What’s the Essence of Music & Sound?: Meditations from Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad Presented in a Short, Creative Film

If you’ve ever lis­tened to Radi­o­lab, one of the most pop­u­lar and endur­ing pod­casts out there, you know how much music (and sound more gen­er­al­ly) plays a spe­cial role in the show’s pro­duc­tion. And that’s all large­ly the cre­ation of Radi­o­lab’s co-host, Jad Abum­rad. You know those “jaggedy sounds, lit­tle plurps and things, strange stac­ca­to, per­cus­sive things” that make the show so dis­tinc­tive? That’s all Abum­rad, who majored in exper­i­men­tal music com­po­si­tion and pro­duc­tion at Ober­lin Col­lege.

To get inside Abum­rad’s think­ing about music (what is sound? what is music? why do we orga­nize sound into music?) watch the video above. Mac Pre­mo inter­viewed Jad, then turned the con­ver­sa­tion into a short cre­ative film. Note: If you don’t react well to see­ing fast-mov­ing images, you might want to skip this one.

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