Music Documentaries For Radio

Drawing on both academic research and real world practice, this book offers an in-depth investigation into the production of music documentaries broadcast on radio. Music Documentaries for Radio provides a thorough overview of how the genre has developed technically and editorially alongside a discussion of the practical production processes involved. Digital production equipment and online tools used in music documentary production are discussed in detail, outlining how the development of these technologies shapes the output of producers operating in both the public service and the commercial sectors of the industry. Drawing on his own experiences as an award-winning music documentary producer, the author also looks at how the industry views this form of radio documentary and considers how innovation and technical advances, as well as governmental regulation, have shaped the field. The book demonstrates how changing practices and technical innovations have led to the emergence of multi-skilled, freelance radio producers and how previously separate production roles have merged into one convergent, multifaceted position. Music Documentaries for Radio is an ideal resource for students and academics in the fields of radio studies, media production, documentary-making, and journalism studies.

The Music Documentary offers a wide-range of approaches, across key moments in the history of popular music, in order to define and interrogate this prominent genre of film-making. The writers in this volume argue persuasively that the music documentary must be considered as an essential cultural artefact in documenting stars and icons, and musicians and their times – particularly for those figures whose fame was achieved posthumously. In this collection of fifteen essays, the reader will find comprehensive discussions of the history of music documentaries, insights in their production and promotion, close studies of documentaries relating to favourite bands or performers, and approaches to questions of music documentary and form, from the celluloid to the digital age.

This reader collects primary documents on the phonograph, cinema, and radio before WWII to show how Americans slowly came to grips with the idea of recorded and mediated sound. Through readings from advertisements, newspaper and magazine articles, popular fiction, correspondence, and sheet music, one gains an understanding of how early-20th-century Americans changed from music makers into consumers.

This collection offers an in-depth study of music’s narrative functions in radio drama, whether original or adapted, alongside speech and sound. It features a range of historical perspectives as well as case studies from Australia, Europe and North America, highlighting broadcasting institutions such as the BBC, RAI, ABC, WDR and SWR, from early radio to the medium’s postwar golden age and contemporary productions. Not limited to classical or popular music, the chapters also pay attention to electronic varieties and musical uses of language, in addition to intermedial exchanges with other art forms such as theatre, opera and film. In doing so, the present volume sits at the crossroads of various disciplines: musicology, narratology, history, literary, media, sound and radio studies.

Weaving together family history, genetic discovery, and scenes from her life, Ami McKay tells the compelling, true-science story of her own family's unsettling legacy of hereditary cancer while exploring the challenges that come from carrying the mutation that not only killed many people you loved, but might also kill you. The story of Ami McKay's connection to a genetic disorder called Lynch syndrome begins over seventy years before she was born and long before scientists discovered DNA. In 1895 her great-great aunt, Pauline Gross, a seamstress in Ann Arbor, Michigan, confided to a pathology professor at the local university that she expected to die young, like so many others in her family. Rather than dismiss her fears, the pathologist chose to enlist Pauline in the careful tracking of those in her family tree who had died of cancer. Pauline's premonition proved true--she died at 46--but because of her efforts, her family (who the pathologist dubbed 'Family G') would become the longest and most detailed cancer genealogy ever studied in the world. A century after Pauline's confession, researchers would identify the genetic mutation responsible for the family's woes. Now known as Lynch syndrome, the genetic condition predisposes its carriers to several types of cancer, including colorectal, endometrial, ovarian and pancreatic. In 2001, as a young mother with two sons and a keen interest in survival, Ami McKay was among the first to be tested for Lynch syndrome. She had a feeling she'd test positive: her mother's side of the family was riddled with early deaths and her own mother was being treated for the disease. When the test proved her fears true, she began living in "an unsettling state between wellness and cancer," and she's been there ever since. Intimate, candid, and probing, her genetic memoir tells a fascinating story, teasing out the many ways to live with the hand you are dealt.

Radio is the original mass electronic medium and it continues to be critical for audiences wanting news, information, music and entertainment. For over a century enthusiasts, scholars, practitioners, governments, businesses and listeners have developed and influenced radio, making it a fascinating medium to explore today. There is still no mass medium as ubiquitous as radio and the Internet has extended its geographical and temporal reach even further. Radio remains a key media form and technology, not only surviving the challenges of the screen and digital ages, but developing despite and because of them. This book is a collection of contemporary research by radio scholars from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It explores different aspects of this both simple and complex medium, from early radio histories to the contemporary developments of radio on the Internet. Chapters engage with critical debates about the role of government, business and communities in how radio is used in our societies. Some chapters provide important new insights into making radio, and radio as a cultural force. Other chapters explore developments in research methodologies that enable deeper insights into contemporary radio and its audiences. This book provides a range of platforms for engaging with radio and radio research as a rich, vibrant and fruitful way to further our understandings of the media and ultimately, ourselves.

′This innovative and clearly written handbook does exactly what it claims on the cover, providing students with accessible and authoritative knowledge of the essential topics in Radio Studies... Chignell writes about radio with an engaging mixture of scholarly detachment and private passion′ - The Radio Journal ′There is a need for a straightforward, wide-ranging, and up-to-date introduction to ways to study radio and other new audio-based media. Hugh Chignell′s new book certainly fits the bill, and admirably takes the reader from initial ideas through to additional readings which explore the core issues in greater depth. It is crisply and engagingly written, draws upon a very good range of scholarship, and provides many useful contemporary examples... Students will find it an essential aid to their studies, and it may even go someway to ensuring that the study of radio is as important in the academy as its visual cousins′ - Viewfinder ′This book is a useful starting point for radio students and staff, packed with citations and pithy comment from the author. It is a rich resource book for academic radio study at all levels′ - Janey Gordon, University of Bedfordshire The SAGE Key Concepts series provides students with accessible and authoritative knowledge of the essential topics in a variety of disciplines. Cross-referenced throughout, the format encourages critical evaluation through understanding. Written by experienced and respected academics, the books are indispensible study aids and guides to comprehension. Key Concepts in Radio Studies: " Provides a comprehensive, easy-to-use introduction to the field " Grounds theory with global examples " Takes it further with recommended reading " Covers the central ideas and practices from production and media studies " Situates radio studies within its historical context and contemporary auditory culture

Documentary filmmakers have been making films about music for a half-century. American Music Documentary looks at five key films to begin to imagine how we might produce, edit, and watch films from an ethnomusicological point of view. Reconsidering Albert and David Maysles’s Gimme Shelter, Jill Godmilow’s Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman, Shirley Clarke’s Ornette: Made in America, D.A. Pennebaker’s and Chris Hegedus’s Depeche Mode: 101, and Jem Cohen’s and Fugazi’s Instrument, Harbert lays the foundations for the study and practice of “ciné-ethnomusicology.” Interviews with directors and rich analysis from the disciplinary perspectives of film studies and ethnomusicology make this book a critical companion to some of the most celebrated music documentaries of the twentieth century.