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Culture

Essays and videos on the arts, literature, travel, rituals and celebrations
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Music

Folk music was never green

Don’t be swayed by the sound of environmental protest: these songs were first sung in the voice of the cutter, not the tree

Richard Smyth

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Music

The peculiar beauty of a song caught between composition and improvisation

3 minutes

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Language and linguistics

Messages born of melody – hear the whistled language of the Hmong people

18 minutes

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Music

‘Dun dun dun duuun!’ Why Beethoven’s Fifth sticks in the head and stirs the heart

5 minutes

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Mood and emotion

An Oceanic lullaby, ‘Gimme Shelter’ and more elucidate how music taps into our emotions

58 minutes

A close up picture of hands playing a silver brass flute with a shallow depth of field such that the foreground fingers and keys are more in focus
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Music

To the tune of dystonia

One day, my hand stopped speaking to my brain. As a doctor and flute player, I had to understand this strange affliction

Lynn Hallarman

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Physics

A song of ice, fire and jelly – exploring the physics and history of the trumpet

9 minutes

Two Asian film actors are fighting kung-fu style on the beach dressed in 1970s style casual clothes
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Film and visual culture

Fighting kung fu

From chopsocky films to disco earworms, Asian caricatures have proliferated since the 1970s. Can Hollywood kick the habit?

Stephanie Wong

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video

Physics

A dreamy tribute to the music of Brian Eno, rendered in paint, soap and water

2 minutes

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Music

Electronic gloves and even potted plants make music in a playground for sound innovation

6 minutes

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Biology

A dazzling slice-by-slice exploration of wood exposes hidden patterns and hues

2 minutes

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Music

As a pianist strikes a chord, visualisations of his notes appear in real time

5 minutes

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Music

Give the drummer some

As AI drum machines embrace humanising imperfections, what does this mean for ‘real’ drummers and the soul of music?

Jack Stilgoe

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Music

Enter the conductrice

Will a new generation of women on the podium perpetuate the tyrannical charisma of their male predecessors or overturn it?

Xenia Hanusiak

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Global history

Black King of Songs

His communism brought the great American singer Paul Robeson trouble in the US, but helped make him a hero in China

Gao Yunxiang

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Ecology and environmental sciences

Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus

4 minutes

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Music

Nick ponders the life of the mysterious girl whose used CDs shaped his teenage years

5 minutes

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Music

Before the Beatles dropped acid, a BBC workshop was creating far-out sounds

6 minutes

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Subcultures

Bad puns, regrettable costumes, and other joys of collecting kitschy album art

13 minutes

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Stories and literature

A musician and a storyteller collaborate in a daily duet of words and music

5 minutes

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Dance and theatre

Absorb the infectious rhythms of Setapa – a joyous dance from southern Africa

7 minutes

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Nature and landscape

Honouring the caribou, in dreams and memories from an Innu singer-songwriter

5 minutes

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Music

Songs of conquest

From Tallis’s choral beauty to the unnerving bells of Mexico City, early modern power created a whole new world of sound

Thomas Irvine & Christopher J Smith

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Biography and memoir

Meet the Liverbirds! The bittersweet tale of Liverpool’s all-female answer to the Beatles

16 minutes