Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Free Form Radio
Free form is a process that has little to do with whether music is or is not "alternative." The concept of "alternative music" is a bias, & is not the same as alternative programming. Free form is not dependent upon music.
WFMU is a free form radio station wherein most DJs do free form programs but some do not.
The great strength of free form is that every type of music, every sound, can have an equality of emphasis in the free form stream.
Most of the music that flows out of WFMU's broadcasting stream isn't especially strange. But it may attain an unexpected strangeness in the free form context; analogous to watching a variety of items floating down a river; a broken lawn chair, tree branches of various shapes, a colorful beachball, a rainbow oil slick, a dead body. Presented this way, everything is sort of equal. You can watch, accepting whatever comes by next, or you can walk away. & upriver, someone tossing all that stuff in - the DJ.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
WFMU is a free form radio station wherein most DJs do free form programs but some do not.
The great strength of free form is that every type of music, every sound, can have an equality of emphasis in the free form stream.
Most of the music that flows out of WFMU's broadcasting stream isn't especially strange. But it may attain an unexpected strangeness in the free form context; analogous to watching a variety of items floating down a river; a broken lawn chair, tree branches of various shapes, a colorful beachball, a rainbow oil slick, a dead body. Presented this way, everything is sort of equal. You can watch, accepting whatever comes by next, or you can walk away. & upriver, someone tossing all that stuff in - the DJ.
