[school-discuss] etc ... broadcast & downloads (odyssey and lion, witch & wardrobe are on-line & complete)

[mike eschman <meschman@etc-edu.com>]

NOTE : All book readings are COMPLETE readings.

Program : 

Channel 1 : 
H. G. Wells - The War of the Worlds.
Holst - The Planets.
Mahler - Symphony No. 3

Channel 2 :
C. S. Lewis - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Great Pianists of the Past.

Channel 3 :
Homer - The Odyssey.
Music from the Middle Ages.

Technical notes on the reading :  We have given up on multiple voices, they 
are not of good enough quality to be anything more than a novelity.  From 
here on, it's one decent male voice, and that's all.  

People have asked if we have tried audio enablement with Festival, which is 
open source, rather than using IBM's ViaVoice modules, as donated to the 
Emacspeak project.  Well, from what I've read and heard, Festival would take 
a lot of time and effort, and is inferior to the IBM engine.  I wish that 
wasn't so, or even more that ViaVoice was open source, but things are what 
they are.

Have you ever "improved" a program's output by accident?  We think that 
happened with all three of these readings.  Write us and let us know what you 
think ...

I assume (already being an ass myself, and you are reading this) our listeners 
are familar with all three books, but the Music of the Middle Ages may be new 
territory.  Here's a bit of background (see the Playbill for more):

This writing is a loose adaption of a paper on the topic by David Monroe, who 
is both knowledgable and dead.  The paper was part of a record set produced 
by Oxford's Music School, and is ISBN 0-19-321321-4.  To the best of my 
knowledge, it is currently out of print.  The music we are broadcasting is 
from that vinyl LP set.

The introduction of a variety of instrumentation to Europe was a byproduct of 
the Crusades.  Polyphony, the use of multiple musical voices at the same 
time, not singing or playing the same notes, began in the shadow of a 
startling new structure, the cathedral of Notre Dame.  Without polyphony, 
classical music as we know it today could not exist.

At the same time, Europeans of the Middle Ages looked back to Greece and Rome 
for cultural models in the arts, philosophy and science.  From these roots, 
and no doubt many others, the roots of a new culture took hold.
Among the arts, music had the distinction of being both the crudest and the 
oldest.  It was new to analysis, but as old as the impulse to sing in the 
shower.

You will hear people talk of musical evolution.  That is quite misleading.  
Music is not subject to any "survival of the fittest".  Fifteen minutes 
spinning the radio dial will prove that to anyone's satisfaction.  Rather, 
music is exclusively subject to fashion and taste.

I think my friend Dave Prentice would say that makes it EXACTLY evolutionary, 
but that is offered with a nudge-nudge, not a wagging index finger pointed 
skyward, because I prefer to hum, not shout, this morning :-)

The early wind instruments coming back to Paris from the East were quite 
restricted in many factors, but, they also introduced a range of textures to 
Western Music that had been utterly lacking.  It is wonderful to have Bach 
and Berlioz, but listening to these alien tunes is like the fresh breeze of 
springtime, first love,  that book as a child that COMPELLED you to read ...
So, in a word, this music accompanies Homer because it is as fresh and 
unexpected, as incomprehensible in its emotion as all old things must 
inevitably be to the living.  With luck, and your cooperation, it will put 
you in a proper mood to join these intrepid adventurers and their gods in a 
classic tale of lost and redemption that owes nothing to us, or our beliefs.

Enjoy.

mike eschman, etc ...
"Not just an afterthought ...
http://www.etc-edu.com