Lesson 6: Sound Criteria and Stretch Goals + Studio Time

Texts to have read / listened to / watched

The audio resources linked from our course site, i.e. free and licensed sounds and music and/or soundwriting advice and examples

Work to have achieved

At least two sound assets in Audacity as part of a soundscape preview, pushed to GitHub: modular .aup3 file, screenshot, updated list of assets, and a brief text description, plus a "flattened" mp3 export.

Plan for the Day:

Understanding criteria and inspirations (~5 min)
Loop writing to gather ideas and energy
- on your own project (5 min)
- on what makes audio narratives awesome (5 min)
Assessing / gathering criteria and inspirations (~15 min)
Studio and microconferences (~35 min)
Confirming criteria / Homework for next time (5 min)

1. Understanding criteria and inspirations

I’ve posted the guidance built over previous semesters in our shared google doc as a starting point.

I want to have these on screen as we talk about what it means to say something is “baseline” or “aspirational” for a particular unit.

Defining terms

Baseline criteria are things every project must do for minimum B credit. These are about familiarity with the essentials of composing in this medium, and about meeting core learning outcomes for the course.
Aspirational items aren’t really criteria; they’re inspirations toward excellence, nudges toward knowledge; they’re things worth trying, in other words.
- You can do none of these and still get a B, or even a B+ if you do the baseline stuff really well.
- You don’t have to do all of them for an A; in fact, they’re allowed to be mutually exclusive. Treat the list as a heuristic for invention, not a pre-flight checklist.
- You can try things and sometimes they’ll muddy the waters, make a piece worse. But it’s still a learning experience, and I want to reward that. Maybe it doesn’t get all the way to A, but maybe A-minus.

NB: All these grades I'm talking about are provisional: you can keep learning, reflecting, and/or revising through the final portfolio (and hopefully beyond). It's the whole semester's worth of learning I'm most interested in.

Questions about any of that?

2. Loop writing to gather ideas and energy

2a. Reflective writing on your own project (5 min)

In your own space – you won't have to share this unless you want to – do a little writing about your audio narrative in progress. What's exciting about it? What's challenging about it? What are you unsure of?

2b. Reflective writing on what makes audio narratives awesome

Shift now in your writing to think about the narratives you've heard, especially but not exclusively the ones I assigned for homework. What seems to make an audio narrative work well? Think not only about what makes it work at all, but also what stands out in your memory: what stays with you, in other words, as excellent or emulable. Jot down some notes.

3. Assessing criteria (15-20 min)

Given the goals of the unit, and given what you’ve just written down, what should we set as our minimum criteria for full credit? And what are some ways we might push beyond that minimum – not just in terms of quantity, but in terms of quality?

3a. Review, comment, and suggest

Working in groups, take ~10 minutes to talk amongst yourselves about what's already working, what's missing, and what you'd like to move or modify – or simply clarify.

As you reach consensus in your group, take notes in the shared google doc: add comments in the margins or use the "suggestions" feature (click the pencil icon in the top right) to propose modifications or additions. Or ask questions, if you have them!

When you feel finished, move on to the next section.

3b. Respond to each other

Read through the other groups’ notes, adding collegial / respectful replies to their comments in the margins to upvote, ask (or answer) questions, and/or propose modifications.

Make sure to loop back to your own comments to see if you’ve picked up anything to respond to.

ALT: If you had to miss class and you're reading this asynchronously, please also leave comments, especially with questions or suggestions. You will be held to these criteria, too, so make your voice heard!

We won't officially finalize them until after workshop next week, in case seeing real work in progress gives us new ideas.

When you feel finished, and your comments are stable, move on to the next section.

4. Studio While I Synthesize (25-35 min)

I’ll work solo to write up a clean list that reflects your consensus in the comments, while you all work solo (with groupmates on-hand for questions or other feedback) on your projects and any needed tutorials. My own tutorial screencasts are below.

Like last time, please set yourself some studio goals in the doc; at the end of class, I'll ask you to write a brief exit note on what you were able to achieve / what your next steps are.

Don’t forget to save and commit as you go!

And please do call me over if you have any questions your group can’t help you with.

5. Confirming criteria (8-10 min)

Please head back up to the criteria in the doc. Before we head into the weekend, I’d like to confirm that we’re on the same page.

For next time:

Work to bring in a full draft: a solid attempt at a complete audio narrative, ideally at the target length. Rough edges are still welcome.
- Remember that you don’t need to change the project filename from draft to draft! Why duplicate or triplicate your file storage needs? Instead, give your project a meaningful name and keep track of what’s changing in your commit messages.
Continue taking periodic screenshots and posting meaningful commit messages in git / GitHub Desktop.
- Not sure when to commit? One option is to do so whenever you’re about to stop working, with a note for what you’ll come back and do next time. (e.g. Did you save and commit just now? Don’t you want to?) Add more commits whenever you’re happy with the (potentially interim) state of some new feature.
By Sunday night (to ensure you’re not frantically finishing Monday morning and wind up late to class), push a full draft, including your layered .aup3 project file; screenshots of your workspace; an exported “flat” .mp3; and updates to your asset list, including citations for the sources you’ve actually used (with direct links where possible) and permissions/license to use them.
- We’ll be workshopping next time, so it’s really important that your piece be accessible on GitHub! If you’re still having trouble, or if you’re not sure it’s working, please do check with me. I have office hours today from 2:30-3:15, or email me to work out something else.
As always during this unit, please bring headphones if you have them.