Week three introduced audio techniques used for digital storytelling. I had never used audio editing software like Audacity to create new digital sound clips before much less using audio effectively to tell a story. So, this week was challenging and annoyingly fickle at times, and yet it was a great learning experience. I spent a lot of time reviewing the resources, learning how to use Audacity, and completing all the assignments. Editing audio clips was very time consuming and spent most of my time with that process.
I found Ira Glass and Jad Abumrad videos and the ScottLo and TED Radio Hour audio clips very informative and summarized my thoughts on them in these block posts: “What’s the deal with Audio Storytelling?” and “Tune Up the Radio.” The audio story “Moon Graffiti” was really neat – I shared my notes on the techniques used in this story here.
Much of my time this week was spent toying around with Audacity, sifting through sounds on freesound.org. In the process, I completed 13.5 stars worth in four audio assignments:
Spooky Mansion is Spooky (4 stars)
A Bird’s Short Story (3 stars)
Get Ready for the Funk (3 stars)
Shopping Fail (3.5 stars)
Lastly, I completed two daily creates and commented on five of my peers’ blogs.
Though difficult, I did enjoy learning how to use Audacity to edit, merge, and create sound clips; I think it would take years to become an expert at creating digital sounds in general, but especially for stories. Good audio stories can be very humorous but also very emotionally impactful. It is key to have sound clips layered such that all the sounds can be distinctly heard, while the volume should remain relatively level so the listener’s hearing isn’t damaged. Combining music clips requires knowledge and skill to align tempo, pitch, and style to make an enjoyable piece of music. Again, I am very happy with what I created and I hope that I’ll have opportunities to learn more and gain deeper expertise with audio.
