I see that the BBC is launching something called Radio 3 Unwind. It’s running a promo loop at the moment.
Deep sigh.
Music for not listening to. Wallpaper to cover the cracks in your life.
Diazepam made up of the crushed souls of creative people, none of whom would want their work deliberately used this way.
I’ve given #Radio3Unwind a bit of a try now, in mid-night waking moments. I report back:
Good overlays of nature sounds (bird song in one instance; gentle rain in another). This I approve of. But.
There was too much music that I knew or had played (in my small sample there was a lot of cello, which might be statistically insignificant but on the other hand, cello is generally less high than, say, violin, and that may be a programming choice). My ear focussed on the music, and this had the opposite effect of unwinding me.
The more I know a piece the more my ear wakes up. Since I know a lot of mainstream classical music (there were three pieces in the hour I listened that I have played) this is a problem.
I decided (at 4.20am) that I’d prefer it to use field recordings and musique concrete sounds only.
And I’d like to explore using muffled gentle conversation, too distant or filtered to hear the actual words, just the sound of calm voices.
Jody Hughes