The Listening Service

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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

Radio 3

Podcasts

Music: Classical

An odyssey through the musical universe, presented by Tom Service

Rethink music with The Listening Service. Tom Service presents a journey of imagination and insight, exploring how music works

The Listening Service: Drones

Is Birdsong Music?

Drones

BBC Radio 3 - The Listening Service, Drones

Tom Service explores the variety of music based on a drone.

Tom Service explores the variety of music based on a drone, from rustic dance to works of mystic religious ecstasy. With piper Kathryn Tickell and composer Phill Niblock.

Tom Service discovers endless variety in music based on a drone - from rustic dance to mystic religious ecstasy. Medieval Christian music used a drone to provide support for their liturgical chants; old country dances went with a swing to the drone of bagpipes and hurdy-gurdy. 

Much Indian classical music builds elaborate melodic variations over a drone. Minimalist composer Lamonte Young has a never-ending drone piece playing in his loft in New York; and rock band The Velvet Underground brought psychedelic drones into the pop scene of the late 1960s.

Tom talks to Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell about the drones on her bagpipes, and to American minimalist composer Phill Niblock about his use of microtonal drones in his music.

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.

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