JAD ABUMRAD: Hello, I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT KRULWICH: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: This is Radiolab.

ROBERT: The podcast.

JAD: Today on our podcast, we're gonna do—we're gonna revisit something from our last podcast, the "Numbers" show. And at the same time, we're gonna travel to a completely new universe.

ROBERT: A whole new universe?

JAD: You ready for this?

ROBERT: Well, I don't know what we're doing.

JAD: You genuinely don't know what we're about to do, right?

ROBERT: I don't know.

JAD: Will you just state that for the record?

ROBERT: Audience people, I have no idea what is about to happen.

JAD: That's good. I like you in that state. So Tim, do you have the tape of the ...

TIM HOWARD: Yeah.

JAD: The actual numbers? Yeah. Okay, so here's the thing we're gonna be revisiting, Remember this piece of tape?

AMANDA ARONCZYK: Four, five, six.

MINA: Yeah.

AMANDA: Can you do that?

MINA: One, two ...

AMANDA: Okay, don't touch the microphone.

ROBERT: Oh, sure. Of course. This is from the numbers piece.

AMANDA: Can you count to 10? I'll let you touch the microphone.

MINA: One, two, three, ditch.

JAD: Do you want to just maybe give it—set it up, give it some context?

ROBERT: Okay. So what you're listening to is one of the stars of Radiolab. She's now about two years old. She's actually. This is her second appearance on the program.

JAD: That's right. Her name's Mina.

AMANDA: Mina, can you count?

MINA: One, two, three, ditch.

ROBERT: And Mina in this case is learning the business of counting.

JAD: Yes, that was raw tape recorded of Mina counting. Lulu Miller recorded it. And Mina's mother, we should also say, is Amanda Aronczyk. Okay, so what I want to do is take that tape and play it for you in a completely new context. A non-Radiolab context.

ROBERT: [laughs]

JAD: What? Maybe I need to say that again. A completely new context!

ROBERT: You're a wild and crazy guy. Okay, I won't even ask why. Go ahead.

JAD: I'll set it up for you. Okay, here's the backstory. Okay, in 1964, there was a piece of music that we're gonna talk about now called "In C."

ROBERT: "In C?"

JAD: "In C.:

ROBERT: Is that like I-N-S-E-E, as in I see you or in ...

JAD: No, it's like I-N letter C. Like in the key of C.

ROBERT: Oh, okay.

JAD: C major. And you can hear it. It's kind of a ...

ROBERT: Sort of a Philip Glass-y kind of thing.

JAD: Actually it was sort of the original Philip Glass-y kind of thing.

ROBERT: Oh.

JAD: "In C" was written by a guy named Terry Riley at a time when music, classical music, had turned very, very dark. You know, people were writing all kinds of, like, really dissonant stuff.

ROBERT: Mm-hmm?

JAD: And it was interesting for a while, but then it became.

ROBERT: Little dull. A little dull.

JAD: A little hurtful actually. People were losing interest. But then along comes our man Terry Riley, who writes this piece "In C." Very joyous. And it was like a watershed moment.

ROBERT: I missed—I confess I missed that moment in the cultural history of America. It just went right by me.

JAD: Well, lucky for you you've got me.

ROBERT: [laughs]

JAD: But no, no, seriously. Like, "In C" inspired Philip Glass and Steve Reich and, like, scores and scores of movie music. And, you know, that whole explosion of minimalism, you could even say it like inspired techno and all kinds of other stuff. So in a way it all comes back to this piece which no one has ever heard before, called "In C."

ROBERT: Oh.

JAD: So here's what I want to do right now. I want to tell you about a project that I was involved in that united my Radiolab self with my non-Radiolab self, and at the same time brought in Mina the counting two year old.

ROBERT: Okay.

JAD: There's an ensemble called the Grand Valley State New Music Ensemble, who decided they were gonna re record "In C." And also, they asked 18 people—or maybe it's 16. I can't—I always forget—a whole bunch of people to remix the song. And I was one of the people they asked.

ROBERT: Really? When did this happen? I didn't even know that this happened.

JAD: This happened actually right when Emil was born. So I was on leave.

ROBERT: So we are about to hear the Abumrad remix of "In C," the world famous piece that saved America's classical music from turning sour and ookey?

JAD: [laughs] That might be overstating its influence a bit. But yeah, I do want to play you that remix. But before that, I want to play you two other of the 18 remixes, which I think are really good.

ROBERT: Okay.

JAD: Starting with this one.

["In C" remix - Michael Lowenstern]

JAD: I really like this remix. It comes from a guy named Michael Lowenstern.

MICHAEL LOWENSTERN: My name is Michael Lowenstern.

ROBERT: Mike Lowenstern.

MICHAEL LOWENSTERN: I'm a dad, a composer, and a ...

JAD: And a bass clarinetist.

MICHAEL LOWENSTERN: And a bass clarinetist.

JAD: Hey, so speaking of bass clarinet, is that what that sound was? Wom-wom-wom?

MICHAEL LOWENSTERN: Oh, no, that's a synth.

JAD: Whatever it is, I love that sound.

MICHAEL LOWENSTERN: You know, the whole thing about "In C" is that it's really—it's about randomness.

JAD: Yeah. Because the performers are supposed to improvise.

MICHAEL LOWENSTERN: And the whole thing about these remixes is that it's about structure.

JAD: Yeah.

MICHAEL LOWENSTERN: And so the things that are most usually structured about any mix, any remix, especially a dance mix, is gonna be the drums.

JAD: Drums do sound pretty structured.

MICHAEL LOWENSTERN: Well, that was the one thing that I threw to a random generator.

JAD: What do you mean? You mean depth?

MICHAEL LOWENSTERN: It gets cut up. The drums never sound the same twice.

JAD: Oh, so you use the computer to, like, algorithmically randomize the drums?

MICHAEL LOWENSTERN: Mm-hmm. All of the drums are chopped up and then it'll start shuffling.

JAD: So anyhow, it goes on. That's Michael's first version. So I'm gonna play for you one more from someone that we've spoken with on the program before. Zoe Keating. Remember Zoe?

ROBERT: Do I remember Zoe? Of course.

JAD: Zoe the cello goddess.

ROBERT: The cello goddess, beloved by so many of our people who write into us.

JAD: And that's not—you're not exaggerating.

ROBERT: That's a tip of an iceberg. Yeah. Yeah.

JAD: So Zoe had a very different take. Here's hers.

["In C" remix - Zoe Keating]

ZOE KEATING: When I got the call to do it, I was sort of like both intrigued and scared.

JAD: Yeah.

ZOE KEATING: Because "In C" is such a well-known piece.

JAD: Yeah. Now you called your remix "Zinc."

ZOE KEATING: Oh.

JAD: What does that mean?

ZOE KEATING: Zoe in C.

JAD: Oh. Is that what that means?

ZOE KEATING: That's what it is. Because I never play in C. You know, it's like, it's a key that I always avoid.

JAD: Why? Is it hard to play on the cello?

ZOE KEATING: It's the easiest to play on the cello.

JAD: Oh.

ZOE KEATING: It's really easy to play on cello. And it's kind of—I think of C and C major as being sort of a childlike key.

JAD: Yeah.

ZOE KEATING: When I think of, like, the key of C, I think of this sort of childlike optimism. You know, where you—like, I'm looking out the window right now, and the sky is that beautiful California blue. And that is a C major sky. I wanted to make it feel like it was washing over me. Like it was sort of a rushing waterfall. And one thing is that I really wanted it to sort of fall over the edge of the waterfall, because I wanted to really have that feeling of like, okay, okay, okay, okay, here we come. And now we're gonna fall off the waterfall.

JAD: So that's Zoe's. Isn't that nice?

ROBERT: That's really nice.

JAD: I know. Kind of makes you feel warm.

ROBERT: So are you gonna try to, like, improve on that? Because that would be dangerous.

JAD: I don't know. I enter the—I put mine up against hers and Michael's with extreme caution.

ROBERT: [laughs]

JAD: But here's mine. So let me set mine up.

ROBERT: That's pretty brave of you. Okay.

JAD: I know. Well, I'm gonna talk for a bit so that people forget the glory of what they just heard.

ROBERT: Okay.

JAD: So okay, so here's what I was thinking. I was on paternity leave, and you and everybody else was doing the "Numbers" show, right?

ROBERT: Mm-hmm. I remember.

JAD: And I was hearing some things you guys were doing from time to time. And Lulu played me the piece she was working on, which was that one about counting, which included the tape that we played at the very beginning.

ROBERT: Yeah.

MINA: Yeah.

AMANDA: Can you do that?

MINA: One, two, three, ditch.

JAD: And it was funny because I had gotten this "In C" commission, and I had this little baby. And I was doing that thing, you know, that people do with babies where you just start counting to them. It's like an instinct. One, two, three! And so I heard that tape and I was like, "Oh, that's what I'm doing!" But since I had "In C" in my head, I was kind of counting to that "In C" ostinato. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four!

ROBERT: [laughs]

JAD: The two thoughts fused in my head.

ROBERT: I'm already feeling a little sorry for this baby.

JAD: [laughs] So the two thoughts fused in my head. So I thought I'm gonna remix this piece as kind of a children's song.

ROBERT: So this is the dedicated to Emil version of "In C" by ...

JAD: By me. It's called "Counting In C." It uses that tape of Mina counting, and my own baby makes an appearance.

ROBERT: Is your son gonna be in this?

JAD: Yeah. He's one of the first things you'll hear.

ROBERT: Oh, you're shameless. You are a shameless father.

JAD: It's true. It's true. So why don't we just play the whole damn thing?

ROBERT: Let's play the whole damn thing.

["In C" remix - Jad Abumrad]

JAD: So that's my "In C."

ROBERT: Oh, wow. Look, here's the thing. Don't write and say how much you liked it and how he should do this all the time, because this would be very, very disconcerting for those of us who work here.

JAD: What does that mean?

ROBERT: I think that this was just a little bit too good, actually. And it's slightly worrisome.

JAD: [laughs]

ROBERT: Really. Don't write the man because I don't want him to think about other career options. Because I could hear nasal stuff, Brooklyn playground stuff. Mina. I heard the drawers of your desk and got every little thing.

JAD: It's true. I was kind of shameless, it's true. But okay, no more music for a while.

ROBERT: No more music for a while.

JAD: If you want more information on the record, check our website, Radiolab.org. I also need to thank Bill Ryan, who's the head of the Grand Valley State New Music Ensemble, for making the whole record possible. Now to those funders. And they are ...

ROBERT: Well, they're the National Science Foundation.

JAD: Yep. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And?

ROBERT: Swiss Loan Foundation.

JAD: Yes! I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: And I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: Thanks for listening.

 

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