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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Earth Music Bristol

The Essay: Earth Music Bristol: Episode 4: Symphonic Impressions

Music: Classical

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Symphonic Impressions

Episode 4

Episode 4: Symphonic Impressions

Earth Music Bristol

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Earth Music Bristol, Symphonic ImpressionsClose menu

Bird song recordist Geoff Sample explores whether birds sings symphonically.

Geoff Sample
Symphonic Impressions 

The fourth of five essays inspired by the musical content of the first Earth Music Bristol festival. 

Our understanding of bird song hinges on the idea that males sing to declare their territory and attract a mate. They are effectively in competition with each other and each is a soloist. So how come the sum of the parts so often sounds like a chorus? How can random self interest produce order? This essay explores how evolutionary influences, shaping the structure of birds' songs and singing behaviour, may have resulted in this impression of symphony in our minds.
Geoff Sample is the foremost bird song sound recordist in Britain. 

Producer: Tim Dee.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Series of essays inspired by the musical content of the first Earth Music Bristol festival

Series of essays about the musical content of the first Earth Music Bristol festival, which features music inspired by landscapes, natural phenomena and the creatures living on earth

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