Skip to main content

Audacity; Sound On, Sound Off

Texts to have listened to: “Coffee Shop Conversations”, “Day In: Day Out”, “A Haunted Halt”, “Expedition to Planets Unknown”; orienting videos on Audacity.

Work to have achieved:

Plan for the day

  1. Sound, space, and attention (10-15 min)
  2. Into Audacity (25-35 min)
  3. Share and Enjoy (5-10 min)
  4. Generative writing (10 min, start no later than 3:45)
  5. HW Preview (5 min)

Sound, space, and attention (10-15 min)

Lots of great comments on the forum: about music as setting emotion, about continuity and contrast, about silence and volume. Here are my highlights:

Soundtrack sets the emotional tone

This one kind of speaks for itself, so I won't belabor the point: a drone can build suspense; soaring strings can sound uplifting or motivational; light jazz can sound cheerful or relaxing; etc.

A fun bonus example: an anxious arrival, original and remastered

Continuous background conveys consistent place and time; disrupted sound conveys change of place or time

Think of the hubbub of conversation in the coffee shop scene – but think also of the abrupt cuts in the background of "Day In: Day Out," which convey a jump from one place to another.

Many podcasts or radio shows also use short musical interludes to smooth scene changes: they provide continuity across the gap.

Repetition is okay. Repetition with variation is even better. One definition of narrative is interruption of a stable context, and the fallout of that interruption. When sounds recur, they create a stable context. That we can break.
Contrasting sound draws attention; so does silence.

Think of dripping sinks or broken glass, in contrast to continuous drones. Think also of how, in Coffeeshop Conversations, the part that stands out most is when the background – otherwise steady – fades away.

The flip side of this is that a long time without a change can drain attention: you can often get away with very short clips more easily than very long ones.

Layers do a lot of work A few people pointed out the way these things work especially well in concert with one another: ambient sound plus background music plus incidentals are what make it immersive.

2. Into Audacity (25-35 min)

Luckily, Audacity is made for layering! I’d like to spend some time now giving you a chance to play with the software.

I’ll ask you all to work with the same materials, just for today. In the soundscape2021spring repository that you forked and cloned last time, you’ll find a folder labeled “in-class activity.” That folder contains:

  • A one-minute selection from President Biden’s inaugural address;
  • A handful of instrumental tracks I found on CCmixter, a site for sharing music with explicit permission to use and (often) modify.
  • The full credits for these sound files, in the file CREDITS.md.
Your task for the next 20 minutes or so is to try mixing, matching, splitting, sliding, realigning, and otherwise messing around with these tracks.
  • Play with the effects that we noted in the discussion at the start of class: how does the mood change?
  • Play with the Effects menu: some good starting points include fade in/out, repeat, change tempo, delay, low pass filter. Check the "manage" button in Effects dialog boxes to see if there are any presets to try.
  • Try splitting the speech at the pauses to extract individual words. (NB: we can have some fun with reordering the words, but please don't push those to GitHub: we don't need any more fake news circulating!)
  • etc
I'll split the class into breakout groups, so you can talk amongst yourselves as needed without it getting overwhelming.

The LinkedIn Learning tutorials should have given you the overview you need to get editing, but do call me in if you have questions! You can use the “Ask for Help” button (ask for help button, which shows a question mark in a circle) in your meeting menu.

In general, when we're in breakout groups, I encourage you to unmute and have your cameras on – as long as your background sounds won't hog the microphone.

For this activity, headphones will help you isolate your Audacity playback from each other. If you want to share, you can unplug the headphones and your mic should then pick up the sound from your speaker.

If your computer can't handle both Zoom and Audacity, it's okay (not ideal, but okay) to drop out of the call for a few minutes while you're working. But do set a timer, so you can check back in after about 20 minutes. (Same goes for asynch participants.)

EXT: Audacity is complex enough that I’m really expecting you can fill the time here. If you’re really happy with what you’ve achieved, go ahead and save the project, then mute the current music and add a different soundtrack. How does that shift your perception of the edits you’d already made? What else does it make you want to try?

4. Share and Enjoy (5-10 min)

Let’s hear a few! Anybody have a clip they’re excited to share?

If you're participating asynchronously, can you email me a sample of what you came up with? It doesn't have to be anything fancy, I'm just curious to know how it went. To submit, you can either export an mp3, or push to github and let me know to look there.

Generative writing (10 min)

I’d like to spend some in-class time using writing – some listing and looping – as a way to get your ideas flowing. As I ask these questions, pause and reach out with your feelings until you sense an answer, or more than one – and then write down whatever comes. I won’t collect these, so they’re private to you. But I hope you’ll find them useful for getting to something shareable, moving forward.

  • In what places (physical, virtual, or imaginary) could you anchor your soundscape? Make a list. Anything you’re forgetting?

  • Choosing one item from your list you could work with for now, ask yourself: What kinds of stories happen there, and which of them could you reasonably tell within a few minutes?

  • How can you represent that environment sonically?

  • What sounds are relatively stable, or sustained, and what is incidental?

  • What structures or sequences could help a listening audience follow the story?

EXT: Studio time

If we have more time left in class, go ahead and start writing up your proposal – or start testing the feasibility of what you want to propose, e.g. by searching for sounds you think you’ll need, or opening further Audacity tutorials.

If we get do there, please go to our shared notes doc, bit.ly/cdm2021spring-notes to set your working goals for today. When we’re done, you can come back to the doc and update with your progress / goals for your next working session.

HW for next time:

  • The main writing assignment for the week is to post a proposal for your soundscape narrative by Tuesday, including a preliminary chart of sound assets you might want to include.
  • The term “asset” comes from a reading assignment from the book Writer/Designer (Ball, Sheppard, and Arola, eds). A scan of the relevant chapter is posted to Box, and now also to Canvas; please read it before writing your proposal.
    • Optionally, you can also read through a short four-page webcomic explaining how Creative Commons (CC) licenses get attached to copyrightable materials, and how easily CC materials can be included and/or remixed in further creations… with, at a minimum, attribution. The subject is covered in Writer/Designer, but the comic is cute.
    • Even more optionally, you can read the Stanford Overview of Fair Use, which you can find in a series of four webpages beginning at fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/. This text, despite being called an overview, is really a more in-depth understanding of fair use than the brief introduction in Writer/Designer. If Ball et al. struck a chord with you, here’s where to read on!
  • Finally, I’d like you to read the following advice on sound recording, listening to the embedded clips:
  • PS: Have you seen our plentiful Resources page? Be sure to at least skim both the free/licensed sounds and music section and the audio-unit-specific advice and examples.