By the sound of it

While listening to different podcasts, I've really begun to see the role that sound effects and music add to the development of the story. As I listened to "Didn't ask to be born" from This American Life, I realized how much the music added to the meaning of the story. The music was so serious and subtle, it really made the first story what it is. Despite the fact that the actually narrative was do dramatic, the music helped set the tone and realize the seriousness of the situation.  It helped to pull me as a listener into what the mother and two daughters were feeling. The music plays lightly in the background while the family talks and keeps a very somber tone throughout the whole piece. It really has a large effect on the way the family was feeling and experiencing at the time.

I moved on to listening to the other pieces we had assigned for class. Music and sound effects were used differently throughout all three pieces. In the podcast "Scared," the song we are all probably familiar with -- the itsy bitsy spider -- plays throughout the piece. The music begins playful and young, as we would all recognize. As the man describes his daughter in her youngest of stages. There are excerpts of his daughter Harper as a baby, speaking and playing. As the piece moves along, there are excerpts from throughout his daughter's life reading, playing, and growing up. The music continues to play, and as time goes on, the song becomes more serious. It becomes sort of reminiscent for the dad, thinking back on his daughter's younger days and times. The music becomes less playful, as if a memory is being lost -- he has to let go out his daughter to grow. I noticed that the music is subtly always there, but is most prominent when no one is speaking. The song sort of brings back a memory for the father, and softly ends as the piece is over. It adds the feeling of time passing by, again, setting the tone for the podcast.

In the piece "The Kiss and Dying," there is a strong use of sound effects. It begins with what sounds like a man breathing heavily. As the piece moves on, the narrator speaks of things such as a cracking bed, alarms, an ambulance, heart monitors, and the emergency room, in which we hear a little bit of all of these things. It allowed me to picture these different things in my head, and imagine as if I was in the hospital myself. It helped me to understand what the narrator was feeling. There was little use of music, but the music that was used, were excerpts from songs that meant something to the narrator.  When the music was played, there was no talking occurring. Some of the music were her husband and her favorite songs, or music played as she thought of the things the never got to do. It set a serious, but calming tone. Although mostly sound effects were being used, I could still here the comfortable "background noise" that we talked about in class. I think this is an important thing to think about for my own podcast. As the piece ends, we hear the same heaving breathing from the beginning, and the story ends. 

The third piece, "lost in translation" was quite different. There was very minimal use of music. I noticed the music that was played, was a sort of traditional music, possibly related to Nepal as the narrator spoke of this. There was subtle excerpts of people speaking, translating or reading. For me, this piece was hard to understand. Because of the lack of music or sound effects, I couldn't really set a tone for the piece. It was hard for me to be involved as a listener. This made me realize how important sounds and music can be for setting a tone and getting your point across.

I know when making my own podcast, I should pick music and add sounds that help the listening create their own picture of what is going on or what I am talking about. The sounds I heard in The Kiss and Dying really helped me to picture this scene in my head. While the podcast Scared played music that was reminiscent, and also had meaning to the story overall. I see how important it is to incorporate these items into  podcast to set the overarching tone and point I am trying to make. Now the question is, what do I want my audience to hear and take away from what I am trying to say?

Image retrieved from: http://www.winningeronline.com/images/SS-listening.jpg