Shadowplay offers a four-part 'symphony of voices' to celebrate 20 years of Between the Ears. It explores the shadows that may fall between the appearance of things and their reality. Making use of the full palette available to the radio producer - documentary, fiction, music, pure sound - four feature-makers address our values, our identities, our romantic inclinations and our sense of worth.

2. Slow Movement:
Everything, Nothing, Harvey Keitel

In the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world, the city of lights and dreams and distractions, a man sits down and tries to meditate. Learning to meditate is hard. Emptying one's mind, focusing entirely on one's breath is hard. And it gets even harder for the man with the realisation that he's sitting next to the famous actor Harvey Keitel.

Radio 3's showcase for adventurous feature-making was launched in October 1993 with a 'piece for radio', by the composer Ian Gardiner. 'Monument', which was conceived as a kind of London symphony, received the prestigious Prix Italia the following year.

First broadcast 12th October 2013 BBC Radio 3
Produced by Pejk Malinovski

Shadowplay: Slow Movement - Everything, Nothing, Harvey Keitel

Hearing Essay

The Beatles Rehamornized - Here Comes The Sun

"Temporary Hearing Loss"
by Paolo Pietropaolo, 2010

I first started suffering from tinnitus about seven years ago. I’ve learned how to live with it, mostly. It usually affects me the most when I’m in a very silent environment, like somewhere in the wilderness.

Gordon Hempton is someone who knows all about very quiet places and so I thought he might have some insight into how I might learn to listen to them again despite my tinnitus. He’s a Grammy-award winning sound recordist and acoustic ecologist based in Port Angeles, WA, and he’s also the founder and caretaker of One Square Inch of silence in Washington’s Olympic National Park – the quietest place in the USA.

When we spoke, he said some very interesting things about how society is sort of suffering from a collective temporary hearing loss – and how he believes that learning how to listen again could help us take better care of the planet we live on. I mixed his words from that conversation together with some of my recordings of human and environmental sounds to create this short radio piece.

Temporary Hearing Loss

No Nothing (Original Music from Serial Season 3)

Roughneck City (Original Music from This American Life)

Composed/arranged/produced by: David Carlos Valdez (also alto sax & vocals) 
Brandon Wilkins- alto flute, clarinet, bassoon & bass clarinet 
Patrick Ketter- oboe
Neelamjit Dhillon- bansuri flute, tablas, kanjira
Ryan J. Lee- electric & keyboard bass
Max Gearhart- contrabass tuba
Grant Richards- keys

Smooth Point

"Signal to Noise"
by Paolo Pietropaolo, 2011

This is the story of my tinnitus, which affects my ability to enjoy silence. Through the telling of the story, I've tried to create a kind of music that questions where the edge lies between signal and noise.

Tinnitus (ringing in the ear) is one of the most common medical conditions in North America. I've struggled with tinnitus since 2004. Sometimes, noise is my ally, especially at night. It’s made me think about what makes us call certain things noise, silence or music, and it’s led me to believe we’re suffering from a sort of societal tinnitus.

The original music in this story includes audio derived from everyday sounds that we think of as noise: the hum of my refrigerator, the whine of my TV, the buzz of my computer, and so on.

Featuring the voices of Gordon Hempton (sound ecologist, Grammy-award winning recordist, defender of One Square Inch of Silence) and Dr. Glynnis Tidball (my audologist, who runs the Tinnitus Clinic at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, Canada).

The creation of Signal to Noise was funded by a Sound Bank grant from In the Dark (inthedarkradio.org). Special thanks to Francesca Panetta and Nina Garthwaite.


Signal to Noise

Music for a trailer that maybe one day will happen.

Into the Game

I created impulse responses for all of the 9 settings of the classic Palmer PDI-03 Speaker Simulator. I own this device since the early 90s.

More information: https://melodiefabriek.com/shop/ir-03/

Disclaimer:
The PDI-03 Speaker Simulator trademark is the property of their respective owner (Palmer) which are in no way associated or affiliated with Melodiefabriek. The PDI-03 Speaker Simulator name is referenced solely for the impulse responses which were captured from it. Use of these names does not imply any cooperation or endorsement.

Clean - Flat Mellow - Both Pickups Telecaster

Oorsnoepjes van podcastmaker/sounddesigner/muziekmaker Marco Raaphorst / Ear candy by Marco Raaphorst

Clean - Flat Mellow - Both Pickups Telecaster

Marco Raaphorst

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