Audio Producer | Journalist | Educator
We always have a lot of fun with our Distillations Halloween shows and this year was no exception. This time we went for skin-crawling, gag-inducing grossness with segments on how a human body decays, how maggots are used to treat infectious wounds, and an interview with Robert Hicks and his blood-sucking leeches. (Note: Robert lets his leeches feed on HIS ARM.)
Jack-O-Lantern image courtesy of Flickr user Rennett Stowe.
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The second of our four-part series on the original four Greek elements: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. In this show we review three different methods for filtering and purifying water, and indie producer Nina Perry reports a story about a potential water shortage in the UK and the desalination plant Thames Water is building to help mitigate the problem.
Image: Glass of Water, from Flickr user gfrphoto.
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Experimental musician Bart Hopkin talks about creating a new musical scale in this segment I helped write and produce for Jim Metzner’s Pulse of the Planet. This musical instrument series is to help inspire 3rd to 6th graders for the Kids’ Science Challenge, Pulse of the Planet’s free, nationwide competition.
Musical Instruments – Corrugahorn: It looks like an Octopus and creates its own brand of musical sound.
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For this show we took a literary approach to this most scientific of topics. Segments include an interview with Sam Kean, author of The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, (a great read), an excerpt from Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, (another great read!), and a Distillations writing contest challenging listeners to write their own Elemental Memoir.
Image: Periodic Table of Cupcakes at CHF’s museum’s first anniversary. Photo by Rosanne Cook.
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In this segment for Jim Metzner’s Pulse of the Planet, experimental musician Bart Hopkin talks about one of his colleagues, Tom Nunn, creator of the Crustacean. The sound of this thing is incredible – like an underwater orchestra. Hopkin also talks about how some of the best music evolves from instruments you can’t control.
Musical Instruments – Steel Vibration: How can you keep a piece of steel vibrating for a long time? Are the balloons ready?
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The music of Bart Hopkin’s Savart’s Wheel is so cool (and disturbing), it warranted two programs. In this one, Bart talks about why this instrument doesn’t fit one of the traditional musical categories – it’s neither string, wind, brass, nor percussion. Listen to hear why.
Musical Instruments: Categories – Experimental musician Bart Hopkin describes how he created an uncategorizable instrument.
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This is the first of the most recent series of programs I produced for Jim Metzner’s Pulse of the Planet. Jim handed me a transcript and a DVD filled with audio/video clips from his interviews with experimental musician and instrument builder Bart Hopkin and told me to go to town. I found about ten stories in there, and so far he’s aired eight of them. This is the first:
Musical Instruments: Sound Wheel – What does it take to design a completely new kind of musical instrument?
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