Listener Comments
The following represent the latest letters and e-mail messages received by 88.7KXMS. We invite your comments, too. Our physical and virtual addresses and phone numbers (where you may leave voice-mail if you do not reach us in person) are posted below to the right.
[The Classical Station] is the best part of 88.7KXMS. I listen now more than I ever have. I don't care for public radio talk shows or newscasts -- the connection with "The Classical Station" is my kind of music station! I like being able to purchase the music played on The Classical Station.
Editor's Reply:
Glad you like it, but (as the response below indicates) this addition to our schedule is quite controversial and polarizing. As for purchasing the music you hear, keep in mind that the KXMS STORE is available on our website, and we encourage its use as a means of supporting the station that brings you so much pleasure every day. Purchasing CDs from other Web sources does not benefit the station that needs your support to continue offering The Classical Station via your radio.
[The Classical Station] is awful -- too local to [North] Carolina and dull programming.
Editor's Reply:
Like you, some of our listeners don't tune in before 9 p.m. and may be missing the captivating programming by Bill McGlaughlin on "Exploring Music." As for dull programming from The Classical Station, they might do well to check out Jeff Skibbe's recent programming treatise available at "Scanning the Dial".
This is the only radio station for me. I have it on throughout my home!
June Blalock
Joplin
I would like you to get equipment that isn’t so vulnerable to bad weather. Also occasionally, a rock station impinges.
Editor's Reply:
Done! We recently replaced a satellite dish for the former, and the rock station problem (probably caused by overmodulation) can be mitigated with a change of radio, or at least repositioning your radio’s antenna.
In addition to “classical” music, I would like to hear also some “light music,” such as singing with orchestra accompaniment.
Editor's Reply:
Thanks for your feedback. To make sure we are on the same page, we need an example of “light music.” Never intending to offer just classical music, the depth and breadth of our 'fine arts radio' offerings is limited only by the two partners in this venture: the university and the listeners. Good programming is expensive and diverse programming requires even more resources. We would like to offer you both in a satisfying blend.
I listen to KXMS much more than any other media. Mostly read in evenings and night, but do watch a little TV sometimes.
Editor's Reply:
We are probably guilty of watching too much television, but there are some exceptional shows on cable TV these days. It would be nice to have a radio equivalent of TV's DVR (digital video recorder) to maximize radio listening in the face of so much choice.
In general I listen to KXMS when I am driving and at the office. And most of the time I read in the evenings and nights. I am not an opera fan.
Editor's Reply:
Your preferences are wholly typical. We have always tried to find programming that would compel more at-home listening. Bill McGlauighlin's "Exploring Music" is the closest that we have come to succeeding in that goal. As far as opera, the Hi-Def Metropolitan Opera presentations at Hollywood-Northstar 14 Cinema have greatly increased our appreciation of opera.
I like continuous classical music. Being a fringe receiver, I sometimes lose contact with the station. Can you increase the power? You have several competing stations at the same place.
Editor's Reply:
Additional broadcast range will require a greater institutional resolve to expand MSSU's influence in the region.
In general it [WCPE/The Classical Station] is great, but would like it if we did not have to listen to NC [North Carolina] weather and could get local weather.
Editor's Reply:
We also would like to pre-empt North Carolina weather from those hours, but presently there is no adequate way for us to do that and still bring you that service.
I really like Bill McGlaughlin's program. Otherwise it's just a matter of what music is playing. I am least of all drawn to modern, dissonant music, though I'm trying to "get" it....
Editor's Reply:
Music is processed in multiple locations in both hemispheres of the brain simultaneously (we used to think that there was just one music center). We know when we listen to a Shostakovich symphony, we feel as if different areas of our mind are at work all at once, almost as if there is a restructuring or reordering going on. It is an oddly pleasant feeling.
I really enjoyed hearing the VOICE of Darci Price on your website, but would've enjoyed even more a VIDEO of Darci recording the promotional MSSC Pride piece for Mass Comm. in the KXMS Studio. A video version would've added a lot to the experience. But then my prejudicial tendencies may be showing: I was in the first wave of MSSC students (1968) and I am an MSSC graduate . . . and Darci is my delightful and creative niece.
James B. Price
Kansas City
Editor's Reply:
A great idea, James! We will pass your suggestion on to the folks at Southern's television station.
It drives me crazy to hear a classical announcer refer to the person playing the trumpet as a "trumpetist". There is no such word in the Oxford English Dictionary; the correct form is "trumpeter." On the other hand, a flute-player IS a flutist, not a fluter, and, by the way, not a "flautist."
Persnickety in Joplin
Editor's Reply:
We checked the Oxford English Dictionary (The definitive record of the English language), and you are right about trumpeter. About "flautist," we have to defer to someone who should know, former OK Mozart Music Director Ransom Wilson, who also happens to a world-class flutist. He says he does not play the "flaut."
According to Wikipedia: James Galway summed up the way he feels about "flautist," saying, "I am a flute player not a flautist. I don't have a flaut and I've never flauted."
We enjoy KXMS. Lately, the programing from The Classical Station is okay but annoying that they give time, temperature and weather forecasts in NORTH CAROLINA! PLEASE bring back local programing.
We suspect that this recent development is a result of the new administration and their need to economize. Let's take the coffee pots and vending machines out of the administration building rather than compromise KXMS! ..."a cultural resource of Missouri Southern State University." You'd think an "English Major" would know better.
hrmph!
Ken Meisinger
Joplin
Editor's Reply:
Of all the numerous observations and criticisms about the new service, time and weather ranks at the top of the list so far.
We do not own or lease those vending machines. They are the property of our Pepsi vendor. Those machines do not cost us anything and should be more reliable than the older Coke machines.
I love the classical music and programming now from WCPE to KXMS. The WCPE connection is splendid! Please continue this wonderful resource.
M. Ross
Webb City
I enjoy it. Their announcers are somewhat different from what I'm accoustomed to hearing, but they are fine. Their selection of music is very good. My favorite is still Peter Van de Graaff, but he is an "old pro"!! Please keep the "Classical Music" format!
Editor's Note:
The question in our 5 QUICK LISTENER SURVEY QUESTIONS was: "Please give us your impressions of the new service from 'The Classical Station'."
I took the survey and until I saw your link I had no idea you had a web page. Plus with so much info, you really need to get the word out. I found it very interesting and bookmarked it.
Good Luck,
Ruth Smith, VA Representative
Office Of Veteran Services
Missouri Southern State University
Editor's Reply:
We're very happy that you found our Web site. We completely renovated it this past month. Please pass along your find to others you know, we could use the viral publicity. We are especially proud of our unique music PLAYLISTS: nothing else out there quite like them.
88.7KXMS was one of the first departments at MSSU to launch a Web site more than ten years ago, and it has morphed through the years to keep up with the exponentially evolving public radio Web competition.
The website is very nice. I like how easy it is to navigate.
Nancy Ellis
MSSU Financial Aid Office
Editor's Reply:
Thanks. It is surprising how many Web sites have so little sense of organization. Poor organization and navigation sabotage the use and effectiveness of the information. Eye-candy design often trumps good informational layout/navigation, a big mistake unless you are primarily in the eye-candy business. Besides, some eye-candy effects do not function properly on all of the eight major Web browsers. Anchoring the user with a good navigation menu can relax the visitor to allow more comfortable and assured exploration. Don't make the site complex without first making it intuitive in use.
KXMS is my favorite radio station. My car radio is set to your station 90% of the time. I got a little tired of Bill McGlocklin (sic) since the first of January, but would rather listen to him than what I am currently hearing. Why do I hear the call letters WCPE from Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina? Do you no longer have anyone in the studio on campus playing the wonderful classical music to which I am accustomed? When the current time is announced, it is an hour ahead of us. When the weather report is aired and I listen carefully to the forecast I learn that it is for an area near the east coast, not southwest Missouri. Are the college's finances in such a dire situation that it cannot staff the radio station? Is this merely a temporary situation (hopefully)?
Thank you,
Lucy Gilbert (faithful but frustrated listener)
Editor's Reply:
Thank you for being a loyal listener, we would really like to know what you listen to the other 10% of your radio usage time. We fully understand your concern about the local weather, but we are delighted that you like the programming from the KXMS library (37,632 titles at last count). Our programming style does differ significantly from that produced by WCPE-FM.
A number of market-related factors, including two interrelated issues, have necessitated our decision to add The Classical Station to our line-up: reduction in the KXMS budget and changes in MSSU's part-time employment regulations.
For years we've listened to KXMS 24/7. From this February, we gave up on the New Year Marathon and listened to WQXR from NY. By chance we heard your broadcast today and found you had changed your programming. THANK YOU.
We do not listen to other area college stations. They have too much talking and jazz (a little is ok). So, we found WQXR to have less talking and more classical music. The exception is "From the Top," the program that highlights young performers, usually jr and sr high, and chats with them. It's amusing. We could probably tolerate an hour a day of programs like "Exploring Music" but much prefer hearing music to hearing about music.
Patti Peters
Editor's Note:
"Exploring Music" is rich in commentary and high in production values and we love the program, but we certainly understand that most people listen to the radio for music with minimal talk most of the time. We would love to offer "From the Top," but it would require underwriting to pay for it. FTP host Christopher O'Riley was the recipient of the our 2006 Karl Haas Prize for Music Education.
...thanks for the interview (MSSU President Bruce Speck on 5/2/08 edition of Missouri Southern Live!), most of which I heard when it aired. It offered an enlightening window into some of Dr. Speck's perspectives, which I generally find informed and judicious--and it doesn't hurt that he was an English major! Indeed, we were pleased to have him in attendance at our English honor society induction (Sigma Tau Delta) last Thursday, where he shared some of his favorite poems, including one of Donne's. Again, I thought the interview was very helpful, at a crucial time in MSSU's development.
Bill Kumbier
MSSU English Dept.
As a former DJ for KXMS, I still rely on your uncanny sense of matching music with the rhythm of the world, your detailed playlists, and more recently, a very nice website, podcasts, interviews, noted birthdays and all the rest. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday is a good example in which you play one of Dave Brubeck's compositions "The Gates of Justice". Maybe I can re-join the KXMS family when I retire, but in any case, you are a credit to Missouri Southern State University, to classical music, and above all to the community which you so richly serve with the greatest music ever written. Thanks for your unending work in keeping culture alive and well in southwest Missouri.
Mike Davis
Neosho
Forgot to mention yesterday, the educational value of the program (EXPLORING MUSIC). It reminds of the ones I used to enjoy as a kid - Bernstein's Young People's Concerts, Radio's The Standard Hour (15 Min. in school), Mr. Wizard, & Professor Julius Sumner Miller discussing physics (in CA). I'm remindered of terms I learned in school, I enjoy his technical discussions of the instruments & the various poeces of music. It's a true music appreciation class. Keep it up. I only wish I knew someone else who listens so I would have someone with whom to chat about it during or later.
Anne S. Dorriety
Neosho
Editor's Reply:
Leonard Bernstein's remarkable Young People's Concerts are available on DVD. Though expensive, the set is nicely packaged and would be a wonderful gift for someone wanting to hear Bernstein speak so eloquently on a variety of music subjects.
We play KXMS continually. We've been pleased with the summer schedule and had hoped, since it continued past Labor Day, that we would be spared the local programming.
The schedule on your website shows the same, pretty much, as the last few years, so we have a few suggestions for the Red Onion Hour. We would appreciate your not playing Dukas, John Williams (Star Wars),Gershwin, or Thus Spake Zara... by Strauss. They've all been overdone, and then done again. Julie Ensor is acceptable, but she often plays music that Peter van de Graaf played the night before. We enjoyed The Carnival of the Animals the first dozen times or so that we heard it. Peter and the Wolf has also been overdone. It's now enough.
We do like chamber music and Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.
We realize you have your own agenda, but would appreciate your considering our tastes. In the past, we have turned the radio volume very low when ragtime was played, so while we are relieved to be spared the wordiness of Karl Haas, we worry about a whole hour of rag.
I wish I had more positive things to say, since we know KXMS is the best station in the area.
Sincerely,
Patti Peters
Dear Patti:
Thank you for your suggestions, we always enjoy hearing from our listeners. Our main agenda is to provide our listeners with a broadly appealing schedule of classical music/fine arts programming. Anticipating what everyone would like to hear (and when they would like to hear it) is always a programming challenge.
As a university station, a sub-agenda of 88.7KXMS is to educate our listeners and grow new audience by bringing them along with such shows as "Adventures in Good Music" and "Exploring Music." Not everyone wants to hear in-depth information, so those two shows have been scheduled in the evenings in more recent years. AIGM has concluded its run nationally and is gone, but "Exploring Music" will continue. Bill McGlaughlin is a bit more casual in his delivery style than was Karl.
In recent years "The Red Onion Hour" has become a place to highlight film and TV music, soundtracks and classical music heard in films (often times very familiar works). While our general programming is rotated with about 35,000 titles, "The Red Onion Hour" has had a shorter playlist rotated more frequently, as you observed. As that library grows, the rotation time will lengthen.
88.7KXMS plays the Beethoven symphonies and chamber music on a regular basis. Beethoven's Pastorale Symphony is played about four times throughout the year, and is one of the Top 300 ranked works. In the past couple of years we have made a point of playing as much of the Top 300 list throughout the week as possible to keep in touch with works that function as "comfort food" for the classical listener.
Our ability to serve our listeners is dependent on both feedback and financial support to grow our record library. Thank you again for expressing your interests.
I have my radio set on this station to ALWAYS listen while driving to and from work. I love it!
David Logan
Joplin