How we standardized music
The Gray Area with Sean Illing
Vox Media Podcast Network
4.5 • 11.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. |
| 0:04.6 | I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. |
| 0:07.7 | We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. |
| 0:11.8 | It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, |
| 0:16.4 | and serves up smarter search results just for you. |
| 0:19.6 | You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. |
| 0:24.2 | And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. Download the eater app at eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. |
| 0:35.4 | Hi, I'm Jorge Just, editorial director of the gray area, and close personal friend of your host, Sean |
| 0:43.3 | sent me here with a mission to introduce you to another show that I work on. |
| 0:48.3 | Unexplainable. |
| 0:49.3 | It's a show about all the things we don't yet know, and about the people who are trying to figure it all |
| 0:54.3 | out. Unexplainable in the gray area have a lot in common. They both take open-hearted, open-minded |
| 1:00.6 | approaches to new ideas, hard questions, and the mysteries of life. They just do it in different |
| 1:06.4 | ways, but it's the same project, honestly. And the episode I'm about to play for you is a perfect example. |
| 1:11.6 | It asks the question, what is a musical note? |
| 1:15.6 | Seriously. In this case, the note A, the note that orchestras around the world tune to before they play. |
| 1:22.6 | How did we all, all of us, collectively decide that that very particular number of vibrations |
| 1:30.2 | per second would be the thing that we call A. |
| 1:34.2 | Turns out, it's not easy to standardize a sound, especially a sound that's central to the making |
| 1:39.5 | of Western music, a sound upon which we hang so much emotion, so much memory, so much feeling. |
| 1:46.7 | It's not easy, but we didn't. But did we? I mean, even now, there's a lot of people who are |
| 1:53.4 | not on board. It feels like nothing in this universe is universal. Here's what say from Unexplainable. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Vox Media Podcast Network, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Vox Media Podcast Network and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

