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

BBC Radio 3

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Disengage from the frenzied pace of modern life with this diverse selection of programmes. Tune in, drop out. It's time to go slow.

The Water's Music, a piece made entirely from the sounds of a Northumbrian burn

Slow Radio: The Water's Music, a piece made entirely from the sounds of a Northumbrian burn

BBC Radio 3 - Slow Radio, The Water's Music, a piece made entirely from the sounds of a Northumbrian burn

A musical collaboration between sound artist, radio producer and a burn in Northumberland

Sound artist Tim Shaw and radio producer Julian May collaborate with a burn in Northumberland, moving rocks and logs, 'tuning' the stream to create a piece - The Water's Music

Slow Radio for Radio 3's Along the River week. Musician Tim Shaw and producer Julian May collaborate with a Northumbrian burn to create a piece - The Water's Music

'He made his habitation beside the water's music'. This line, from a poem by Martyn Crucefix, lodged in the mind of radio producer Julian May, inspiring an   ambition - to collaborate with a brook to create a composition. By moving rocks and logs might the sounds of the stream be adjusted, 'tuned', and might a piece of  music slowly emerge?           

Tim Shaw is a sound artist and musician based in Newcastle. After auditioning several he finds a musical burn on a moor in Northumberland. He and Julian May record the sounds it makes, from the tiny tinkling trickle near its source to its disappearance under a bridge of resonant drainpipes, via niagarous waterfalls and sombre pools. 

They intervene, building a ladder of rocks to create a chord as the water flows down. They use hydrophonic microphones, recording underwater to capture the music of the burn from its bed. They tie these hydrophones to bits of wood, letting them drift downstream as 'sound pooh-sticks'. There is life here; in a pool by the burn they record strange pings, the sounds of tiny aquatic creatures. Sploshing about in chest high waders they stretch a rod across the burn with microphones attached at intervals along it. Recording first one, then another they create stepping stones - in sound. 

In the first part of the programme Tim and Julian gather the sounds and explain what they are up to. They then present the composition they (mostly Tim, the musician) make out of this, a piece in three movements for Northumbrian burn, rocks, logs, hail and aquatic beasts, a piece of slow radio -'The Water's Music'.

Producer: Julian May

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The Water's Music, a piece made entirely from the sounds of a Northumbrian burn

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