Radio Garden
 

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Here's something I came across: Radio Garden. It links you live to radio stations around the world.

My first dip into it revealed that there is a fair amount of homogeneity in what is getting airplay. Istanbul and Ethiopia sound the same.... Alaska and Latvia seem to be sharing wavelengths... It's ear candy pop.

My hope is that if I continue to fish around I will find stations playing culturally unique music.

I don't listen much to music on the radio anymore. I really haven't since sometime in my twenties.

(If language/literature could be shared like music is, with no need for translation, what would be the effect? Will the mind ever be able to hear/see language like it hears music? Is there an app for that? Is it possible that in the future we could wear "German" glasses to read German? "French" glasses to read French?)

(I admire those who are multilingual. When I read a translation of, say, Rilke, am I really reading Rilke or just the next best thing? I'm not complaining. I love Rilke poems : ) But when I see a Rilke poem on the page in it's original German it means nothing to me. It's as if language was a set of colors that my eye could not see.)

(I'm rambling...)

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Oh, how wonderful! I am still dabbling in my own back yard at the moment but will venture abroad soon. It is remarkable that these stations arrive all tuned-in and I'm hearing our local radio station (BGfm) clearer than I have ever done before.

Editing to say that I still play with "River Runner" - an earlier Jim discovery - now and again; it still amazes me but I find I can now second-guess a lot of the journeys. I have been surreptitiously taught.
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Yes, this is great, I can get my local station clear as a bell (WIOX from Roxbury, NY) and have never been able to tune in to it online before. Thanks, Jim.

Nemo

Looks real good. There's also I Heart Radio, which does the same thing (or something similar).

Thanks, Jim

Wow, Jim, what a find! (Who knew such a thing existed??)

As well as having fun traversing the globe, musically, I enjoyed seeing "homogeneity" in a sentence, which doesn't happen all that often.

Cheers,
Jayne

Jim, I’m on record elsewhere as enjoying some modern Greek music. If you slide the map to Greece and poke around long enough, you will eventually find stations that are still broadcasting things with rhythms that don’t exist any place else.

This is wonderful, Jim. Thanks!!

This is remarkable! Thanks, Jim.

I am right now listening to music from Engcobo, South Africa. I'm going to explore and explore ...

"Is it possible that in the future we could wear "German" glasses to read German? "French" glasses to read French?"

Yes!

"My first dip into it revealed that there is a fair amount of homogeneity in what is getting airplay." I think that's because those stations are mostly (or all) commercial stations. I tried to find some college radio stations and public radio, but haven't had any luck. It's mostly pop in various languages. I'm listing to a station now from Mexico, which is pop music with Spanish lyrics. Now there's even a rap song!

Now I'm listening to El Fonografo from Mexico City, which actually has more traditional music, with actual Latin rhythms. Now the next song is a commercial-sounding pop ballad.

Now I'm listening to an interesting station called Todos Santos Radio from the Baja California Peninsula.

I actually found a couple of classical stations. The second one I found is actually a radio station I sometimes listen to in my car, but it always comes in accompanied by lots of static. Now it's crystal-clear!

Wow. This is amazing.


Cheers Jim!