If you could ask BBC Radio 3 one question about music, what would it be? Sue Perkins and Tom Service are here to unravel everything you've ever wondered about music - but were too afraid to ask... Send YOUR questions to r3qt@bbc.co.uk, tweet with the hashtag #r3qt or post them on Radio 3's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/bbcradio3.
Who created the first piece of music? Why does music have such a powerful effect on us psychologically and emotionally? And how do you define what music really 'is', anyway...?
Comedian Sue Perkins joins Tom Service for the first in a new series of Radio 3's "Question Time", as part of the BBC's "Story of Music" season - every Monday evening in the interval of "Radio 3 Live In Concert".
They're here to unpick YOUR questions about everything musical - with a host of musical examples from Mozart to Motorhead, the Ancient Greeks to the English Pastoralists, from violin sonatas to big band jazz and Indian ragas...
Over five episodes, Sue and Tom will be looking at questions like why music makes us dance, why we divide it into 'major' and 'minor', and why there are eight (or should that be twelve?) notes in a scale...They'll be covering everything from from music history (why do people revere JS Bach so much?) to psychology (how can a simple sequence of notes stimulate our brains to feel emotion?) to music's global reach (does every culture use the same notes and rhythms?).
And they need YOUR questions to answer throughout the series! Send in your queries about anything musical to r3qt@bbc.co.uk, tweet with hashtag #r3qt or post them on Radio 3's Facebook page: www.facebook.com/bbcradio3. We'll be looking out for them!
In the first episode, Sue and Tom discuss who created the first piece of music, argue over how you can define what music 'is', anyway, and debate why so many people find contemporary classical music 'difficult'...