Essay Draft
Dear Listener,
For our Audio Essay we decided to do a spin on the Letters segment we listened to in class; instead of just reading a variety of interesting letters for entertainment value, we chose three letters from the Letters of Note website and took turns reading (either the entire letter or parts of the letter) aloud in two different tones. Our aim, aside from entertaining our audience with witty letters, is to show the audience how the tone of the speaker determines the effect and mood of the letter. For example, when speaker 1 reads a letter in a joking tone and speaker 2 reads the same letter in a serious tone, the effect in completely different-, even though the words of the letter have not changed.
The point that we are trying to covey is that our voices and how we choose to use them can be incredibly powerful. We encourage our listeners to recognize the power of their voices and to use them for constructive purposes. We want our listeners to walk away motivated and empowered to use their voices to make a difference, especially in election season. To get our point across to our listeners, we used mood-appropriate music and explained our purpose at the end of the Audio Essay.
We chose to focus on Ira Glass’s advice about using an anecdote and a moment of reflection (part 1). We use an anecdote-or a sequence of actions-as an introduction to our segment in order to captivate the listeners; we briefly describe how we came up with our idea and how we found our letters. At the end of our segment, we have a moment of reflection and explain to the listeners the point of listening to our segment in a broader sense; we reflect on how our segment demonstrates the power of an individual to use his/her voice in a constructive way. Both of these tools are important because they give our segment structure, meaning, and entertainment value. We also chose to focus on Glass’s advice about the importance of “abandoning crap” (part 2, 1:50). Glass stresses the need to be selective and ruthless to get something really good. We had to follow this advice when narrowing down the letters we included to 3 instead of 4 and when deciding what sound effects or comments to include in general.
Our main problems arose in the editing process. Both of us have little experience with Garageband and other editing software. We envisioned our Audio Essay to sound more professional and crafted, but we obviously couldn’t get it to sound perfect. We also struggled a little bit with making our tones sound varied when we took turns reading the letters, since we are not professional actors, but we recorded it a few times until we were satisfied with the results.
6 responses so far
I cant open your link, are you sure its working?
The link doesn’t work for me, either. It just takes me to your post (Above) but doesn’t open the audio project.
Hi Jackie and Chaya,
I like the music you’ve chosen for your opener but it’s competing too much with the opening monologue (music is too loud). Now, same thing with the switch to the Rolling Stones letter. It’s a great change, but it’s too loud and makes it hard to focus on the story, the words of the letter. Or the tone! Which is so crucial. Okay, so throughout, work on the volume levels of the music. You’ve got a great potential asset in the music, but it is a detraction at the moment. Since Jackie and Chaya have different voice qualities, it’s a little easier to hear Jackie, so you should work with the music levels against Chaya’s voice. Make sure she can be heard, and set the volume levels there.
Let’s talk about the first letter for a moment. I did see a change between the intensity of the reading between Chaya and then Jackie. Jackie’s was angrier, as Chaya says in the follow-up, but I’m still having trouble seeing how the heightened force in Jackie’s reading is, as you claim, “totally changing” the meaning of the letter. It’s still an attack, it’s still angry underneath it all. I think you have to account more for the content always having impact on a message’s meaning and even its reception. Tone can’t change everything. I don’t think it can change the content and word choice and their actual meaning that much–a little, yes, but not entirely–but tone can impact the reception a lot. Maybe content/reception–or something along those lines–is an important distinction to consider here. Admittedly, the words are hard to hear and focus on, but with all the letters, I’m just not seeing the totally different quality you’re ascribing to tone.
The way you frame this piece is important, and overall, I think the structure (the frame, the number of letters you choose to work with, the switching between you both as speakers, the shifts in music, the moments of reflection) is good!
About the frame: in the closing you talk about using tone to “elicit different feelings and attitudes” and about “using our voices to advocate, motivate, persuade.” You ascribe very powerful forces to tone, but don’t give any to the original words, which opens up room for questioning in your listeners, I think. Questions like: really, do the words themselves not matter AT ALL? I’m not saying I disagree with your claims that tone, and the quality of our voices, matter. But I don’t think it can change everything. Also, you’re ascribing powerful social force (advocating, persuading people to do the right thing) to tone and voice. But that focus feels a little like it comes out of nowhere at the end. Like, maybe you need letters that are advocating for social change? Letters that, in their content, better suit these claims for how the power of our voices can inspire action and real change. Then in your reflection on how you read the letters differently, you can comment on how the different readings might inspire different kinds of change (or fail to inspire change).
I also have to say that I feel like you’re missing an opportunity for some motive here: some attention to the question of “why should your listener care?” In this age of email and other curt electronic communication, we’re especially prone to missing the mark with tone. Over- or mis-use of caps or mechanical devices like exclamation marks, sentence frags, emoticons, and other shortcuts that are understandable in truncated communication can–as most of us likely know–lead to tones we hadn’t intended or anticipated. All you listeners can relate to this reality, I think. It’s harder to make, say, a letter to Churchill relatable. Maybe you can find letters to Obama, which during this election season would feel immediately relevant to readers. Something like that? The letters you have just seem distant from my personal reality, and thus it’s hard to care about how reading them might change the impact of their reception. You might consider choosing letters that have more relatable content, and to using our current common methods of written exchange (the slip-ups common in email and texting etc) to help motivate this piece, to help your listeners see why and how it matters to them.
Hi Guys!
Great job on your project! I love how the two of you collaborated and added double the creativity to your radio essay. I really like your opening music choice-I feel it’s a catchy tune that creates a fast momentum and flow to your piece. I also love how you switch off voices in an organized way (I think paragraph by paragraph or idea by idea as oppose to line by line or something cliche like that). However, I feel that the music does overpower your voices and your words get swarmed up by the upbeat pace of the songs-maybe try playing around with the volume (sorry, I am definitely no help there). Also, I love how your purpose is clearly stated for the listener-it contributes to the listener enjoying your piece. But although your purpose is there and I think you created the effect you were looking for, I agree with Prof Smith and feel that it’s a tad difficult to differentiate between the two tones in your voices. Being that this is a crucial aspect of your essay, maybe try on working on that aspect better. I love the ending song you chose-maybe try fading out the music at the end.
I would like to know why you chose those two letters to read out loud; they seem a little disconnected to me so maybe expand on that a bit.
Otherwise, great job and I am eagerly awaiting your finished piece!
You guys definitely achieved your goal, this was awesome. I like how clear it was. You explained what you were going to do, did it, and then explained it. I really liked the music you chose and the transitions for it (although your voices could be louder). I thought the ending was really effective and gave the listener a chance to reflect on what you just demonstrated. This was well executed and I can’t wait to hear your final product!
Your project was really cute. I liked how you guys started with the funny letter from the little boy. I agree that your purpose was definitely fulfilled. Your tones were clearly different and showed the contrast you needed to show the effect of tone on the way a piece of writing comes off. Your music choice was also really nice and they all fit well with the feelings of the letters. I feel like the music could be softer though and that would help your voices come through a little more. Maybe you could also work on the transitions because I feel like the segments get cut off too suddenly sometimes. I also had a problem with that while editing and i feel like that would make your project a lot better. It was great listening to your project and I’m looking forward to the finished project!