Producer Andy Mills talks with Transom.org about how he uses music to create audio magic each week on Radiolab.
I still remember the first time I sat down with my friend Jacob Boll from the band The Hudson Branch to work on scoring a radio story. We were listening to a rough draft of a story I was working on and he said of the subject of the story:
“She is speaking in the key of C most of the time — so let’s start with that.”
I thought, “Speaking in the key of C?!” Then, I realized that musicians are literate in the details of musical language in a way that I am not. Since then, I’ve not published anything without having the feedback or collaboration of a musician — even if it is just getting a friend to listen to drafts and provide a critique.