This evening I’m doing a live interview about my Nocturne book with Katie Derham, presenter of BBC Radio 3’s ‘drivetime’ programme In Tune.
Normally these interviews are done in person in the London studio, but as I live in Edinburgh I’ve been offered the possibility of doing my interview from a BBC Studio here.
I know this studio, which is a small cubicle in a row of others. I will be the only person in the cubicle, responsible for watching the ‘red light’ myself. I have to wear headphones to hear the interviewer, and of course, when you speak while wearing headphones, your own voice sounds strange to you.
Naturally you can’t see your interviewer or any visual cues she might be wishing to give you. Thus it’s not a totally relaxing way of doing an interview, but from the point of view of sound quality, better than doing it via Zoom from my study at home.
If this message reaches you after the interview has aired, you can listen to it (free of charge) on BBC Sounds for 30 days afterwards. Just follow this link and click the ‘Listen Now’ button. My segment starts at around 1:26:40 and ends at about 1:35:58.
Our magnolia tree has started to blossom (see photo) and Spring feels close at hand.
Thank you, I will listen to that. It’s odd how our voices sound so different when we hear a recording compared to just in our heads. It is said that Edith Evans, the possessor of a splendid but rather unusual voice, was appalled the first time she heard herself recorded and cried: “Turn it off! There has been a terrible mistake!”
Oh yes, quite! I guess that I’ve gradually got used to how I sound when I speak on a recording, in the same way that I’ve got used to how my playing sounds on a recording. But I remember being taken aback by the recorded sound when I first heard it. Of course when you’re playing you can never hear how it sounds to someone sitting in another part of the room. You get so used to how it sounds when you sit at the keyboard.
I suppose if we all heard ourselves as we “really are” more often we would gradually adjust to it. Then again my father was on television occasionally and always hated to watch himself. He was usually a very confident man, but I remember faced with the sight of himself on Ludovic Kennedy’s ‘Did You See?’ he literally ran away!
My wife loves magnolias. There are several in the village wherr we live. My impression of them is always coloured by the fact that they are one of the earliest Angiosperms or flowering plants having existed since 95 million years ago in the Cretaceous Period. Everytime i see one, i imagine them being eaten by a dinosaur. There is something a bit prehistoric about them.
Hi Susan. Following link but no joy? Could you advise please?
Hi Caroline, I think the simplest way of reading my blog posts is just to go directly to my website, http://www.susantomes.com, click on ‘Blog’ in the menu and read the post there. Most of the time the ‘follow it’ notifications seem to work fine, and have always worked for me, but occasionally people report that they couldn’t make it work.