Radiolab

Dear Radio Labs

Somehow I stumbled upon Radio Labs and have found myself listening for the past 6 hours, absolutely loving every episode. Six hours, what is wrong with me?

I have never heard such an amazing broadcast with the shear quality, enthusiasm and joy for producing radio works.

Please keep up the great work and to WNYC, please continue to fund this series. I shall become a member of the WNYC family, simply for this program.

Thanks again for the smiles and joy

Chris Rock

One theory dismissed by the host is that genetic factors contribute to more Chinese having perfect pitch. Isn't it possible that tone languages themselves exist in populations that are genetically disposed to higher intelligence, which are thus able to comprehend them more effectively? And has anyone investigated whether there a significant correlation between higher innate intelligence, tone language and perfect pitch (as politically incorrect as that might be)?

Among the many fascinating aspects of Diana Deutch's work, the subject of music extracted from a spoken phrase came sharply to mind when I was just listening again to a work by a contemporary American composer.

Check out "Different Trains" by Steven Reich. He makes terrific use of this phenomenon.

I have just discovered Radio Lab. What a great show! Thank god things like this exist.

Thank you!!

Garth~

Absolutely wonderful program, as usual. For many more amazing examples of the musicality of human speech, check out the music of The Books:

http://www.thebooksmusic.com/

The song "Be Good to Them Always" is a particularly great example.

I'm a new listener and this show just blew my mind. Excellent!

The spoken word/song part of the segment reminds me of electronic/sample-based music.

Almost any dance music has songs with samples taken from films/programs/speeches where this principle is demonstrated.

Luke Vibert is a good example.

Great show!

I'm interested in why the singers chose to change the last pitch of "Sometimes behave so strangely." Speaking in solfege, the notes the singers sang were La La Sol Fa La Sol Do. But if you listen to Diana's speech, the tones she uses are La La Sol Fa La Sol Si (Ti for the Sound of Music fans out there.). It makes sense, too, because having the phrase end on a leading tone keeps the listeners' ears perked for what she'll say next, and of course she does go on to finish her sentence eventually. The singers change this last note, though, presumably to make the loop have more of a feeling of finality.

I am amazed that Mussorgsky was not mentioned in this program: This composer believed that music should reproduce the music of the natural language. Very interesting program!

I love how the first bit relates to rap music. Great rappers are not only very aware of the inherent musicality and rhythm of language, they exploit and experiment with it.