the synclavier to bypass human musicians.
BTW, look up Midge Ure's synth version of "The Man Who
Sold the World". Spooky!