Episode 23 — Ass-haling, Skateboard Zithers and Golden Audio
This episode is all about the voice pushed into strange territory and how our playback systems shape what we hear. Steve starts with “ass-haling” and accidental overtone singing, using mishearing and daft vocal sounds as a doorway into throat singing, resonance and control. From there he leans into drones, overtones and extended techniques before heading to legendary Crouch End hi-fi den Audio Gold to ask what makes a system genuinely musical rather than just expensive.
Along the way we get skateboard zithers, contact mics and other DIY instruments; shout-outs to exploratory vocalists like Pelkkä Poutanen; and a wider look at how rooms, speakers and amps either reveal or ruin all that delicate overtone work.
What we cover
Throat & overtone singing: Using silly starting points to expose serious techniques in resonance, harmonics and control.
Ass-haling: Misheard nonsense as a surprisingly effective route into focused airflow and overtone awareness.
Skateboard zithers & DIY sound-makers: Why hacked-together strings and contact mics can be more inspiring than polite instruments.
Inside Audio Gold: Turntables, tape, valves and speakers; what matters, what doesn’t, and how not to get conned.
How we hear: The brutal truth that room, placement and gain structure matter more than brand logos.
Further listening & links
Full Transcript
Verbatim transcript, reflowed for readability. No wording changes have been made.
Hello, my name is Steve Pretty. I'm a musician, composer and performer from London. And welcome to my podcast, Steve Pretty On The Origin of the Pieces.This is the show that helps you to hear, understand and enjoy music in new ways.Hello, Musically Curious People. I hope you're doing well. It's episode 23, episode 23.How's it come to this? Unbelievable. It's been a really fun but busy few weeks once again.Lots of stuff I'm hoping I'm gonna be able to talk to you about pretty soon. But yeah, we're back, we're back. Last episode was a lot of fun.Thank you for the feedback for that. In the last episode, we had German Beer Hall music, talked to Wolfgang King about that, and also made some tech trance with, in fact, featuring a sample of said Beer Hall music. So that was a lot of fun to do.And of course, there was my chat with Ian Russell, the founder of DefibFest, and that event went very well. Really, really good evening and afternoon, actually. It was quite an intense day and yeah, there was not a lot of food and quite a lot of beer consumed that evening, but all in a very good cause.Lots of money, thousands of pounds, raised for new Defibrillators through the power of heavy rock music. So it was a really great evening. Thank you for anyone who supported that.You can still donate at any point if you search for DefibFest. You'll find that and you know, go and train yourself up in how to use Defibrillators. Now, I am recording this just before my Wilton's Music Hall Show at the end of November 2024.I've got a big show coming up on Saturday. Really excited about that. I know quite a lot of you have got tickets already.If you're hearing this in time, there are still a few tickets available. It's gonna be an amazing night. I've been working really hard on the show this week.I've got Robin Ince, the great comedian. He and I are gonna be doing some of his poetry and my musical settings to his poetry. And we've got Guy Pratt, who's just back from a world tour with David Gilmore.He's a legendary session bassist. He also has written quite a lot of music, including Vindaloo. He's one of the co-writers of Vindaloo, the football song that many of you may know if you're in the UK.And of course, we've also got Theon Cross, who is a bit of an international tuba megastar, if such a thing exists. And it does exist because that person is Theon Cross. There's not very many international tuba megastars, but he really has done extraordinary things with that often unwieldy instrument.He's done very, well, wieldy things with it. And so he's gonna be doing a performance. I'm gonna be talking to him about the tuba.Nat Dye, who some of you may remember, has been on the show. He's a trombone player and ran the marathon playing the trombone. And also, very sadly, he has terminal cancer.We spoke about that a few months back, and Nat's gonna be coming down and doing a song or two from his new album because he has recorded an album. He's a man who does not do things by half, and he decided he wanted to record an album. So he's singing and playing the piano for the first time for both those things on record. He's done a fantastic job, and he's been very lucky to have a very talented and brilliant producer on board. Oh wait, it was me. I produced his record for him.Anyway, so Nat's gonna come down and sing a couple of his songs. He's been in the news a lot here in the UK recently because he's been talking about the assisted dying bill and all sorts of other things. So Nat will be there.Also, very importantly, we have some special guests, and more importantly, some special kits being brought down from Audio Gold, an amazing Vintage Hi-Fi Emporium up in North London. I went and visited their shop a few months ago, did a really fun interview which I'm going to be playing later in the show about the value of close listening, the value of vintage equipment, how it's more ecologically sound, all of that sort of stuff. There's an interview coming up about that, which I really enjoyed.But they're going to be down at Wilton's with their gear. So they're bringing, I think, I think there's a total of many tens of thousands of pounds worth of vintage hi-fi stuff being installed in Wilton's for the show. It's the pre-show music and the interval music is all going to be played on this beautiful hi-fi gear.So it's going to look great. It's going to sound even better. So do come down on Saturday.If you're hearing this in time, the 30th of November. If you're not hearing it in time, never fear. The whole show once again is being recorded professionally.And so I will be putting up the full video on my Patreon and then eventually on my YouTube. And if you wanted to see the first Wilton show that I did, that is now up on YouTube. It's also on Patreon, but I've now moved it also to YouTube.So you can watch it for free there. The full show with the Filament Choir and Chris Lintop and Valeria Clark and all the rest. There is also another Wilton show coming up on the 16th of January.So if you want to be there in person, that is the one to get tickets for if you've missed this one on Saturday. 16th of January with a whole different set of equally brilliant guests that I'll be announcing very soon. Anyway, we have got a packed show today.We have later on, as I say, got this interview with Audio Gold. But first I have an entertaining noises section where I talk to a musician about their instrument, about how it works, about the different techniques, about the different uses of that instrument. And in this case, the instrument is the voice.Now I'm going to keep revisiting the voice because obviously the voice is such a personal instrument. So I've already talked to Ola Onabole about his incredible soul voice a few weeks ago. And there's more vocal stuff coming up over the coming months.But I really wanted to interview this person. I was at an event called Womex, which is a kind of trade fair, I suppose, for the world music scene internationally. So there's musicians coming over from all over the world, exhibiting their wares, doing little concerts, and some quite big concerts, in fact.And this year it was in Manchester, and I got a whole load of interviews there. I spoke to some really fascinating musicians from all over the world. And so without further ado, I'm gonna jump to one of those musicians right now. This is a singer and instrumentalist from Finland by the name of Petra Podnan, and, sorry for the pronunciation, and she's absolutely fascinating musician. I really loved her show, and I really enjoyed her performance on her instrument that she's gonna talk about. Shortly, but also really, the main reason I wanted to talk to her in this entertaining noises section is to explain the extraordinary sounds that come out of her mouth.And, you know, that's true of many singers, but just listen to this.I'm Petra Podnanen. I'm a musician, composer. Podnanen is my surname, and Pelkkä means just or only.So it's not my real first name, like Petra is. But then I decided to use that name when I started this solo, because I was always explaining that it's just me on stage. And I sometimes make a lot of sound and I loop things live.And could you just explain your set up to people and how you think of your music, how you describe your music?Well, I have some sound sources on stage. Usually it's my voice and gandale, which is our national instrument. It works like a concert harp, but we don't have pedals.Then I have this electrified cowbell that has a microphone inside and some other stuff.I saw you on your website. I was looking at your website and is it called the Hellcat? Is it the hell cowbell or something?Cowbell from hell. Cowbell from hell. Sometimes I also have these instruments that are made of skateboards.I have live electronics there, loopers and such.I feel like we can't go any further without explaining what are the skateboard instruments. I've never heard. I've heard of some weird and wonderful instruments, and I partly play conch shells for a living.So I'm not immune to strange instruments. What are the skateboard instruments?I have this friend, Juhaana Nurhinen, who has made a lot of really traditional instruments. And even these skateboard instruments are kind of traditional. He's made canteles, for example, of skateboards.Can you explain what that sort of instrument that is?A cantele. Basically, it's a zither.So that's a stringed, just to explain to people who don't know what a zither is. It's a stringed instrument, right, that you play on a sort of tabletop. And hit with small felts.Well, we play cantele with fingers. Then it's called a zither instrument, like officially, but the cantele is the Finnish version of it. And the relatives are Kuokle, like from Latvia, or Kangkles, Lithuania and...But there's many kinds of zither instruments in this area. The skateboard one is completely electric, cantele. And you can bend really well because...Yeah, you have the... Well, skateboard is...The flexibility of...Yeah, yeah.Oh, so you can bend the strings and bend the notes. That's very cool. Anyway, sorry, I got sidetracked into skateboard instruments.But you're explaining about your setup. Yesterday, I saw you perform here at Womex. It was absolutely fantastic.You had a couple of different instruments around the place. You were mainly using your voice, I think.Yeah.And a stompbox with your foot, which I really enjoyed. You get an amazing sound out of that stompbox, just to kind of get some bass frequencies. And then you had the instrument in the center, right?Yeah, that's candela.Yeah. That sounded amazing. You were playing in all sorts of different ways with an Ebo at one point, I think.Yeah.Which is really nice. So you managed to get all sorts of different tones out of this thing.Yeah. And at some point I was hitting it with the tuner and then plucking it with fingers.Anyway, but we're here mainly to talk about your voice because you have this amazing voice, but you do lots of different things with it. It's an instrument with even more expressive range in your case than normal voices. You cover lots of different techniques, right?And it's those that I kind of wanted to talk to you about. So how did you discover your love of singing and find your musical home with your voice?Well, I don't come from a musical family at all. Nobody plays or sings anything. But as a kid, I loved singing.When I got to school, I understood somebody's teaching other kids to play something. I was really like envy about that. And then I found myself a teacher who was fifth grade, but I knew her and I asked her to teach me everything that they were taught in school, in the music lessons, and I was seven.And that's how my musical journey began. Then I started playing Candle. And then I always loved singing.And then when I was a teenager or something, I was also playing guitar and singing. Then I started studying classical singing because it was the only singing lessons in this small town. I completely lost the connection to my body and my voice.And I stopped singing for a long time. And then I went studying classical music. And Candle was my main instrument.But then there was this course that was like band instruments for the classical music musicians that we had to do. And I loved the course. And I understood there that actually now that I sing other kind of music or just started singing again that I can do actually a lot of things with my voice when I'm not trying to sing right.And then the folk music kind of hit me. And I started singing that and practicing that. I found something that, wow, I can do this, my voice.And then there was this guy who had built a gondola by himself and he asked if I could teach him. Then he said that he doesn't have any money to pay me, but he could teach me something instead. He knows some throat singing and that he could teach me that.A skill exchange, that's how you learn?Yeah, yeah. And we started teaching each other. And then I started studying Ethnomusicology in the university and decided to go on a field trip to Siberia in the winter.But then I went to Tuva and then I went to Mongolia, and then I went through China and Nepal. I went to India where there were Tibetan monks who also use these throating techniques. And I was doing field recordings here and there.I had lessons in Tuva and Mongolia. And I felt like those techniques took time to learn, but they felt really natural and somehow sacred. And this theme sacred goes in my music in a lot, not just that I would be diving into the sacred thing, but thinking what it means, how it's political and how we use it in really weird ways.I feel that this throat singing kind of helped me to also sing a lot higher and made the range bigger. But I've never really have had the nerves to learn. I know some people start learning all the throat singing styles and try to make it like it's supposed to.But I've always felt that I don't have the need for that. I just have the need to be able to express the things that I hear inside. I've always loved weird pop music.Our Scandinavian kind of pop sound is also close to my heart. Also the folk music styles that are really strong.Yeah, because I definitely get a strong sense of folk music, as you say, and the sacred. You did a piece based on some Christian texts, I think. There's definitely a sense of connection to something bigger there, it sounds like, in your work.And can you come back to the throat singing before we go any further, if you don't mind, if you could just demonstrate very briefly what that is, and I might ask you a bit later to do it more.Yeah, I haven't sung anything this morning. I wonder what will come, but it's only something.Okay, so this is an extraordinary sound even up close, especially when it's put through microphone, reverb and everything, you have this really amazing texture. And so there's two ways we can talk about this, one of which is to do a technique and how we get there. But let's maybe start by talking about what attracted you to sing like that.Why does that tone in singing mean as much to you as it does, and why do you think it connects with audiences?Well, when I first was able to, the first time when I made the suddenly this low sound, which kind of means that you make your false vocal cords resonate, they resonate slower than normal vocal cords, and then that's why it's so low. But then it felt so good in my body. As a female, you never hear these low vibes in your body.I wanted to feel more of that, and I guess that was the first thing with it. Then with this kind of strange techniques, when you hear a sound that really moves and touches you, I have had the need to know how it's done, and feel it in my own body, and not just by hearing it, hearing somebody else do it. And in that way, it is connected to what feels sacred to me.So these kind of sounds have been my diving into things that are like connecting with something, or just like meditating or concentrating. I'm not that spiritual, but it does lift me somehow.But I suppose you don't necessarily need to be spiritual yourself. You're tapping into this technique that's been used by a lot of different spiritual traditions. You talked about Tibetan monks.I've spent a lot of time with Tibetan monks in Northern India. And there is something about that sound. Obviously, I don't come from that background. And I know a bit about it, but I'm not part of that culture. There is just something about that sound that taps you into something that feels like it goes beyond your everyday reality, I think.Yeah, that's true. And I guess these kind of sounds have at least two Vansha Mongolians are talking about their connection with nature. And when they talk about how these sounds are born, that you're kind of imitating the nature or talking with it.And yes, all the overtones are audible in nature. It's kind of the certain mathematics that is in them. And like nature is full of mathematics.Absolutely. Just to, sorry, just to interrupt, but when we say overtones, can we explain what that is?Every sound holds a lot of sounds in it. There are these tones over this one sound, and they are always, there is a certain mathematics, how they are built. And then also you can sing in a way that you can make them more audible.And then with different vowels, they are the different overtones are like... Shaked. Yeah.So they are always there, but we just don't recognize them all the time in our like everyday life. Many throat singing styles, for example, they are very used like when there's this flute kind of sound. That's maybe one quite famous throat singing styles.But then there's this bottom sound that is really strong or you don't hear it very well, but then you hear a flute kind of sound on top of it. But in nature, if you hear a saw, somebody like a construction workers are using this saw and it starts to go faster and faster. The sound you hear is the overtones going, the scale, the natural scale.I've demonstrated this before and we talked about it a bit whenever we talk about instruments, even with a piano note, you have the fundamental note and the overtones go on top of it. It's the different combinations of those that change the character of the sound, how do I change the timbre, and so when you're talking about throat singing, you're trying to specifically bring some of those out, right?Yeah, and certain techniques bring that. It kind of takes us right away to somewhere when we hear these sounds, like immediately. It's a button and that's also something that has fascinated me, of course, to keep singing these sounds.And also that it feels really different in your own body.So just in terms of technique, then, if we move to talking a little bit about technique, about how you make these sounds, where they come from. Could you explain how you start making these sounds? Maybe you could just do another little demonstration first, and then we break down how you're making those sounds.For a demonstration, maybe like the first thing that if somebody would start learning this low kargira sound, would be just to do... Like when you're clearing your throat, that's actually the false vocal cords that you can find that way. You have to start easily and slowly.If you put a lot of pressure there right away, I don't know if you'll break something, but then you will... It is a bit rough first. But then I feel that the kargira technique, the lowest is the most relaxed. Then I sing this... And then I just activate the false vocal cord.So it's kind of that you add another part of your throat with it. And then of course you need your whole torso, your whole body. When if I talk with my choir singers and we were making stronger sounds, I...We are talking about ass hail.Ass hail, okay, okay.You really have to breathe so that you have the support from the bottom of...It's the same with trumpet playing, I think, because singing and trumpet playing have got similar techniques in terms of breathing and breathing into your butt. So then you may just look like... If you would mind demonstrating that again.Again, it just looked like your lips change shapes. You're changing the shape of your lips.Yeah. Well, yeah.You can also make the overtones more audible when you change the shape and the size of your mouth.So that's sometimes called the formant in electronic music. You can change the way you're shaping those overtones. You've got the base tone there and then you're shaping those overtones with your mouth at the top.People might know this if they've dabbled with electronic music that a filter basically is what you're doing, isn't it? Open and closing it.Yeah.A formant filter.Yeah. I've never thought it was like that.Yeah. I increasingly see these things as really connected, but I'm relatively new in the last few years to working with synthesizers and things, but once you really dig in, you're like, oh, it's so much in common with what I do singing or playing the trumpet or anything else, you're just creating sound. You've got a kind of elemental sound and then you're shaping it on top.Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, if you're trying to, but would you mind, I know we've only got a few minutes, but can you try and teach me some very basic techniques? See if I can, if I can just, so if I, so that's, it's that, it's that kind of clearing throat, isn't it?Well, I would, yeah. First, if I were to actually teach you, we would do a lot of breathing things to be sure that you use your support. But if you're a trumpet player, you need to say so, so you know something about that.But then the, like, I thought when you were doing this, I think you were doing it a bit higher, like on the false vocal cords are under here, a bit lower. But that was how I would start.Okay.That's why it was you.So, like this?Yeah. Like, yeah, yeah. If you would feel like you have slime there, but I feel like now in my body when I hear, I think that you're clearing your throat a bit higher, you know.So it's like.Could be, yeah. Somewhere, yeah.So, because I find when you're thinking about trumpet or learning other things, sometimes you've got to have a little quick route in to try to understand something. For me, with playing the trumpet, sometimes yawning, getting people to keep their throat open by having their yawning. So having this little route to unlock the singing is quite interesting with clearing the throat.And then, when you feel, that could be there. And then basically, a fast forward would be like, and then you just try to make it longer, and then a lot of support here.And then it just comes.Sure. I'm sure it will just come to me.Okay, a bit of work to do. Let's try one more go.Yeah.I'm so excited even without a topic. Yeah, okay.I mean, it is more thick, like you have tighter than normal singing.There is a bit more pressure also.Yeah, slightly constricted throat.Yeah, yeah.Sort of like Louis Armstrong.You would need time.Of course, like anything else, like learning anything else. It's interesting to try the very basics of it as a complete beginner, because I've always admired it when I hear it from other people, but yeah, okay.I don't teach any singing. I want to do artistic work, so I don't really have a strange method to give you. But when I was in Mongolia, I had this amazing teacher who, we didn't have a common language.We were talking something like Russian and German, and we had a Russian-German word book. He asked me to come every day twice, mornings and evenings, and he asked me to eat only vegetable soup. It was easy, I don't eat meat.And then it was springtime and a lot of dust in the air and sand, and Mongolia from the desert, the winds brought that. And then he said that you must not, you have to take the bus so that you won't be breathing this dry air. But then he had these wonderful things like, he would make this square of a paper, and he put it on a chair and he asked me to blow it away.And then he would always take it a little bit further. And so I would be practicing my, and then he would take time to me to hold my breath. And then a lot of time practicing like in Mongolia, count things they had told me some Mongolian to do, know like for the overtones.And then, and then always when I had done five minutes of something, he would say, then now rest. And then I would be lying on a mattress for ten minutes and thinking what I had just done. Like let it sink in.And then we would continue. And it was one lesson took two hours in the morning and then two or three hours in the evening. And he was amazing, this teacher, I loved him.That's a really interesting lesson, isn't it, in terms of slowing down and that's how you learn. I think that's the thing. Similarly, I don't do a lot of teaching like I used to do quite a lot more.And often people, especially when they mainly taught adults, and everyone's in a rush to learn all the time. And we were the same, I'm sure, I'm the same when I learned a new skill. You just want to get on with it.But actually, that's not how you learn, is it? It's not how the brain learns that thing of doing it in a really focused way for a few minutes. But then, crucially, stopping and just letting it sink in.Over lockdown, I've always wanted to play enough drums to be able to play some basic beats, and I do a lot of composing things, and so just to be able to get some basic things down, never to play live or anything really. But anyway, I took that as my project over lockdown to try and learn some basic drums. And I found that on the first day I tried to do this, and you think, I've written countless drum parts over the years and know what I want to hear, and then you try and put it four limbs coordinated.I just couldn't do it at all. It was embarrassing, embarrassing, you know, musician of 20 years. Then of course, the next day, so I spent five or 10 minutes doing it, and then the next day it came to it, and I could just do it straight away because your body is sort of internalized a bit, and yeah, suddenly you're away, and it's just a really good reminder with something like that, that resting is at least as important.I think it's a lot of time taught that just, okay, I sing and then you try to imitate. But this method that this guy had, I loved it because it was so pedagogical, trying to imitate something that a voice, a sound that somebody makes. It's a good method in a way because we have these souls, like mirror souls, is that in?I don't know if it's that in English. How we learn as a kid, that we just sense how it's done, we learn movement.Intuition, yeah, yeah, yeah.And then when we hear somebody singing, we can actually feel their feelings because our souls are kind of sensing the feelings of the person through the sound and through the voice. So you can also practice the skill of listening. How does this sound make me feel?Where do I feel it? And then try to sense that and then try to activate that more than just try to intellectualize this style or sound of singing. Because the more you think of it, the further you might go.And then listening with your body. Well, it's a skill that can be also like, well, activated.That's such an interesting point. Yeah, it's such a good way of thinking. With this podcast, the kind of motto for the podcast is helping people to hear and understand and to enjoy music in new ways.And I think this is it, isn't it? Sometimes, letting your body and your intuition kind of guide you as well as, you've got the intellectual understanding maybe as well. And that's very important, I think, as musicians, to stay connected with this.I think we all know musicians who maybe have slightly disconnected in favor of the intellectual side of things. And I think you've got to keep those two things balanced, right?I see that it's just not like a body is just not to carry your head that has that knowledge, that you can actually hold so much knowledge in your body that they hadn't really thought of.Yeah, but reconnecting with the body. I find that for want of a less percentage term, the more sort of embodied I feel when I'm playing or composing or whatever, the closer I feel like I can get to the expression I want to have and things. It's amazing.I wonder, would you be able to, if I know you haven't warmed up or anything, would you be able to just do a little bit more of a demo to finish things off with throat singing? Is that possible?Yeah. Or if I also show things that I feel that are very connected to that, but maybe higher techniques.Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.Like if I think of the throat singing, how my throat actually is and the pressure that there is, the...And then if I sing...Oh, and it's the same, or almost the same, but I'm not activating the false vocal cords. But then there's the same kind of pressure, and you can also hear that the overtones are quite loud, even though not emphasizing them.Absolutely. I mean, that's an extraordinary sound. That's an enormous sound as well, isn't it?It's, yeah. It's crazy. But again, it looks so controlled, I guess because everything's in balance with the support and everything.I find parallels with the trumpet, where often you don't need to put in loads of physical effort, but it's about getting things balanced so that the air pressure and the control of your vocal folds and your mouth, everything's sort of working together to make this enormous sound.And then when you do things long enough, you learn to do them with the smallest effort or smallest muscle work possible that you just know how to lock the certain, like your throat how high or how low it should be, how your neck should be, or you learn that, for example, for me, it has been a big thing that when I'm on stage, I tend to go towards the audience, like what happens a lot that I start to sing to the audience. And then I'm thinking, why is it difficult to sing with these sounds? You can destroy your voice using this kind of really strong singing, but not use your ass-hailing.Yeah, okay, okay.Because then it only happens here and then you don't have the support and you will just squeeze without the...And by ass-hailing, you mean that sort of breathing into your... Yeah, into your belly and your butt.Yeah, yeah, so that it's actually... I feel it here, like almost in my bottom.Yeah, yeah.In my lower back. But I'm leaning there.Oh, I see, okay. Yeah. And there's one thing I also wanted to ask about, which was, do you feel any cultural sensitivity around throat singing?Because obviously we've talked about it, the fact that it comes... There's lots of different traditions around the world, as you say, Tibetanism. But it mainly is in that kind of north part of Asia, I suppose.Is that right? So sort of Mongolia, Tibet...And Tuva, which is in Russia. Those are very famous throat singing places. Also in China, there's this area called Inner Mongolia. Inuits have their own throat singing styles. Blue singers, the old blue singers, use techniques that are quite similar. I think you have to be really, like, you have to think those things through.I would not perform Tuvan or Mongolian songs. It's their heritage. But I think this is a technique that cannot be owned in a way.And like, you can own a musical tradition, but you cannot own a technique. And of course, I have thought about it, but I do try to use it in my own way.And when you've had teachers from those traditions, firstly, how do you reach out to them? Did you find them before you went? So you were talking about Angoli earlier.Did you get in contact with someone before you went, or did you just go and look for someone when you were there?No, but we're both, like, yeah. World is so small nowadays, like you can get in contact. Well, I was there quite a long time ago.But yeah, you can reach people before, and there are a lot of throat singers touring in the world. They give workshops. And in those workshops, they also taught their own music.But what else would they teach? They couldn't teach my music. But then in this, the Mongolian teacher also, I loved it that before we started, he asked me to sing something Finnish, and how he wanted to know how I used my voice before we started.And it felt like I felt hurt, and I felt that he was interested about my voice and why I want to learn more. And it felt really good. And I think that's of course really important in every relationship between a student and a teacher.I haven't searched, but I would say that you can find someone through the internet. There are societies, and there's always somebody who you can find and then ask, and somebody will lead forward.There's one more thing that I ask all my guests. It's a very straightforward, easy question. And that's, what's the point of music?What's the point of life without music? I think it's in our DNA. It is the first way of communicating.I think it's the deepest way to understand each other by dancing and moving. That's what we're supposed to do. That's what we are made to do.That's what we are for.There we go. Short and snappy answer, but completely bang on. Fantastic.Thanks so much. If people want to check out your music, can you give us the name of the project again and a link or any concerts you've got coming up?Well, Pelkkä Poutanen is the solo from Instagram or Facebook and all of that.I was listening to your record on the way in, actually. It's really a record when people check it out.Thank you. If somebody is interested about my other projects, just you can find them from social media and I'll always tell something about them. Great.Thanks so much. Enjoy the rest of Womex.Oh, you too. Thank you.And my thanks once again to the extraordinary Petra Podnan for that lovely chat and fascinating insight into throat singing and so many other things as well. I highly recommend you give it a go. As you can hear, it's not easy, and I made something that isn't easy seem extremely not easy.So yeah, but I really enjoyed giving it a go, and it's something I'd really like to learn more about and like to even dabble with attempting a bit more at some stage because I find that whole resonance of the body and the different ways of using your voice fascinating. Just as I talk about the development of instruments over many centuries and millennia, I think that's very true of the voice as well. It's the ultimate expressive instrument of the voice, and we've got all these different ways of using it, which we don't do day-to-day.So yeah, fascinating. Thanks once again to her.So on to Audio Gold. Now this is an absolutely incredible shop up in North London. I was lucky enough to have a bit of a tour of the place, including all of the back rooms and the workshop and the bank vault, as you'll hear shortly, it's in a former bank.And so the bank vault is absolutely chock full of vintage Hi-Fi equipment of all flavors. And the place is absolutely amazing. And I do urge anyone to go and check it out.They're very, very friendly. I don't know about you, but for me, even as a professional musician of many years, I sort of still feel a bit intimidated going into Hi-Fi shops, which is crazy. I've got a studio full of expensive and fancy audio gear.And I spend all day, every day thinking about audio and talking about audio. But somehow a lot of Hi-Fi shops can feel a bit intimidating and snobbish. And I think that's the kind of cliche, isn't it, of Hi-Fi shops.But honestly, Audio Gold were super friendly, super lovely, very knowledgeable, but you know, wore that very lightly. So yeah, if you're interested in any of this stuff, I urge you to go down and check them out. Audio Gold in North London.And as I say, they're coming down to Wilton's. They're bringing some beautiful gear down to Wilton's on Saturday. So if you want to hear some of this live, some of this fancy, high-end Hi-Fi gear live, you can do it in the most beautiful room, I think in the country, the most beautiful venue in the country, Wilton's Music Hall on Saturday.Anyway, enough of that. Over to Alex Barwise at Audio Gold. Oh, and apologies for the slightly ropey audio quality.It was a working shop, so it was quite noisy, but also ironically for an interview about audio quality, I had some microphone issues. So I'm not so sure about Audio Gold. This audio is a best audio bronze, maybe even audio tin.Anyway, here we go.Alex, I work at a Hi-Fi shop called Audio Gold. We sell old Hi-Fi that we refurbish. We have lots of new bits.We have a record shop, repair amplifiers and turntables for people when they break. Do bits of prop hire for film and TV.You just give me an amazing tour of this place. It's absolutely extraordinary, including the back room. The whole shop itself is amazing.You've got the records out front and then the gear everywhere. Then you go back to the repair room. There's this incredible stockpile of old stuff.How long has the shop been going?The shop originally opened in a little place down the road in 1992. It moved here a bit before the turn of the century.This is quite a big shop that was formerly a Barclays Bank. Steve's just seen the old safe door out back. As a business, we've had it for 30 years.And here, it's been a huge part of my life.What's the appeal of old hi-fi? I mean, why are you into it? I suppose it'd be the first question.And then by extension, why do people like it? What's the draw of it?There are rational and emotional appeals to old stuff. We don't really make a big distinction between new stuff and old stuff.Multiple facets of it are lovely.Lots of it looks amazing. Lots of it has really nice knobs and switches. And if you're a bit childish, that can appeal.Much of it is beautifully made in a way that just doesn't exist nowadays, unless something's very expensive. And lots of it is very, very good. There's a desire to fix things rather than scrapping one, especially if they can be perfectly functional.Comparison with old cars. Nice old cars are desirable for emotional reasons. Any brand new car will, if what you're trying to do is get from A to B, will dirt faster, safer, more reliably and so on.That's not the case with Hi-Fi where there are some properly good old bits of kit that's much better than newer equivalents. There's a lot of bad old stuff as well. We try to avoid that and focus on what we do to be good.Yes, we work only with stereo Hi-Fi as opposed to doing more much cinema ass around and stuff where the bottom sound processing is necessary as well.Could you just talk, you mentioned stereo there. Could you just talk about what that means for people who don't know?It's historically going back quite a long way up to the fifties, and it was a group production. There was a lot of them at a quite a rate of knots, including before electricity became part of the puzzle. You can imagine horn gramophones, and they were in mono, so there was essentially one speaker.The trumpet is in mono, there's one horn coming out of this. Stereo developed when it became possible to reproduce sound out of two speakers. If you listen to the Beatles records or neither Simone records, you'll find that the sound that comes out of the left speaker is very different from the sound that comes out of the right speaker because you have the drums on one side and the bass on the other.The way to mix those two sounds became more sophisticated with more modern recordings. If you just want a pair of speakers, you can almost hear in the position of the instruments in a band or orchestra. It's not that they're just on the left or on the right.They have the signal in the middle of the right. Done really well, you can hear the drum. So yeah, mono is one speaker, stereo is two.But mono can have multiple speakers playing a mono playback. It's one channel, right?So both speakers would be playing for two or four speakers would be playing exactly the same sound. Whereas in stereo, slightly different sounds would come out in both speakers.They combined to make what's called a stereo image, where you can imagine how the band and musicians of a orchestra are slayed out in front of you. It's interesting to say about the history of those early Beatles records when they started experimenting with stereo. When as you say, the drum, if you pan it left or right, you can only hear the drums sometimes.It's very unusual. But what's interesting now is just at the very early stages of starting to mix in something called Dolby Atmos, which I'm sure you will be familiar with. But for the listeners, that's kind of a very modernized version of surround sound that you would get in the cinema or whatever.But that is starting to be applied to music and the Apple Spatial Audio is another thing. But the only reason I mention that is that same kind of Wild West approach to mixing is there. We haven't really settled on the best way to mix like that.It's interesting.You could try stuff from an early and sometimes it sounds completely ridiculous.Exactly. And sometimes you can create the impression of being inside a cello in the name of an orchestra. Yeah.So there's an experiential thing.I was talking to Martin Akilvief, who's a BBC engineer based at Madeavail on an episode recently. And we were talking about the fact that as a mixer and a recording engineer, you're always editorializing what you're listening to. So you're always having to make choices about which microphones, where you put them, when you come to mix it.The same thing. If you're doing that in mono, so that's one consideration. Stereo is another.And then other formats, it's a whole other thing. So there's this idea that there is the right way to capture something or just want it to sound like it did in the room. But as I said then, it depends where you are in the room, depends who you are, or the rest of it.What I find interesting about all of these things, the development from mono to stereo and now what's happening with Dolby Atmos, is what it can change about the music that's being made in that. Certainly with The Beatles and with bands who came just after that, suddenly people started using stereo in really creative ways. You know, the show's called The Origin of the Pieces is about the evolution of music.And for me, that's inextricably linked with music technology, including music reproduction technology, which is what the AM Shop is about.Well, if you go to a concert hall, you will have a different experience depending on whether you're above or to the side of the orchestra. If you see a band in the round, then people on different sides of the stage will be able to see different things. And depending on how it's amplified, will potentially hear different things because they're closer to the drum kit or closer to the guitar player or the same case with Hi-Fi and how Hi-Fi sounds will be very dependent on space and where you are in that space.And it's possible to sit down and really listen to a record in the perfect listening position sort of in a triangle between two speakers. For most of our customers, that way, sometimes, but playing music that then fills their home with sound, they enjoy it, is from more the plot as much as happening. And music is part of it.So yeah, that impacts the choice of kiss and how you might sit in that.So you say about active versus passive listening, and it's something I think we all listen passively all the time and some of us listen actively as often as we can, but that's something that I think we can encourage people to do more. And there's something for me about this old gear that kind of speaks to that slightly more focused listening, listening style, I suppose, than having something... As you say, you can of course use anything in this room to have music in the background.There's nothing wrong with that at all. But having some gear that has been used for 50 years to create a really nice sounding...Which would also tie in with how we consume music and television and so on when it's possible to stream music or a TV show at a time when it's convenient to us, as opposed to a big event where the whole family would sit down and watch the news or EastEnders, and we're now exposed possibly to more music and we have access to the music if we want it constantly. It's completely within our own control what gets put on in our environment. The barriers to getting hold of it and lower up, which is wonderful.The barriers to flipping through without really listening are also much lower up. The way in which we interact with it has changed.Part of your mission here, I think you were saying earlier, well, firstly, it's like upcycling the old stuff, right? So you're saying a lot of this stuff might be 50 years old, some of it, but it's really good and there's no need to chuck it in a landfill because it's essentially a box with some really great speaker drivers in or an amp with some valves in that might need a bit of basic maintenance, but they still work as well or better now than they did.Absolutely. The technology for amplifiers in particular changed through the 70s. Historically, through the 50s and into the 60s, four amplifiers and televisions contained vacuum tubes, which are the things that look a bit like lead bulbs, which don't actually light up very much, give you a nice little glow.And then transistors were developed, which was mass-produced in a different way. Then actually make good sounding hi-fi and that was less tricky, more reliable on a mass basis. The good stuff from the 70s and 80s contains components that are very clever and experienced.And for an engineer, when one fails, he can replace it in a way that isn't the case with lots of normal stuff. Which if it fails, the collaboration with the economics and the technical side of things has been that it will end up being thrown away in one layer and another.Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for me, there's something really appealing about it. We got rid of our TV many years ago and got a projector.I'm trying to think, okay, I want to have a good sounding setup. But I need some combination of old and new. And so I got hold of through eBay and New Yorkers looking for, should have come to you in hindsight, but a really nice pair of vintage speakers.I'm embarrassed, I can't remember what they are, but they're very nice. So the floor standing speakers about this sort of size that sound really nice, but for what a very good price for them, 150, 200 quid, something like that. Quick sale.An old amplifier, I put it hooked up to the projector. So you have this combination of old and new. So we watched Netflix through that, as I stream music through that, so hooked up to Apple Airplane.That combination of a cheap, decent old amp and those speakers is cheaper than a Sonos equivalent and sounds fantastic. I can also run my turntable through that. I can run a CD through that.We have some customers who will play cassettes. The vast majority of our customers, most will play records. The vast majority will also stream music from Spotify or Apple or Vigon.There is something joyous about taking a 15-year-old amplifier and building on a sub-100-pound Wi-Fi streaming box. That means if the goalposts get changed and at some point somebody says that Spotify should pay some tax or give some money to musicians, you still have a good amplifier that will hopefully continue working. The technology or the market changes for the current stuff.That means a small amount of plastic, a small amount of metal coming out of the earth, a small amount of money coming out of your pocket. That enables vintage kids to talk to the 21st century.Exactly. You're combining modernity and romance there as well. But also, as you say, fundamentally, it's built for the world and often cheaper than doing the equivalent with new bit gear.Because fundamentally, it's the same, funnily enough, on the recording side because it obviously uses computers and lots of elaborate technology in my studio. But really, the fundamentals are the microphone. There are modern inventions that they also use.We were talking earlier about a microphone called the Coles that are used for the trumpet produced by the BBC, Colin and Les at the BBC, hence Coles. That has been around since the 50s or early 60s. The same microphone, exactly the same thing.And you put that into what's called a pre-amp fire to amplify the signal from the microphone. And those two things aren't going to change. You can improve on microphone technology, you can improve on pre-amp panning technology.But just as they're going in, the mic and the pre-amp, having a good set of those things will still, if they still work, which they probably will in 50 years' time, be perfectly functional. And you can then get that to talk in all sorts of clever ways to the digital side of things. And the same on the way out, like the speakers and the amplifier.And then put it in Dolby Atmos.Surround yourself in the same trumpet, slightly different versions of the same trumpet. Exactly. There are also modern things.So some of our favorites, new amplifiers are designed based on the architecture of 1950s amplifiers, but it's possible to build new ones that sound fabulous using modern quality control on the production as well, which was sometimes a bit issue with old place laying cars and so on. There are also some things where the old ones are so connected.It's funny to talk about money because there's a perception coming into a shop like this that has got these absolutely beautiful turntables from the 60s and 70s that are big money, around 10 grand, sometimes considerably more. But as you say, you don't need to spend a lot of money to get something really quite good. I mean, there's a very particular aesthetic if you're coming in spending 10 grand on a turntable and really want much more than that and some big speakers, if you've got that sort of money, it's been fantastic.But there's a lot of stuff that is incredibly affordable and there's no need for a snooty attitude towards the cheaper end of things.Music can sound good without breaking the bank. The threshold for good sounding Hi-Fi kit is quite low in the context of it's about the same as at least on a new car for something that you'll think for a long, long time.I think of it, particularly with those back-to-the-floor standing speakers, as almost more like a piece of furniture, like a piano or a lovely sideboard or a table that you might need to do some repairs on over the years, but they stay in the family.They add to the environment, not just sonically.Yeah, they're beautifully in there, isn't it?But they would veneers on some of the old stuff and some of the new stuff are just beautiful and they're lovely objects. I mean, if that's your bag.I think that's definitely part of it for me, as I say, that's where the sort of romance comes into it as well. The music is an aesthetic experience, and so what you're playing it back on, particularly if you're sitting down and sort of listening intentionally and in a focused way, it's relevant.Especially with a big pair of speakers, which have the potential to take up one of the real say or a turntable. The way you interact with it, you want to walk in a serve and want to put a record in it, and that will be more likely if it's there on the side, accessible, they're looking beautiful. Then if it's something that you're not quite sure if it's going to work or it doesn't get you joy by looking at it.Lots of the choices of what people are leaving here with are made with their eyes before they've listened to them, I think. We do everything we can to encourage people to spend some time sitting and listening to different combinations. A significant portion of the time people are amazed at the difference between the sound of the amplifier and the sound over and over.People are hearing the coming of things. On my ears, I get all the difference. I'm confident that they have chosen something on the basis of the emotional bullshit, the rational facts of what they themselves have heard.It's very subjective as well. What puts a grid on your face will be different to what puts a grid on my face in terms of listening to music. It will depend on what they're listening to.And there will be some speak around combinations that will be better at producing string quartets that won't produce the depth that you want so you sure want to play regular records. Getting that right combination of person and space and looks and sound and how it likely is the game to play.So this is a huge topic. So you also sell vinyl records here. Yes.We talked about streaming and you just briefly talk about firstly, what the difference is on a technical level between analog and digital. People may have heard of people raving about analog sound versus digital in this whole debate about records versus streaming and things. And just give your, I mean, I have lots of thoughts on that myself, but if you just give your reflections on those two things.I won't get very technical, because I'm a very critical guy in my depth. And it's broadly speaking, the sound coming out of an acoustic instrument or a Trumpet or a piano or somebody sitting is analog. It's moving in different pitches according to sort of variations of a side wave that might be higher frequency for higher pitch notes or lower frequency for lower pitch notes.That can then be converted into an electrical signal by a microphone and then going through an amplifier, which sends an electrical signal to a speaker.Sorry to interrupt. All I was going to say is that you're right, but you can take it back to the basics even more by not just using electricity at all, right? So we were talking about the gramophone earlier, and those early gramophones and the early wax cylinders, there was no electricity involved.They have a horn like a trumpet.Exactly. You would use the same horn to record sounds mechanically, which would then etch it onto the record. Then you play it back by using a stylus, a pin basically, and that horn to play it back.I just wanted to make that point that electricity doesn't need to be involved with analog sound.And if you can remove the reproduction bit of it and just play it and you have a trumpet, an analog sine wave goes from the trumpet to your ears, which again, vibrates in a much smaller way. That's what you hear. When a hi-fi is involved, it gets translated into an electrical signal, a 3D amplifier, and then the amplifier sends an electrical signal to the speaker, which does the vibration that in a studio in Stockholm in 1957 was coming out the trumpet.And then the speaker moves the air, which then in an analog way gets your ears. So analog sources of music include vinyl records, cassettes, tapes, four tracks, reel-to-reel. So something's recorded on tape, broadly speaking, it would be analog.If you imagine a sine wave, in the case of digital, is converted to a series of ones and zeros, that then need to be converting back to analog, because that's what we shouldn't need here. So you're introducing more processes there with the potential loss of accurate reproduction of the original sine wave at each point during those processes.So in other words, you've got what's called a DAC, a digital audio converter, which you need on both ends, you need to only go where it gets in the way in.Parallel to digital, and then you have digital to analog.Yeah, so analog to digital as you're through the microphone and then into the computer or similar.Exactly.And then the other way around from the computer or similar out to the speakers.The magical thing about this is it means that it's possible on your computer or phone to receive some music over the internet and then reproduce it as the speakers on your phone or through some nice headphones. And in the context of home, some people we think better through some nice speakers. There are processes that can be done well or badly.There are digital dwindle converters, you can buy for 20 kronor on Amazon and there are all digital dwindle converters that can cost you 20 grand. In contrast, with records, there are also processes to go through. A record gets physically pressed as grooves, and then with a tiny needle, it's in those grooves as the record spins and vibrates, picking up the analog signal, which is converted to electricity using accommodation magnets in the turntable cartridge.The precision with which that's done makes a big difference to how things sound, and again, it's possible to buy needles that will vibrate to a certain degree, representing what's physically in the groove, and then as the guys get a deep pot, they do that more accurately. But there are issues with dirt in the records, there are issues with scratches on records. So yeah, both are flawed.When records sound really good, they can sound amazing and the same as the case with digital, but I'm not a big with vinyl collection.But I do have a turntable and quite a few records and my band, the Henry Caldery Band, has put albums out on vinyl as well as digitally. But we should say also that digital mediums include CDs and mini-discs, which I still maintain in the future. I maintain that in 1997 and still to this day.Exactly, it's coming back.Nothing is not determined.Exactly. They both have their, they both have their.We consider them to be totally complementary. Records take up space, they cost money, they have this in their own floor and they can scratch them.Environmentally, they're quite problematic.There's absolutely an issue with involved plastic. There are now people trying to press records with recycled plastics and other materials that are more by the great or. If you have a record collection, 300 records, for not very much money, ignoring the question of tax and money going to musicians, Spotify costs £12 a month, and access to vast waltzes of music, it would be mad and impossible to loan all of that.A record or CD, or any other physical format. That's amazing in terms of the number of people that can access the quality of music.The advertising nature of that. Of course, the problem then is the curation of that, and how, when you've got access to everything, where do you start and all of that stuff?Where do you start? The tools exist to dive very deep into form of music or a particular genre or whatever. And that's wonderful.And you can learn, hear, enjoy lots and lots of different things for most people. I think that doesn't necessarily happen. What's the ability to flick through things is...What's been interesting about this show, the genre tombola thing I do in most episodes, where I look at a completely randomly chosen genre. And I mean, that would be completely impossible without something like Spotify or Apple Music or whatever. I spend two weeks listening to a really niche genre from somewhere in the world.I encourage people when I do those to check some of those things out and sort of open your ears to new things because we live in this unprecedented time of access. So for all the many problems that Spotify and streaming services encompass, what is undoubtedly an incredible asset which has never existed in human history before. I mean, recorded music has only existed in human history for a very short time.But now as I have within 100, 150 years of recorded music being a thing, being able to have the entire, or not quite the entire, there's some problems with not everything is on Spotify. There's lots of stuff that's been made in Africa or Asia or whatever, that hasn't gone up and the whole other problem. There's a temptation to think everything's there, but it's really not.But the fact that you have got access to this vast, vast, vast global catalog of stuff. I feel like for me, it's almost a responsibility to dive into some of the more left-fingered corners of that.It's probably the word exploit in the most positive sense.Exploit the opportunity. Absolutely.It's also like if you do like vinyl records, it means that you can listen to music and say, yes, I will spend the money and space on finding that album record.There's more intentional version of that. If you find something, that's the way I think a lot of people who are into it, myself included, find themselves acting. You've discovered something on the streaming service and then if you're really into it, you buy the album at a gig from the bank at Wolfing with Hyskel Store.Absolutely. It's very accessible and it's possible to reproduce it in a very convenient and excellent way. Yeah.Which is very nice in the markets on live live streaming because they had the interface that non-human beings could. Thank you. And now there are alternatives that are either cheaper or better, both, we think.It's easier to bolt on to a kit that you might already own, an old amplifier. And so it's now possible to have a multi-room system without re-chabling your house and stream music really well, quite cheaply.It's an amazing thing. And the funny thing about, Sonos, we were talking about mono and stereo and things earlier, is, I'm a big fan of Sonos, by the way. A lot of the time when you're listening to stuff on the Sonos system, if you've got a single speaker, then you're listening to...Stereo recording coming out of a single speaker is the opposite of taking a mono recording and putting it coming out of a single speaker.Exactly.Exactly.And now there are things being done with soundbars and told me at once as I mentioned earlier, but it is interesting when you're talking about intentionality of listening to music. I'm a fan of Sonos and similar technologies. Sonos is great, convenient.You can have it around the house and it's very easy to link them into room. What I'm encouraging people to do with this show, which is sit down and listen to something and try and find nuances in it that you haven't discovered. In the context of your projector, having the big pair of speakers, one either side of the projector, what that stereo gives you is when somebody is walking across the screen talking, you hear them moving from one side to the other. In the case of music, it's sort of complicated, especially if there are multiple instruments and so on. There's a lot of new technology that is genuinely innovative and valuable to consumers that complements existing technology as opposed to replacing it.Thanks so much. That was fascinating. I really encourage anyone who's up in North London to come and have a look at this shop because it's a real treasure trove of stuff.Thank you for coming to visit.Not at all. So after our chat and the brilliant tour that Alex gave me of the shop, we thought it might be quite fun to listen to some music through different systems. So we set up a couple of different systems, one cheap and one less so.So we listened to the podcast theme. Obviously, this is very unscientific because of course, it depends how it was recorded, yada, yada. There's lots of factors that can come into play.There's also some chat. It was a working shop, there's people coming in and out. But I attached my little microphones, I clipped them onto my ears to try and somewhat simulate what it will be like listening.So if you've got headphones, now's the time to put them on because I have one mic on each ear for this next bit. So if you've got headphones, you'll get a sense of what my ears were hearing with the two different systems. So here we are playtesting the podcast theme on a couple of different systems, rather differently priced.All right, so I've got my little mics clipped to my ears to try and get some sort of stereo idea. And we're going to have a little listening test. We're going to play the podcast theme tune.Can you just tell us what these are?These are a pair of active speakers rather than having a separate box that's an amplifier.There's a volume knob on one of the speakers and they have power.They are affordable things.They're 180 pounds for the pair.Great. OK, so we're going to play this tune through them. I'm just going to see what it sounds like.Good bass, they're very small. I mean, these are only what?Less than a foot tall?Okay, I'm going to turn my left ear to them, to this one.Alright, so now we're going to hear these big beasts.So these are a company called Clipsch, which is American. Their most famous speakers are called the Clipsch Horns, which are big. We don't have the big ones here.These are big. I appreciate that they're bigger, the ones you say. But we're talking about, what, four foot?Yeah, a fraction under a meter.And so those little ones, the little Edifer ones we were just listening to, they're about 180 pounds, is that right?They're 180 pounds.180 pounds. And what we're about to listen to now, these big Clipsch ones are... These are 8,000 something.8,000 something, and with an amp as well, because they don't have an amplifier attached, right?So we can plug them into a really big amplifier.Yeah, we're going to do it. Let's go big.This is a new amplifier using old technology. Those are vacuum tubes.So what do these amps go for? What's the grand total?This combination of amplifier, which is a power amp, and this rather lovely preamp is like 17,000 pounds.So 17,000 plus nearly 6,000, pretty much. 22, 23 grand, something like that.Yeah.Add a turntable and the other necessary things.Of course. But just in terms of what we're listening to, we're about to listen to, the same piece.Sub 200 pounds to...To sub 23 grand.They're very lovely.Yeah, well, yeah, I would think so.As you'd hope.I might just have to constantly wear two mics on my ears like this.That was quite loud. So there it is, my very unscientific test. So what do you think?Is it worth spending an extra 22 and a half grand or so on that bigger system? I'm assuming if you're anything like me, based on the evidence that you just heard there, probably not, but that's again, that's kind of missing the point of it. It's partly because they're beautiful things, these bigger speakers.And also of course, when I've just got these little mics clipped to my ears, you're not getting the full experience. That big system certainly sounded beautiful and really full and lovely, and it doesn't always get captured with the little microphones dangling off my ears, like weird fluffy earrings. But it was lovely to hear that tune through that incredible system, as well as through that smaller system.So I think it just shows that you don't need to spend a lot of money to get a really good sound. Again, it's about kind of intentionality and close listening and opening your ears, which is of course what this show is all about. Yeah, thanks once again to Audio Gold and do come and say hello if you see them on Saturday or pop in if you're in the area or indeed to any of your other vintage Hi-Fi Emporia wherever you are in the world.Maybe not everywhere in the world, but I'm sure a lot of big cities have places a bit like Audio Gold where you can go and try some interesting stuff. And I think again, as we mentioned there, it's not so much about spending loads of money and having some flashy gear in your living room. It's about that intentionality, about choosing how you listen, what you listen to, just bringing some awareness to some of those different things, thinking about the different functions that music has when it's played through a fancy system versus through your iPhone.Right, anyway, that's about it for this week. I'm not gonna do a genre tombola. I've still got a couple of outstanding ones to do. And I'm also gonna do a live reveal with my guests at Wilton's on Saturday. So we've got another one of those coming up. There's also a very exciting new element of the show which I'm gonna be announcing soon, which I'm also gonna be launching on Saturday.Thanks once again for listening. I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. As always, please do leave a review.Please do subscribe. Most importantly, please tell your friends. My Patreon is there.If you go to originandthepieces.com, it's my mailing list there. Thank you to those of you who signed up recently. We got a bunch of new sign ups recently, so that's great to see.My Patreon, again, you can pay nothing at all, or you can pay £1 a month or £5 a month or anything above that if you'd like. And there I try and put all the resources from the show, so video interviews, all of these interviews I do. I also film, so the full videos of those are up, so you can sometimes see the details of the instrument I'm talking about or the gig or whatever it might be.So yeah, go over to Patreon, and again, I'm going to be putting a lot more stuff up over the coming weeks there. Meanwhile, thank you so much for your support. See some of you on Saturday at Wilton's.See some of the rest of you at Wilton's in January, January the 16th. That's on sale right now. Thank you to all the guests this episode.Of course, we had Alex Barwise from Audio Gold there, and earlier on Petra Podnan from Finland via Womex. And thank you also to Womex for having me. I will be back in two or three weeks' time.Meanwhile, stay musically curious, and see you next time. Bye.