I just finished listening to Ways of Hearing from Radiotopia’s Showcase on a bus ride. I try to fill my commute time with something. And for the last 1.5 years that something were podcasts. I started and finished quite a few series and following a few as soon as a new episode drop. Though I might one day write a short essay about how a great medium podcasts are, for now I will talk about Ways of Hearing.

Which is a 6 (and a bonus) podcast about how digital media is affecting our listening experiences. Things that you will find in the series include but not limited to:

• The lock-in effect that digital media caused on music itself with MIDI and similar tools. (A great discussion about the topic can be found in You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier)
• The reason why music wasn’t able to be louder as today before digital era.
• A personal interview with 99% Invisible’s Roman Mars about sound.

I particularly want to mention about the sound design in each episode. Of course the topic is sound, but emotions, technical concepts about audio and songs from different eras of music history are reflected very well in the audio itself. I seriously mean this one, this is not a typical podcast where someone simply talks about something. It has seriously crafted audio content with wonderful transitions. I wish I could give some examples but that would run the risk of spoiling them for a potential listener.

One last thing I want to mention is the theme song Trickle Down. I found it on youtube. Give it a listen. I don’t know if I would fall in love with the song if I heard it standalone, but now I am really into it after hearing it in each episode.

That’s all. Hopefully I will use this blog more often and finish up with rest of the site in a very short time. Thanks for reading. Now go and listen to Ways of Hearing.