Batman and Ethan
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2016
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ethan was born blind. He's now a 10 year-old boy who collects sounds on his 51 dictaphones, composes music, and performs on stage in concerts. Until now he's been home-schooled, but last year he was offered a place at St Mary's Music School in Scotland - one of the best in the country. The problem is he struggles to get around.
This is where Batman comes in. His real name is Daniel Kish and like Ethan he's blind. He's a master of echolocation. He makes clicking noises - like a bat - to build a picture of the world around him. Neuroscientists have done experiments on him and found that he's managed to activate the visual part of his brain. He's taught people all over the world to "see through sound" and he's so good at it that he goes hiking, cycling and rock-climbing.
"Batman" (Daniel) comes to Scotland to spend 10 days with Ethan, to teach him echolocation and help him prepare for his new school. The documentary follows Ethan's progress as he learns from Daniel Kish. Listeners are introduced to the principles of echolocation, they follow Ethan practicing at home, on the train and at his new school. They're brought into Ethan's world, through music composed specially by Ethan, and they're with him on his birthday, on long walks in the Scottish hills, right through to his experience at school.
We follow Ethan up to his final day of term to find out how he's done, and see how he copes with his biggest challenge yet: playing an accordion solo with the orchestra at the school concert.
Produced and presented by Helena Merriman.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, welcome to Seriously, with me Testament. Music. How did you get into music? I remember listening to public |
| 0:16.7 | enemies don't believe the hype age 10. It was a visceral sound, turning my |
| 0:21.7 | ear drums into war drums with their political diatribe |
| 0:24.7 | over a mashup of funk, soul and hard-hitting beats. And then a few years later I had the strains |
| 0:30.0 | of groundbreaking hip-hop group Dela Sol coming from my big brother's bedroom next door. |
| 0:34.8 | With the humour and social cometry and eclectic sampling techniques, I guess that was the beginning |
| 0:40.0 | of my journey into music, turning Little Andy Brooks into rapper Testament. |
| 0:45.0 | Well that may all sound call, but please just don't tell anyone about my secret love of |
| 0:51.0 | Boney M, the Pet Shop Boys and an early dalliance with Christian heavy metal. |
| 0:57.0 | Yeah, don't judge me. |
| 1:00.0 | And now, to another 10-year-old who is on a very different musical journey. |
| 1:05.0 | Ethan composes music and plays piano in concerts and also collects sounds on his 51 dictophones. |
| 1:12.0 | Last year he was offered a place at St Mary's Music |
| 1:15.2 | School in Scotland, one of the best in the country, but there's a problem. |
| 1:18.9 | Ethan struggles to get around as he was born blind. |
| 1:23.0 | Join Ethan as he meets Batman, |
| 1:25.0 | his real name is Daniel Kish, |
| 1:27.0 | a blind man who can teach Ethan to see with sound. |
| 1:33.0 | This is a story about a boy called Ethan. |
| 1:39.0 | This is a story about a boy called Ethan. |
| 1:41.0 | He's ten years old with deep brown eyes and in many ways he's just |
| 1:45.7 | like any other boy his age. He loves toy cars. I like the way they just zoom |
... |
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