Sound Of Song

Composer and musician Neil Brand returns to BBC Four with a new series that explores the magical elements that come together to create our favourite songs.

Songs are the soundtrack of our lives and it takes a kind of genius to create a true pop masterpiece. But as Neil Brand will argue, there is more to consider in the story of what makes a great song. In this three-part series, Neil will look at every moment in the life cycle of a song: how they are written, performed, recorded and the changing ways we have listened to them. He will reveal how it is the wonderful alchemy of all of these elements that makes songs so special to us.

Episode One delves into the very beginnings of recording and how Thomas Edison’s invention of it in 1887 ultimately changed the way we experience music forever. The developing technology – from the first gramophone to the first microphone and the first recording studio –transformed the style of music that audiences enjoyed. Neil will look at the sublime era of master songwriter Irving Berlin and magical performers like Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby; and using his talent as a pianist he will employ the original songs and technology to participate in his own experiments in the sound of song along the way. Afterwards, viewers will never listen to a song in quite the same way again

Publicity contact: KM