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History & The Arts
The Italian Cantastorie
Italians are world renowned as passionate people, and their passion feeds through to their music and story telling. This album explores the tradition of the Cantastorie - the Italian Storyteller. Cantastorie Mauro Geraci explains the intricacies of the music, the paintings, the instruments and the drama of the performance. This material is ...
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History & The Arts
Voice of Indian Song
Traditional Indian singing is intoxicating - but what is it about singing, and listening to others sing, that makes it so significant? In this album, Sudokshina Chatterjee breaks down the unique Indian style, and explains the emotions and meaning behind the songs of her culture. This material is drawn from The Open University course AA317 Words ...
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History & The Arts
Indian Raga Music
The music of North India is mesmerising, and shrouded in tradition and culture. There, raga is the art of life - it is the music of the mind. The tracks in this album focus on three instruments - the tabla, the alap and the voice - all central to the existence of Raga. Each instrument is broken down into the individual sounds that make up the ...
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History & The Arts
Norma Waterson: English Folk Singing
Song, in its many forms, surrounds us - and may have been a feature of life since the very beginnings of human history. It is practiced in every society in the world, its importance undiminished in modern times. The tracks on this album focus on English Folk singing, the traditions behind the songs, and the stories behind the traditions. ...
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History & The Arts
Ethics Bites
Ethics Bites is a fascinating and absorbing series of interviews covering topics such as animal rights, euthanasia, censorship and fertility treatment. The interviews are introduced by David Edmonds, while Open University philosopher and best-selling author, Nigel Warburton, puts the questions, rooting every subject in everyday dilemmas about ...
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History & The Arts
Brass Instruments
Technology and music have been closely associated since the very first musical instruments were constructed, and in the 19th century an explosion of invention revolutionised the way brass instruments could be played. The 14 video tracks on this album introduce the basic acoustical principles of brass instruments and how technical developments ...
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History & The Arts
Music in Code
Today, listening to music is easy - we have CDs, MP3s, radio, television and the internet. But around a hundred years ago life was very different - either you had to play music yourself or have someone else play it for you. The 15 video tracks in this album demonstrate various ways to play music by mechanical means, with the ingenious use of ...
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History & The Arts
Music Printing
From the middle of the 15th century onwards, the intellectual and cultural life of the West was revolutionised by the development of the printing press. This album explores the technological problems and solutions specific to the printing of music and shows how technology has transformed the way music scores are produced today. The five video ...
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History & The Arts
Composing with MIDI
In the last 50 years, developments in technology have had a profound effect on the production, recording and manipulation of music. The 8 video tracks in this album introduce Simon Whiteside, a television and film composer, explore his recording studio and explain how he uses MIDI to create music for films and television programmes. Using an ...
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History & The Arts
Art and architecture
The Louvre was designed to house a great art collection for the people of France. Was there a plan from the outset to build a canon of work where the relationships between artists, their origins, their schools and faiths could be traced across centuries? And how did architect I.M.Pei persuade President Mitterrand to allow a pyramid to be built ...
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History & The Arts
The Arts Past and Present: Ireland
Do we use our buildings to declare who we are? How far does our heritage influence our collective identity? This insightful album reveals Ireland's shifting attitudes towards its cultural heritage. In 1922 when it broke free of British rule to become an independent nation state, the Irish nationalists abandoned high-profile buildings like ...
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History & The Arts
The Arts Past and Present: Mosaics
How can we read an image to tell us more about its ancient maker? In this album a mosaic artist, Catherine Parkinson, visits the splendidly-preserved ancient Roman mosaics at Brading Villa on the Isle of Wight. With the help of two archaeologists she discovers that the iconography reveals important clues about the villa inhabitants' world ...