I've finished my mini course online with the OU on Revolutions in Sound Recording. I found it most interesting.  Yes, I got lost in a few places but understood the gist of even the more difficult parts.  It answered questions I had pondered on in the past (sad that I am!) about the amount of records there were in sets of classical pieces - this was because playing time was limited.  Also Decca's ffrr recordings were superior because it gave full frequency range, something not possible before as instruments with high frequencies (such as triangle) was too high to be recorded.  Now Decca solved this problem and all instruments could be used in recordings.  While sorting and valuing records for Oxfam I always knew the ffrr series were worth a lot more (we had a guide to price them) but now I know why!

Another question I had pondered was the recording speed of tapes.  I knew there were several different ones but why?  The faster the speed the more tape you needed and the less playing/recording time.  So there were different speeds for different uses - faster for studio recording down to the slowest for recording speech.  Music varies depending of the quality you want.  There is more but I won't bore you.  The course ended with a recording in the late 50's of 'The Song of Reproduction' by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann.  A  nice fun way to end. It was interesting to see some pieces of recording equipment that I still own! I still use casettes and vinyl.  My brother still has a reel to reel tape deck.  Every 'blip' on any record or tape is a memory.  I haven't yet got into MP3s or iPods - maybe one day.  For me this course was quite sentimental in some ways but also I learned a great deal.  What will I do now?  Watch this space!

Last week I went to see the John Singer Sargent exhibition at the Royal Academy - what are known as his seascapes. A nice colletction for summer viewing, the most famous perhaps being 'En Route por le peche' (Setting out to Fish).  See http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/