For Audio Assignment 466 I created my own alarm clock. The goal was to use sounds around us (no music, no voice). I am not one of those people who wake up easily and there are very few sounds that don’t irritate me early in the morning. However, I remembered the recording of nightingales I made last spring when I was in my holiday house in the country. My first idea was to use them to help me fall asleep, but instead they just woke me up even more. So, reassigning them to their new role was a logical thing:
For Audio Assignment 152 I created my own ringtone. I used Roc by Aviary, which lets you create your own music. The drums I chose all come from the African Percussion section:
Roc is easy to use, especially if you watch the tutorial first. If you decide to play with Roc (it is highly addictive), you will find out that, due to its repetitive nature, Roc “music” is suitable for ringtones and alarm clocks.
I like this assignment because of its practical purpose. Whether you decide to actually use the ringtone or not, you will have good fun.
I used sound effects from Freesound.org to make this story. In Audacity, I complied them together into a recognizable pattern that would tell a story. I trimmed up sound effects where I thought it was needed and overlapped sounds to make a more effective story.
I listened to other sound effect stories to find inspiration and found a lot of suspenseful stories. I was then reminded of what Ira Glass said about story telling, “the power of the anecdote is so great that no matter how boring the material is…there’s suspense in it.” That idea struck a chord with me, the sound effect story does not have to be blatantly suspenseful to be a successful story. Why not use boring material to create story? This question made me brainstorm of boring situations. Where is the feeling of being bored the strongest? The last minutes of a class, obviously. The sequence of actions is completely boring, a person watches a clock, feels bored, sighs, and then finally the bell rings. Simple story but there is a underlying suspense that is just a strong as running from an unknown attacker.
There is a sense of anxiousness in the story, we all now that everyone is waiting for the bell to ring. You remember the feeling of being antsy waiting for that bell. That leads us to the question, why? Why are they impatient? What is happening that they just cannot wait for? The possibilities are endless, a date, a vacation, or simply freedom from school. Where is this person headed next? I left the end of the story to you.
One of this weekās require assignment is Audio Assignments 36āCreate a ds106 radio bumper (2 stars). I confess that I have not yet tuned into ds106 radio. To get a sense of some of the other bumpers that have been created I started trolling my way through other campers blogs, noting what I liked or didnāt about each piece.
Ultimately, I wanted to do something that would stand out and be attention getting. I donāt like the sound of my recorded voice so I wanted to minimize my vocal participation. I started thinking through song lyrics and tunes that might be cool to smash together, but my technical skills are inhibiting me.
Then I remembered a classic scene from the movie āWhen Harry Met Sallyā. You know the oneā¦in the restaurant, Meg Ryanās character Sally shows Harry her version of a fake orgasm. It was a great scene that makes many people giggle and blush. When Sally is done, an older woman at another table tells the waitress āIāll have what sheās having.ā
I thought that sounds effects of the fake orgasm and the older womanās line would be a great way to peak curiosity about ds106.
Once I had my idea, I went in search of the sound clip from the movie. Finding it on JoBlo.com, I downloaded the mp3 file to my laptop so that I import it into Audacity. Once in the program, I listened to it a few times, trimming it and looking for where to incorporate the DS106 plug. I was about to shortened the pause in the clip, when I decide to just use that break in the sound to insert the words DS106 there. I like the way it turned out. Simple to do and effective, I think.
This is my first shot at the DS106 Radio Bumper. For some reason, when I was creating the bumper I couldn’t stop thinking about the Looney Toons. I found the opening theme on Frogstar.comĀ and added the theme in as an opener. I then clipped several different songs to create the message in the bumper. I complied all the clips together in Audacity.
Having an assignment like this that is so open to creative interpretation is amazingly fun, yet at the same time, frustratingly hard. You want to create something awesome and memorable and you have to narrow down which resources you use and the multitude of ideas that you have brainstormed. I played with the idea of adding in clips from Doctor Who, The Simpsons, and Star Trek. I toyed with the idea of a musical interlude, different sounds, and different song choices. This was the final cut and I had fun manipulating it until I was happy.
While I was making this bumper, I was trying to figure out how the Looney Toons figured into DS 106. Yet, I thought of all the fun and craziness that accompanies the Bugs Bunny and all his co-cartoons. It definitely makes sense now and has it says in the Tiny Toons theme, “Expect the Unexpected” which seems to be a guiding philosophy at DS 106.
So in the words of Porky the Pig, “That’s All Folks!”
Texting has taken over the social world. About 5 years ago mainly teens were texting, but now everyone is texting. Let’s be honest, when we are driving down the highway we see people texting and driving, some of us do it ourselves. In high school, I signed a pledge to not text and drive. More than 100 students at my school signed it and I definitely followed the pledge.
Doing this assignment was very hard at first. I didn’t know exactly where to get my sounds or how to edit it together. Finally it all came together. I went onto FindSound.com and found some sounds that dealt with closing doors, driving, receiving a text, texting back, a crash, screaming, and sirens. I opened up Windows Video Maker and edited all the sounds together and made my story.
This assignment was fun to do, but I also wanted it to be a lesson. Texting can wait when you are driving, especially because thousands of people have died because of it. Just because you think that you are a “pro” at texting, doesn’t mean this can’t happen to you. Think about it, it a text really worth losing your life.?
For more information and facts about texting and driving, click here — Texting and Driving
Like some people use special whistles to attract birds, your task is to create an 30 second or less audio file that might be used to ācallā a particular character from a movie, tv, or real life. It cannot feature voices, but sounds only (try http://freesounds.org). Write a description why this sound would be attractive to the character, why it would be effective (be inventive, write a story about it).
(Stranglely the example I did, Calling Dr Oliver never got added, hmmmm).
So began to consider maybe a pair of characters calling each other, who might that be? My brain mulled back to the childhood TV shows I watched, so here is my bird call (details below the fold) (don’t peek)?
To reduce qa lot of track clutter, in Aduactity I use the SPlit command to break up parts of a track. Using the cursor tool, mark the point where you want a track split into two pieces, and select Edit – Clip Boundaries – Split (or command I):
(click for full size image)
And you can then use the Time Shift Tool (line with arrows at both ends, I keep calling it the “Move tool”) to slide the split clip to a different location on the time line:
You can also achieve this with doing a copy of a selection and pasting, but the Time Shift tool on its own is worth knowing about for adjusting where sounds occur on the timeline.
I wanted to bring my sounds up so they call back and forth, and I did some copy pasting on the kazoo to have it repeat, but applied the “Shift Pitch” effect to make it sing higher. The Congas is cool and steady and never breaks from the beat.
A Kazoo sound and a steady congo going back and forth? Do you have it yet?
I Love Lucy was a rerun staple in my childhood TV watching days, and without over analyzing it, it had to be the sheer energy of Lucille Ball, and her pranks– the loudness and use of high and low audio in this show emphasized the atmosphere so much, that you felt like you were inside the apartment (or down at the Tropicana Club).
It would be the role Lucy would be almost forever cast in, although she certainly did more than I Love Lucy. From IMBd I learn she and Desi Arnaz were innovators behind the scene, creating the standard 3 camera set up used on most sitcoms and developing the concept of syndication for TV. She was also the first woman to be the head of a film studio (Desilu Productions).
Lucy was a character for sure, few things can match the slapstick of the Chocolate factory scene
I cannot help but wonder how much of that was improv?
The Assignment: Looking through the great list of ds106 audio assignments, I was drawn to Taking Back Spam. We are supposed to read a piece of spam aloud either trying to make sense of it or rendering it even more absurd with the one caveat that we own it.
The Process: The piece of spam I selected was from left as a reply to a comment by Alan on my Flippin’ Out post from last month. The spam comment, quoted in full below, was striking in that it includes ideas and names of people that are related to the sort of stuff that Alan writes about and the EdTEch scene in which he operates. Doing this assignment has led me to wonder how and why such spam is generated and what the creators hope to accomplish in spreading it. The entire comment, with spruced up syntax and grammar, appears after the jump:
It’s not that open education must be free – it ought to be just open.The Open Course that Alec teaches is not free – students at Regina University pay tuition that supports the institution, helps pay Alecās salary, heat the buildings etc. They are paying for that sanctioned education that you describe. They are paying for a proximity to Alec that we dont get as the openly participating audience. But he teaches his course openly, so others can not only learn but also contribute to his paying studentās learning experience.I think David Wiley has written well about this; its not quite binary- open versus closed ā its a spectrum of practice.
After I cleaned up the text a bit in FocusWriter, I read it aloud into the SoundCloud app on my iPhone and then uploaded it to SoundCloud. Though I’m told from time to time that my voice has a distinctive timbre, I lack the skill or confidence to speak as a character or imitate other voices. I did give it a try in this reading though I don’t think my Welsh accent is very authentic. I was trying for an over-the-top Burtonian vibe in this assignment.
The poster image at the top of the post was done for fun. The idea of using Mark as Spam as a title came the moment I decided to do the assignment. In thinking about a Mark or Marc to use in an image, my first thought was Marlon Brando as Marc Anthony in JuliasĀ Caesar. But when Google image search presented Dick and Liz at the banquet, the choice of image became a no-brainer. Ā I also thought about using the original bass player from Van Halen until I realized his Christian name is Michael and not Marc.
The Story: It seems like each day this blog receives a dozen or so pieces of comment spam (I’ve disabled comments on all posts more than one month old or it would be a far higher total). The ratio of spam comments toĀ legitimateĀ comments is on the order of 25:1 and I believe I’m using a WordPress plugin that is supposed to address this. I continually wonder what is gained by this practice.
Though I’m not at all satisfied with my Richard Burton imitation in this reading, I am inspired to learn how to do other voices. Any level of success I’m able to reach in that endeavor will all be attributed to, of all things, a piece of comment of spam. Isn’t the internet neat.
My dad grew up on a farm.Ā Apparently farm kids wake up at obscene hours to do farm things.Ā By the time I came along, my dad had moved well beyond farming, but still kept what I thought to be very weird hours.Ā As a tween/teenager, nothing extinguished the candy-colored joy of summer vacation more than having to get up at 6:00 a.m. to pick vegetables in the garden.Ā Ā Rising before noon was the ultimate injustice to 14-year-old me.
Somewhere between there and here I started waking up early and enjoying it.Ā I think it started when I picked up running in college.Ā There is peace to be found at 5:30 in the morning when very few people are awake and the sun is just beginning to rise.
When it’s cool enough outside to sleep with the windows open, my alarm usually isn’t the first thing I hear in the morning.Ā It all starts with the birds.Ā The damn birds.Ā Then the city bus that passes by the house around 5:15 a.m.
In this assignment, we were supposed to tell a story using sound effects only. I decided to create a ghost story. Here it is:
I used FindSounds to look for the effects, then I pasted them together in Audacity.
I like the way this can be used in an EFL classroom. It is great for practicing past tenses, or simply as a creative writing assignment. In pairs or groups, students could first discuss what they think is happening in the story, then write their story. The accent should be not on “getting it right” (i.e. what the teacher wanted to say), but on the students’ creativity.
Camp is now over (see the final story. If you are craving an experience like this, head over to ds106 and see how to participate. For more on the Summer of Magic Macguffin, see.....
