Stylus | WBUR iLab

Stylus is a show about sound, music, and listening.

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Episode 1: Silence

What does it mean to be silent? This hour of Stylus begins with a historic moment in music – the performance of John Cage's 4'33" in 1952 – and follows the composer's investigation of silence into the absolute quiet of anechoic chambers and down the hallways of monasteries. We consider the role of silence in jazz and classical music and hear the personal story of one young woman's descent into silence. 

Listen above, download an mp3, or find other formats at the Internet Archive. To license the program for radio broadcast, please find us on PRX.

"Silence" includes the voices of:

Kay Larson, art critic, Zen Buddhist practitioner, and author of Where The Heart Beats.

Pico Iyer, essayist, novelist, and travel author.

Christopher Ricks, literary critic, professor at Boston University, and author of several books including Dylan's Visions of Sin.

James H. Johnson, professor of history at Boston University and author of several books including Listening in Paris.

Damian Carr, abbot of St. Joseph's Abbey, a Trappist monestary in Spencer, Mass.

Steven Cooper, a clinical associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and speaker at Off the Couch, a film-studies series at Coolidge Corner Theater in Boston, Mass. 

Bob Celmer, head of the acoustics program at the University of Hartford in West Hartford, Conn.

Cecil McBee, jazz bassist and professor at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Mass. 

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, abbot of the Zen Center of New York City in Brooklyn, New York.

This hour was produced by Zack Ezor, Conor Gillies, and Andrea Shea. It also includes Brian Calvert's piece "The Rest is Silence," which was originally made for KCRW's Independent Producer Project. Thanks to Sean Cole, Katherine Gorman, and Erika Lantz for helping to edit the hour.

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Episode 3: Songs Of The Earth

What sounds and signals evoke the natural world? This hour of Stylus explores the songs of our planet, from geophonies—the very first noises on earth—to the stirring, dark rumbles at our deepest depths, to ghostly sounds emanating near a small New England town. We consider human efforts to represent the whole earth through music, too, from the drumming songs of the Penobscot Nation in Maine to the composer Gustav Mahler's epic song cycle, Das Lied von der Erde.

Listen above, download an mp3, or find other formats at the Internet Archive. To license the program for radio broadcast, please find us on PRX.

"Songs of the Earth" includes the voices of:

Bernie Krause, bioacoustician, sound recordist, and founder of Wild Sanctuary.

R. Murray Schafer, composer, author, and acoustic ecologist.

Bert Polches, musician.

Carol Dana, language master at the Cultural Preservation Center of the Penobscot Indian Nation.

Lotte Geeven, sound and multimedia artist.

Pauline Oliveros, composer and founder of the Deep Listening Institute.

Douglas Kahn, sound, media, and art historian and author of Earth Sound, Earth Signal.

Philip Erickson, space plasma physicist and principal researcher at the MIT Haystack Observatory.

Benjamin Zander, conductor and founder of The Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.

Jane Struss, soprano and lecturer at the Longy School of Music.

Thomas Peattie, professor of ethnomusicology at Boston University.

Ernst Karel, field recordist and lab manager at the Sensory Ethnography Lab.

Helen Mirra, multimedia artist.

Cathy Wilson, Moodus resident.

Alison Guinness, historian.

John Ebel, seismologist at Weston Observatory at Boston College. 

Neil Ross, voice actor.

Joseph Armillas Lecuona, son of Margarita Lecuona.

Stephan Palmie, anthropologist at the University of Chicago.

Michael Atwood Mason, director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

Amanda Villepastour, ethnomusicologist at Cardiff University.

This hour was produced by Anna Cataldo, Ari Daniel, Zack Ezor, Conor Gillies, Qainat Khan, Emile Klein, and Lisa Tobin. It includes a montage made from the NASA Voyager 1977 "Sounds From Earth Record." It also includes an excerpt of Bones of the Earth, a documentary by Chris Brookes and Paolo Pietropaolo. Special thanks Margaret Noble, who found the 1965 earthquake recording. Thanks to Katherine Gorman and Erika Lantz for helping to edit the hour.

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Episode 2: Seeing & Illustrating Music 

Where does the ear meet the eye? This hour of Stylus explores the look of sound and music—from the story of a painter’s synesthesia to the cultural origins of the digital waveform to the musical images of the human mind—in which impressions of sound form a kind of palimpsest.

Listen above, download an mp3, or find other formats at the Internet Archive. To license the program for radio broadcast, please find us on PRX.

"Seeing and Illustrating Music" includes the voices of:

Cretien van Campen, research scientist and founder of Synesthetics Netherlands.

Ben Street, art historian, lecturer, and freelance writer.

Sherry Turner DeCarava, art historian and co-founder of the The Roy and Sherry DeCarava Archives.

Chia-Jung Tsay, social psychologist and professor of organizational behavior at University College London.

Richard Brody, columnist for The New Yorker.

Christian Wolff, composer.

Ryan Vigil, lecturer in music theory and musicology at University of New Hampshire.

Robert Simpson, director of the Houston Chamber Choir.

Jonathan Sterne, sound media historian, professor at McGill University, and author of several books, including The Audible Past.

Carlene Stevens, curator at the National Museum of American History.

Patrick Feaster, sound media historian at Indiana University, cofounder of First Sounds and author of Pictures of Sound.

Karen Topp, senior lecturer in physics at Bowdoin College.

Eric Wahlforss, cofounder and CTO of SoundCloud.

Nicholson Baker, writer and author of several non-fiction and fiction books, including The Traveling Sprinkler.

Berthold Hoeckner, professor of music at the University of Chicago.

Petr Janata, cognitive neuroscientist and professor of psychology at UCDavis.

This hour was produced by Conor Gillies, Zack Ezor, Qainat Khan, and Dan Mauzy. Special thanks to Deanna Archetto and Tom Richards for providing audio from the Daphne Oram Collection at Goldsmiths, University of London. Thanks to Katherine Gorman and Erika Lantz for helping to edit the hour.

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Episode 4: The Sound of Science Fiction

For as long as we've wondered about alien worlds, we've wondered also: what might they sound like? In this hour of Stylus, we listen to eerie and otherworldly sounds, from the dissonant score of The Twilight Zone to the stranger-than-fiction story of Leon Theremin, a Russian spy turned accidental sci-fi pioneer. We hear stories of close encounters with alternate worlds, including the tale of a UFO sighting in rural Newfoundland and the myth of Sun Ra, a jazz musician whose extraterrestrial identity and reality-defying music became a political force.

Listen above, download an mp3, or find other formats at the Internet Archive. To license the program for radio broadcast, please find us on PRX.

"The Sound of Science Fiction" includes the voices of:

Gregory Whitehead, radio maker.

Keith Phipps, editor and founder of The Dissolve.

Joanna Demers, professor of musicology at the USC Thornton School of Music.

Ytasha Womack, filmmaker and author of Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture.

Hank Shocklee, producer, media theorist, and founding member of Public Enemy.

Craig Harris, composer, trombonist, and member of the Sun Ra Arkestra.

John Szwed, director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University and author of Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra.

Ellen Kranzer, co-founder of MASSFILC.

Sally Childs-Helton, percussionist and ethnomusicologist at Butler University.

Matthew Ebel, musician.

Douglas Brode, professor of philosophy and classics at University of Texas San Antonio and co-author of Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone: The 50th Anniversary Tribute. 

Gabriel McKee, author of The Gospel According to Science Fiction: From the Twilight Zone to the Final Frontier.

April McLucas, movie expert at Videoport in Portland, Maine.

This hour was produced by Anna Cataldo, Zack Ezor, Conor Gillies, Qainat Khan, and Annie McEwen. It includes exclusive archival audio of Sun Ra courtesy of writer Mark Sinker. Our reading of "The Preserving Machine" was scored by Blevin Blectum. Thanks to Katherine Gorman and Erika Lantz for helping to edit the hour.

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In the 1930s, a young man from Birmingham named Herman Poole Blount underwent a conversion experience and emerged Sun Ra, a member of the Angel Race. Sun Ra claimed he was a superior being from outer space who was sent to Earth to save its people through music. For four decades, he led his band, the Arkestra, through multiple iterations and diverse styles.

This year we celebrate the late Sun Ra's 100th anniversary.

Sun Ra is considered one of the most influential and innovative musicians and artists of the 20th century for his contributions to jazz and his pioneering use of electronic instruments. He is remembered for the alien identity to which the musician remained faithful for his whole adult life.

For Sun Ra, that otherworldly identity was rooted in very real, earthly issues, including the deeply alienating experience of growing up in the Jim Crow South.

“He began to think of the Earth as a place where evil had been turned loose at some point, and everything got worse and worse,” John Szwed, Sun Ra's biographer, said.

His philosophy and response to a brutal world were inspired by the vast body of literature he read, including science fiction and Egyptology.

Ytasha Womack says a science fiction narrative appealed to Sun Ra because the genre provides the possibility for radical transformation: “People create entirely different worlds that provide a lens to reimagine ourselves.”

Craig Harris, who played in the Arkestra, said the musical innovations Sun Ra pioneered were all in service of his philosophy.

“We’re looking at the same box, but we’re looking at it from different angles,” Harris said of Sun Ra’s musical process. “You’re looking at it from 354 degrees and I’m looking at it from 360 degrees. And that was the whole concept with [Sun Ra]… You can choose your own reality. There's no limits.”

Featuring the voices of Ytasha Womack, filmmaker and author of Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci Fi and Fantasy Culture and Rayla 2212;” Hank Shocklee, music producer and co-founder of the hip-hop group Public Enemy; Craig Harris, trombonist and composer who performed with Sun Ra from 1976 to 1979; John Szwed, professor of music at Columbia University and author of Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra.

This audio piece features unheard archival audio courtesy of writer Mark Sinker, who interviewed Sun Ra for his essay in The Wire, "Loving the Alien."

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If you've listened to our piece about Leon Theremin, you might find yourself with a real hankering to try playing a theremin yourself.

It's unlikely you have an actual theremin in your vicinity, but, fortunately, Luke Phillips of Femur Design has created the next best thing: a web audio theremin you can play with the click of a mouse. The responsive interface generates synthesized tones in the style of a Moog theremin. It even has toggles that allow you to adjust delay, feedback, a kind of distortion called "scuzz," and the type of waveform.

Click here to check it out!

We've had fun opening the web theremin in a browser and trying to play along with some of our favorite sci-fi tracks.

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One day in 1919, while measuring the density of gas, a young Russian scientist named Leon Theremin happened upon a surprising phenomenon. His body's own electric potential, interacting with the electromagnetic field of the gas meter, could generate a musical pitch, right out of thin air.

From this discovery, Theremin created one of the first electronic instruments—the theremin. You might recognize the sound of the theremin from classic science fiction films. It's that otherworldly ooooeeeeoooooo that's become a defining sonic signifier of the genre. 

But the story behind the theremin—the story of Theremin's life—rivals the plot-line of any film scored with his instrument.

Theremin traveled the world demonstrating his instrument, envisioning that, someday, audiences might listen to entire electronic orchestras. But early commercial failures put a hold on that dream, and Theremin ended up back in the USSR, where he designed the first covert listening devices for the Soviet government—bugs. Brief opportunities to pursue his musical work ended, time and again, in ruin.

Both the inventor and his instrument survived, though neither in the way you'd expect. Join us as we explore the astonishing, science-fiction-like life of Leon Theremin.

Featuring the voices and sounds of Lydia Kavina, theremin virtuosa, Albert Glinsky, composer and author of Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage, Jon Bernhardt, WMBR DJ and thereminist, and Dalit Warshaw, composer, pianist, and thereminst. Also featuring music from The Art of the Theremin by Clara Rockmore and Nadia Reisenberg.

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“Mr. R” is a retired marine engineer who spent his entire career working on large seacraft, maintaining and monitoring engines, power machinery, and other crucial systems. He was held in high esteem in his field and believed to be a very level-headed and intelligent man.

On December 16, 1996, however, Mr. R saw something in the sky he could not explain. This was not just a strange moving light, or series of lights, on the horizon or a saucer-shaped cloud—it was much, much more. That night he saw something that deeply challenged his understanding of the physical laws of our world.

After the sighting, Mr. R sought out Lee Tizzard, leading UFO researcher of Newfoundland and Labrador. Lee has a responsibility to protect the identities of a UFO witnesses, but he was willing to recount Mr. R's story for us.

Featuring the voice of Lee Tizzard. Produced by Annie McEwen.

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A sinister melody welcomes viewers into The Twilight Zone, television's skewed version of reality brought to life by screenwriter and actor Rod Serling. It's a well-known intro—four swirling, dissonant notes. They have become a hallmark of all things eerie since The Twilight Zone's second season.

But the 1959 premiere of the first season opened with a different sound—a Bernard Herrmann composition that has been eclipsed in television history by the success of later seasons. Herrmann's score guides viewers into The Twilight Zone with a lilting progression of horns and strings that calls forth the otherworldliness the show became known for.

In the case of either composition, the sounds of The Twilight Zone are not complete without Rod Serling’s own voice: The anchor that locates viewers in an alternate reality, complete with cautionary tales and grand philosophical questions.

In the audio piece above, Stylus explores how the music of each episode, coupled with Serling's narration, set the tone for the series and expressed the mood of a fearful cold war era.

Featuring the voices of Douglas Brode, co-author of Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone: The 50th Anniversary Tribute, and Gabriel McKee, author of The Gospel According to Science Fiction: From the Twilight Zone to the Final Frontier. Produced by Anna Cataldo.

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The Mothership Connection

Parliament's 1975 single Mothership Connection is futuristic funk of the brightest kind—dance music that uses science fiction and P-Funk mythology to imagine a black outer-space utopia.

"Swing low, time to move on, light years in time, ahead of our time," lead band member George Clinton sings. "Free your mind, and come fly with me, it's hip, on the Mothership groovin'."

Here, Parliament incorporates a version of the American spiritual, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," but reimagines the heavenly chariot of that song as a mothership, bringing listeners and dancers up into space.

As Joanna Demers, a professor of musicology at USC describes, Parliament's reimagined chariot takes on another, new meaning in 1992, when Dr. Dre samples "Mothership Connection" for his song, "Let Me Ride." When Dr. Dre incorporates the track, Parliament's Afrofuturist spaceship has been reimagined as the rapper's '64 Impala.

Dr. Dre uses his lowrider to show off and seduce women. Now, the words "Stop and let me ride"—perhaps coming from envious onlookers—feel much different. Check out the music video below (music starts around 2:35):

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Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner opens on a dystopian version of Los Angeles in 2019. It’s a future replete with the sounds of a cyberpunk street at night—flying cars, buzzing neon signs, and lots and lots of rain. These sounds are underscored by electronic music from the pioneering synthesizer musician Vangelis. 

Altogether, the sound design of Blade Runner is guided by what Joanna Demers, a professor of musicology at USC, calls an “ambient sensibility.” Scott's world doesn’t command the viewer’s attention on any one particular thing; instead, the audience becomes immersed in the noir city’s unique sonic space.

Featuring the voices of Keith Phipps, film critic at The Dissolve and Joanna Demers, professor of musicology at USC's Thornton School of Music.

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In 1963, a science fiction series called Doctor Who premiered on the BBC. Its original theme tune, composed entirely without conventional instrumentation, invited viewers in with its melodic, yet uncanny sounds. Over 50 years later, Doctor Who is still on television, and the theme tune is instantly recognizable by fans both young and old.

While the theme's brief score was provided by Ron Grainer, it was Delia Derbyshire's electronic music savvy that brought the tune to life. Together with sound engineer Dick Mills, Derbyshire rolled out reels of tape and spliced together alien-like sounds for the new TV program about an alien man and his time-traveling adventures.

Today, in Manchester, England, where Derbyshire's archive is held, electronic musician Caro C and others celebrate Delia Derbyshire Day on April 12. "Delia is the godmother of electronic music," Caro C says. In honor of the day, she and others in the field remember Derbyshire's legacy as a female pioneer in the audio piece above. 

Featuring the voices of: Caro C, electronic musician and project manager, Delia Derbyshire Day; David Butler, professor, University of Manchester; Dick Mills, sound engineer, BBC Radiophonic Workshop; Brian Hodgson, sound effects creator, Doctor Who and BBC Radiophonic Workshop Organizer. Music includes the Doctor Who Theme (1963 and 2010), Donna’s Theme (2008), and The Tenth Planet (1966). DD Day image credit: Andrea Pazos. Produced by Deanna Archetto.

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What Does Science Fiction Sound Like?

When you imagine the sound of science fiction, what do you hear? The uncanny warbling of a UFO? The "pew pew" of a laser blaster? The experimental, electronic sound effects pioneered by movies like Forbidden Planet, heard on vinyl records like this one, or made popular by shows like Star Trek?

On screen, science fiction sounds flourished. We can think back to science fiction movie trailers—the ominous call of the robot in The Day the Earth Stood Still, the thump and drone of cyberpunk cities in Akira and Blade Runner, the bleeps and whirs of droids in Star Wars.  

But science fiction isn't just reserved to film and television. Science fiction, broadly defined, predates the screen. And so do its sounds.

Take a look at artist Ward Shelley's exquisite timeline of the genre here, and you'll see just how far back science fiction stretches.

Trace back through the colorful braids of Shelley's illustrated history and you'll find science fiction was originally a literary movement—one that brought together Enlightenment-era scientific ideals and more mysterious Romantic and Gothic traditions. The illustration situates Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, published in 1818, as the first science fiction novel, and expands out into a massive world of pulp magazines, steampunk literature, and Star Wars spin-offs. 

Loosely tying everything together, Shelley cites writer Miriam Allen de Ford's aphorism: "Science Fiction deals with implausible possibilities. Fantasy deals with plausible impossibilities."

So what does this mean in the world of sound and music? Where does the sonic science fiction timeline start? What are the creative roots of, say, Janelle Monae's TheArchAndroid or David Bowie's Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust? Where do spaceship sounds come from? 

"None of the arts is entirely mute," Douglas Kahn writes in his book, Noise Water Meat, a seminal work in the field of sound studies. Even in early science fiction literature, sound emerges in the author's imagination.

Take an early precursor to the genre, Francis Godwin's Man in the Moone, published in 1638. In the book, in which a voyager is towed into space by a particularly strong flock of birds, Godwin talks of a mysterious race on the moon, the Lunars: 

Their language is very difficult, since it hath no Affinity with any other I ever heard, and consists not so much of Words and Letters, as Tunes and strange Sounds which no Letters can express, for there are few Words but signify several Things, and are distinguished only by their Sounds, which are sung as it were in uttering; yea many Words consist of Tunes only, without Words.

The 17th-century excerpt implies a simple question: Why does sound readily evoke the otherworldly, or the "implausible possibilities" of the future? Maybe audio and the unknown just go well together. Listening sparks the imagination in ways visual art or literature cannot. 

One thinks back to Orson Welles reading H. G. Wells on the radio. Or early— and quite funny—sound collages inspired by War of the Worlds:

The world of science fiction sound and music is as vast as Ward Shelley's illustration. This month, Stylus is slicing into the topic with some tough and engaging questions. How did a Soviet inventor of espionage technology invent a hallmark science fiction instrument, the Theremin? Where does the theme to the Twilight Zone come from and why does it evoke terror in its listeners? When and why did folk become filk? What motivates Sun Ra's cosmic music and how does it deal with issues of race in the 1960s?

Stay tuned as we journey into worlds of plausible impossibilities.

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Who is Babalu?

Around the world, priests, academics, actors, and others have formed an intimate connection with the voice of an earthly guy named Babalu, yet none of the voices they know sound the same. In Hollywood he’ll brave the stage, in Nigeria he’ll drum with tribes, in cartoons he’ll cross desert plains, shifting his age, gait, and accent to fit his new audience. Priests of the Yoruba religion say that everyone has their own road to follow with Babalu Aye, that he reveals himself as he wants to be revealed.

Then it is for you to find out who your Babalu is.

Featuring the voices of: Neil Ross, voice actor; Joseph Armillas Lecuona, son of Margarita Lecuona; Stephan Palmie, anthropologist, University of Chicago; Michael Atwood Mason, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage; Amanda Villepastour, ethnomusicologist, Cardiff University. Thanks to David Brown, Erica Mu, and George Drake Jr. Produced by Emile B Klein.

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It's not entirely clear how the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler arrived at the title. Having composed a six-part song cycle, Mahler wrote to the conductor Bruno Walter in 1908 and said, “I myself do not know how to express what the whole thing might be called. A beautiful time was granted me, and I believe it is the most beautiful thing I have created.” Mahler's pinnacle work was eventually entitled Das Lied von der Erde — The Song of the Earth.

The earth as a theme runs deep in the history of Western classical music. Pastoral music — music that expresses and idealizes the countryside — flourished in the 19th century. In his Sixth Symphony, for example, the composer Beethoven used music to evoke a scene by a river, imitating the sounds of twittering birds and a bubbling brook through instruments.

But in Das Lied von Der Erde, nature becomes more abstract. Through long, textural passages, Mahler creates a musical space open to the world. And in the last song, a final reckoning with mortality called The Farewell, the listener seems to float above the earth. Here, maybe, Das Lied earns its name.

Featuring the voices of: Benjamin Zander, conductor, Boston Philharmonic; Jane Struss, mezzo soprano and professor at the Longy School of Music of Bard College; Thomas Peattie, professor of musicology and ethnomusicology at Boston University.

Benjamin Zander conducts Mahler's Symphony No. 9 on April 25th at Symphony Hall. Information here.

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"I'm having trouble with the radar, sir...I've lost the bleeps, I've lost the sweeps, and I've lost the creeps."

Spaceballs isn't Star Wars, but this scene drums up plenty of iconic space cinema sounds. A good primer for our exploration into "The Sound of Science Fiction."

(Plus, the "jam" joke gets you every time.) 

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In the late 1950s, with the American folk song revival underway, a peculiar type of music started bubbling up in the science fiction and fantasy fan community. In convention hallways and boiler rooms, hotel basements and neighborhood homes, fans gathered in small numbers to sing parodies of their favorite folk songs with sci-fi lyrics replacing the original words. At one convention, a fortuitous program typo — the accidental switching of an "i" for the "o" in folk music — gave name to this music: Filk.

The name stuck, and Filking has since grown into an international practice. Although most of the lyrical content is still drawn from science fiction and fantasy lore, Filk musicians, also known as "Filkers," play everything from rock to jazz to rap. There's a Filk Hall of Fame and annual awards given for best new artists and material. Some of the music is still parody, but there are also heartfelt originals and new classics.

Attending a Filk circle feels a lot like going to a friendly worship service, except, instead of hearing hymns, you're more likely to hear the theme song from the television show Firefly. The community favors inclusivity, but there's also an ongoing debate over what can be called Filk today - and what can't.

Featuring the voices of: Ellen Kranzer, co-founder, MASSFILC; Sally Childs-Helton, percussionist and ethnomusicologist, Butler University. Both are Filk Hall of Fame inductees. Music includes live recordings from Arisia 2014.