The Sound of Music - Brian Eno, Sam Bennett and Trevor Cox

The Infinite Monkey Cage

BBC

Comedy, Science

4.7 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brian Cox and Robin Ince explore the history of music recording, joined by Acoustics Professor Trevor Cox, Music Professor Sam Bennett and musician and producer Brian Eno. Together they guide us through the evolution of sound recording, a space in which technology hasn’t stood still since its advent in the mid 1800’s. We hear the very first recognisable recording of a voice made with a brush making marks in soot and put a spotlight on the Fairlight CMI, a revolutionary digital synthesizer of the 70’s, used in Brian’s records (Cox & Eno’s!)

Plus, we run an audio experiment with our live audience who turn themselves into our in house digital orchestra, with the help of their mobile phones. Now that lots of people have several devices that can play sound, new technology is harnessing this to create a more immersive experience – which (kind of) worked in our experiment!

Producer: Melanie Brown Exec Producer: Alexandra Feachem Assistant Producer: Olivia Jani

Transcript

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0:00.0	Did you know that you can listen to many of your favourite podcasts first on BBC Sounds?
0:06.6	Like Desert Island Discs, where you can hear castaways like Cher, Gareth Southgate and Nick Cave,
0:12.7	and enjoy longer versions of the music they've picked.
0:15.7	Good things come to those who don't wait.
0:18.7	Listen to your favourite podcasts first on BBC Sounds.
0:23.9	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:28.1	Hello, I'm Brian Cox. I'm Robin Inx. And this is the Infinite Monkey Cage.
0:31.7	Now, when I told Brian about today's show, I can tell you now he is the most excited I've ever seen because I said,
0:38.2	we are going to do the science of the sound of music. And within like a split second,
0:44.0	he came back into the office, he was wearing Lederhosen, he was yoggling about a lonely goat
0:50.9	herd, he was getting really excited, go, maybe we can deal with the quantum superposition of Brigadoon with My Fair Lady.
0:58.2	None of it's true. What, do you mean none of it's true?
1:00.4	Well, the Ladozen. It is true. No, this is true.
1:03.6	You probably, Brian used to wear a lot of Laderhosen. If you look at copies of Kerrang
1:06.9	from the late 1980s when he was in the band there.
1:11.1	And you've got very small knees.
1:13.2	Technically, I don't think your legs should work.
1:16.1	I bet you've won Ladderhosen on stage, haven't you?
1:18.9	I probably have, yes.
1:20.4	Probably worn them to bed, actually, as well.
1:23.8	If anyone's been affected by the Led-hosen conversation in this program.
1:28.2	The radio listeners will be there going,
	...

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