Sound studio

Work to have done:

• A short blog post about possible group projects
• Work in pursuit of a final soundscape narrative

Plan for the day:

Today is all about working on your individual projects! Mix sounds, apply effects, watch relevant tutorials. I know your lives are busy; take advantage of this dedicated time free from other distractions and obligations to move your piece forward.

At the same time, it’s worth noting that you’re working in a shared space, in a studio. If you have questions, or you want feedback on something, you have your classmates and your instructor on-hand. Try not to monopolize anyone’s time, but do be open to the possibility of getting farther together than you could on your own.

Two seeds of ideas I want to plant:

• Consider titles. A title can provide a location, a clue, a genre, a commentary; it can make or unmake listener expectations. What will you call your soundscape narrative?

• Consider citation. If you’re using sounds someone else recorded, be sure to include enough information to recover where it came from. (See Writer/Designer page 162.) Note that any kind of CC-BY license requires you to say who made the source, not just give a link to the search engine that you found it with.

Okay, now go to!

Homework for next time

• By 11:59pm on Sunday, Feb 3, complete – at least for now – your soundscape narrative. Your repository (on GitHub or in a shared Box folder) should include:
  • Your most up-to-date layered Audacity project file (.aup)
  • The _data folder associated with that Audacity project
  • A series, now, of screenshots showing your Audacity project in progress. (Think about what moments are worth remembering as you go: where did you level up, or realize something, or get stuck?)
  • An updated ASSETS.md (or CREDITS.md) file reflecting what you actually used, including documentation of any outside sources and your permission to use them (e.g. explicit licenses like CC, or fair use)
  • An updated README.md file introducing your soundscape narrative to a new audience. Give your piece a title! Make it something to live beyond this assignment, if you can. :¬)
• By Tuesday’s class, write a prose reflection that incorporates images from your feedback and screenshots of your Audacity project. As explained in the soundscape prompt, this should include:
  • At least 500 words
  • Your own assessment of how you met the baseline criteria and goals for the unit, as well as any aspirational criteria as appropriate
  • At least one photograph of a notecard with feedback you used (and please say how)
  • At least one or two screenshots of your work in progress (ideally, related to the discussion in the previous two bullets)
• Post your reflection to the course site’s Issue queue, to make it easier to embed images.
  • If you want to then copy the source code into a file in your repo called reflections.md, I won’t stop you!
  • If you feel strongly that you’d rather keep your reflection private, you can email it to me instead. But my default assumption is that we learn from each other as much as from ourselves, so I hope you can find a way to write publicly about your experience with this project.