Episodes
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The magic fingers of Rashid Khan
The Documentary Podcast addRashid Khan was born in Nangarhar in Eastern Afghanistan in 1998 but his early life was spent in a refugee camp in Pakistan away from the conflict that has swept across his homeland for decades. He grew up playing cricket with his ten siblings eventually returning to Afghanistan to complete his schooling. And now he is named for the second year running as the leading Twenty20 cricketer in the world. Is Khan really the finest spin bowler on the planet?
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A History of Music and Technology: The Future
The Documentary Podcast addPink Floyd's Nick Mason ends his series by exploring where music technology is heading and discovers how innovation is shaping the way we make, listen and interact with music.
He reveals how artificial intelligence is taking human input out of musical composition and how virtual reality is reshaping the recording studios of tomorrow.
But in an age where everyone can have access to music-making technology, how do you stand out? And has the internet made it too easy to copy what has come before us, rather than create something which is completely brand-new? -
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Training to save the treasures of Iraq
The Documentary Podcast addFor three years Mosul was occupied by the extremist group known as the Islamic State. During the occupation which lasted until July 2017, the group destroyed many important ancient sites with hammers, bulldozers and explosives. Work is now beginning to assess the damage, but in order to undertake this vital work, Iraqi archaeologists are in need of training and equipment. Shaimaa Khalil meets the women in London as they participate in the British Museum’s ‘Iraq Scheme’.
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Dying from mistrust in Ukraine
The Documentary Podcast addUntil recently, health authorities in developed countries appeared to be well on the way to wiping out measles – a highly contagious disease that’s one of the leading causes of vaccine-preventable deaths, particularly in children. But now measles is on the rise again, and Ukraine is worst-hit. More than 100,000 people have caught the disease since 2017, and 15 have died already this year.
Parents who could have protected their children often failed to do so – mainly because of a mass mistrust of vaccine, spread partly by doctors, including leading medical specialists. Tim Whewell travels to Ukraine to meet bereaved parents and worried health chiefs - and find out why vaccination rates fell so abruptly in just a few years. It’s a story of lack of confidence in the state, inadequate medical training, government complacency and political manipulation that’s had deadly consequences.
(Image: One-year-old girl being given a measles vaccine shot in Kiev health clinic, 2019. Credit: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images) -
Vaccination: The global picture
The Documentary Podcast addThe Wellcome Trust reveals how attitudes towards vaccinations vary around the world in its Global Monitor. The most vaccine-sceptical country is France – because of scares around vaccines. In neighbouring Germany one state has approved plans to make vaccinations compulsory because of low rates. But in Madagascar where more than 1200 children have died since last autumn from measles, parents walk for miles to have their children inoculated. What can be done to persuade people to vaccinate?
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Destination education
The Documentary Podcast addDespite the political uncertainty in the UK at the moment the country’s reputation for top-class education, if you can afford it, is still on the rise. Liyang Liu meets two very different school children who have travelled thousands of miles to go to private boarding school in the UK. Recorded over six months she finds out what happens when they get there.
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A History of Music and Technology: The Studio Part 2
The Documentary Podcast addPink Floyd’s Nick Mason continues the story of the recording studio, exploring how bands such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys brought avant-garde production techniques into the mainstream during the 1960s.
The programme also charts the role jazz and dub reggae played in advancing studio production, and how increasingly sophisticated studio technology slowed down the recording process.
But the advent of portable tape recorders – and then digital technology - saw the studio begin to shrink in size, while at the same time expanding access to the recording process.
With it came a boom in in alternative music which was previously ignored by the major record labels, and bedroom producers making music on home computers kick-started an explosion in electronic dance music.
Today, digital studio technology has become so sophisticated that it can help even the shakiest of singers deliver the perfect performance.
The series is produced in association with the Open University. -
A History of Music and Technology: The Studio Part 1
The Documentary Podcast addThe recording studio has changed dramatically since the advent of sound recording - as has our understanding of the ‘perfect take’.
In the first of two programmes about the history of the studio, Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason explores the limitations of the acoustic era, and how the switch to electrical recording ushered in the age of more intimate recording, giving rise to the superstar crooner.
We look at the how, after World War 2, a boom in independent recording studios run by army-trained communications engineers helped to drive the birth of rock n roll, and how technology developed during the war made it possible for musicians to start recording music that was physically impossible to play, using techniques pioneered by a man better known for his guitars – Les Paul.
The series is produced in association with the Open University. -
A History of Music and Technology: Samplers and Drum Machines
The Documentary Podcast addPink Floyd’s Nick Mason explores how samplers and drum machines created new musical genres.
During the 1980s, samplers and drum machines fuelled a new wave of music from hip hop to house to techno.
In this programme we hear from the inventors behind this landmark technology and reveal how it first found traction with millionaire rock stars, rather than hip young DJs, due to its huge expense.
We learn how cheaper Japanese products – first deemed a commercial flop - were then re-discovered, re-used and abused by dance floor innovators who created new musical genres which could never have existed without this technology. -
A History of Music and Technology: The Synthesizer
The Documentary Podcast addThe first synthesizer was so big, it filled an entire room, but during the 1960s inventors built downsized machines which would go on to revolutionise pop music.
Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason charts the work of synth pioneers Bob Moog, Don Buchla and Dave Smith in the story of one of the most influential electronic instrument of all time.
We learn how the synth came to sing with multiple voices, and how Japanese giants came to dominate the market - but arguably at a cost to creativity. -
A History of Music and Technology: The Hammond Organ
The Documentary Podcast addPink Floyd's Nick Mason tells the story of Laurens Hammond and the musical legacy of the instrument which bears his name.
The Hammond Organ is arguably the first mass-market electronic instrument and in this episode we head to the heart of the Hammond Organ story: Chicago.
One of the most familiar and versatile instruments to emerge in the 20th Century, the Hammond Organ’s reach ranges from the gospel of African-American churches, to jazz and reggae, to the swirling sound of progressive rock.
The series is produced in association with the Open University. -
A History of Music and Technology: The Electric Guitar
The Documentary Podcast addPink Floyd’s Nick Mason tells the story of the electric guitar, revealing how a frying pan, a railroad track and the paradise island of Hawaii all played a role in its evolution.
He charts how the desire to get louder fundamentally altered the instrument’s sound - and while it has a reputation for turning men into semi-mythical figures, the programme reveals how women are now playing the lead when it comes to the electric guitar today.
The series is produced in association with the Open University. -
A History of Music and Technology: Electronic Music Pioneers
The Documentary Podcast addFor centuries music was made by strumming strings, blowing horns and banging drums - but at the turn of the 20th Century, the harnessing of electricity meant artists and inventors could create all-new tones and timbres.
In this programme, Pink Floyd's Nick Mason tells the story of some of electronic music's pioneers - from the eerie sound of the Theremin, to German avant-garde experimentation and the automatic music-making machines of Raymond Scott.
While electronic music might be deemed to be a thoroughly modern genre, we remember its history goes back over a hundred years.
The series is produced in association with the Open University. -
A History of Music and Technology: Sound Recording
The Documentary Podcast addPink Floyd’s Nick Mason tells the story of how we first captured sound, giving birth to a global recording industry.
While music has advanced in its complexity over the millennia, the means of recording it remained the same: it had to be written down.
It took until the back-half of the 19th Century before credible attempts were made to bottle sound for the first time, and in 1877 Thomas Edison produced the Phonograph.
Over the next century, major advances were made in recording formats, recording duration, and sound quality, from the Gramophone record to the cassette tape to the compact disc.
But as this programme reveals, cost and convenience played a major role in this progress, rather than the quality of technology - sometimes the best inventions didn't win out.
The series is produced in association with the Open University. -
Remembering Afghanistan's Elvis
The Documentary Podcast addAhmad Zahir with his dark shock of hair, sultry voice and overwhelming stage presence more than earned the nickname "The Afghan Elvis". He remains Afghanistan’s most beloved musician even though he died at the age of 33 after a short, dazzling career. Ahmad Zahir was killed in a mysterious car crash in the terrible year of 1979. Monica Whitlock hears a new generation of musicians interpret some Ahmad Zahir classics and explores the life and lasting impact of the "Afghan Elvis".
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Morocco’s hash trail to Europe
The Documentary Podcast addIn Amsterdam’s cafes, you can buy hashish openly, over the counter. But go around back to see how the drug comes in, and you’ll get a lot of smoke blown in your face. The entire supply chain is illegal. BBC Arabic’s Emir Nader holds his breath and traces it thousands of kilometres back to the mountains of Morocco, where cannabis is grown and processed into bricks of hash. There, he finds farmers in poverty and officials claiming "there is no organised crime" in the country. In between, he joins Spanish police as they knock down doors looking for the drug and meets a former smuggler who explains how for years he eluded Europe’s authorities to bring in millions of dollars’ worth of Moroccan hash.
Producer: Neal Razzell
(Image: Spanish police conduct a series of raids hoping to disrupt hash smuggling from Morocco. Credit: BBC) -
Falling Rock
The Documentary Podcast addJacob Rosales, a 20-year-old student at Yale, takes a closer look at some of the varied challenges facing Native American young people today. With alarmingly high rates of alcohol abuse, suicide and unemployment, Jacob delves behind the stats to reveal human stories of both suffering and hope.
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Ticket to a new life
The Documentary Podcast addAna is a winner in the annual Pacific Access Category ballot. It is a visa lottery. Each year, Tonga gets up to 250 places, Fiji the same, and there are up to 75 each for Tuvalu and Kiribati. In a separate draw, 1100 visas are available in the Samoan Quota ballot. But it is not as simple as a ticket to a new life. If you win, you have around 9 months to find a job in New Zealand. And that’s not easy. The system is open to bogus job offers and corruption. And what of those who make it? Many find it hard to make the transition. And the ballot itself: is the system fair?
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Praying for petrol
The Documentary Podcast addIn a country infamous for its drug cartels, Mexico has another booming black market - petrol. Starting out as just a few individuals tapping lines to sell to their local communities, petrol theft has now attracted the heavyweights of organised crime who see the appeal in peddling a product that is used by more of the population, and that does not even need to cross a border to be sold. Yet, as the government and gas company Pemex race to find a way to stop the fuel thieves, known throughout Mexico as huachicoleros, there is more evolving than confrontation.
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Turkey’s political football
The Documentary Podcast addFootball in Turkey's biggest city always means colour, passion and noise, but this season has an added edge. The big three Istanbul clubs, which have generally had a vice-like grip on the Super Lig crown are this year facing a new challenger, another city club, Basaksehir. This club has been assembled with international stars thanks to the money of close business associates of the President Erdogan himself. The political symbolism of the title race has not been lost on many football fans in Istanbul, especially as the city prepares for a controversial re-run of Istanbul's Mayoral election in late June. Judges have just overturned the declared victory of an opposition candidate, thanks to ill-specified irregularities. There have been public protests over that decision. But then as President Erdogan often says: "He who wins Istanbul, wins Turkey". How has the rivalry on the football field reflected the political division of the city and the country?
Reporter/producer: Ed Butler
(Image: Fans at a Galatasaray home match, May 2019. Credit: Reuters/Murad Sezer) - Show more