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ON NOW : BBC News
19/05/2013

BBC News The latest five minute news bulletin from BBC World Service.

ON NEXT : 12:06 The Newsroom
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Play now 28 mins

Episode 3

Duration:
28 minutes
First broadcast:
Wednesday 12 January 2011

Trevor Cox explores how percussion and string instruments make their own particular sounds.

He finds surprising scientific connections between a Stradivarius violin, singing bowls of Tibet and playing a saw used for cutting wood.

And he learns how the rise of the oil industry in World War II gave birth to the hand crafting of Steel Pans in the Caribbean - a skill that is attracting scientific analysis today.

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