Reading and Writing in a Digital Age

So…. I didn’t exactly follow the suggestions on our assignment sheet and I’m not sure if I can actually make my idea into a coherent and interesting audio essay but, it’s worth a shot. My idea first popped into my mind during class on Monday when we were talking about Morgan Freeman’s voice. People were saying that there’s a certain quality to his voice that makes you want to listen, when he speaks to you it feels like you’re getting a hug, and it makes you feel good. Well unfortunately, not everyone’s voice or tone or way of speaking is as wonderful as Mr. Freeman’s (he’s just got skills) and so I thought, why not make my audio project about the way people speak and the effect it has on the listener?

I feel like this would be a relevant topic because everyone speaks and there is definitely an effect when they do. I don’t know about other people but, when I talk to anyone, I control the tone of my voice depending on the person I’m speaking to or the desired response I would like from them. I know this definitely sounds very manipulative and a little sneaky, but it gives me time to think about my actions and it protects me from most word vomiting situations, though unfortunately not always. In my Audio essay I’ll be speaking about the different tones I use in different situations and the responses that I usually get. I will probably be the only one speaking because I’m not representative of the entire world population I can’t really generalize the ways people speak.

In terms of materials I need, I have garage band on my computer and I can record everything someplace quite in the dorms so I’m pretty much set in terms of the actual recording unless I decide to get other peoples’ input.

When I do record, some topics I plan to cover are: Setting, Purpose, Tone, and Effect of speaking. I will probably add a few of my own more specific situations and anecdotes and maybe I’ll use different examples online such as video reactions on YouTube. Since the project is supposed to be 3-4 minutes each section will probably be about 50 seconds with a minute at the end for a conclusion though I may allot more time to topics I feel are more important and less time to more supportive topics.

My purpose in choosing this topic is to hopefully make other people aware of the different effects their tones have on people and help myself reflect on the way I treat others based on what I say to them. I also hope that this will, in some way, help people listen better to things people are saying and how they are saying them.

I’ve been mulling over this audio essay for awhile and I think I may have found a decent idea to go on. As you all know, we are nearing the end of the election season. Those of you who are old enough to vote – unlike me, I don’t turn 18 until late December – will hopefully exercise your right to vote on Election Day. The politically charged atmosphere that surrounds us right now is fascinating, and I want to take advantage of that. So I want to ask people one thing, and that is: What does it mean to be an American? As the first-generation daughter of two violently nationalistic immigrants, cultural identity has always been a point of interest for me. This project is the perfect opportunity for me to gauge other people’s understanding of American culture and principles.

I have an unfortunate tendency towards introversion, so I fear this project may be difficult for me to pull off. I know I definitely want to survey a few college students — so I’ll likely pester people in between classes. It’d probably be best if I spoke to people of all age groups, though. Union Square attracts a rather diverse group of people, so I was thinking about sitting on the steps with a sign around my neck that reads “WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AN AMERICAN? (answer and help a college student pass her English class)”. I’ll record people’s answers from my phone, and then I’ll transfer everything to my Macbook and mess around with it all on Garageband.

Hopefully it goes well?

Just a warning. This is not very organized, and a sort of “thinking out loud”.

I wanted to document the problem of homesickness in my audio essay. I feel that this issue is very relevant to me now, as I seem to everyday think of home. I wouldn’t call it a “disease”, but it does seem to be chronic and always seems to grow or lessen in cycles. I’ve read many people’s stories on homesickness, and how even after years of living in a foreign country these still experience a sort of nostalgia periodically.

Globalization has rapidly created a generation of people who move constantly. Professionals move from United States, Europe, and Asia more freely than they have before, but I recently read an article of the negative effects of such movement. It seems that more and more people are missing where they came from, and don’t really have a place to call home. Maybe some are “ok” with this idea of being citizens of the world, but the world is much too different to ever become familiar to a point of comfortabiity. I want to share my story along with others and focus on the emotions and the feelings of nostalgia rather than the actual narrative. I think that emotions are very powerful tools to use in audio, both through voice tone and wording.

Music will be integral to my audio project. It can help set the mood that I want to convey.

Baruch, and New York  as a whole, are perfect places for my topic as both our school and city are considered “global”, whatever that means. I know that I have found the move painful at times, and occasionally you feel out of place or isolated.

In the Macaulay program the focus is on how great New York is, how the culture of New York is absolutely limitless. We are told how lucky we are to be here, and how much opportunity we have at our fingertiips. This was the reason I came, and I felt the opportunity to study in the biggest city in the United States was just “too good” to pass up.

I want my audio project to convey a sense of remorse. I don’t want it to be necessarily depressing as a whole, but it will use some of this emotion to force its listeners to consider that opportunity comes with costs. It’s not a simple switch coming from a small town to a large one, or vice versa.

This proposal has become a “stream of consciousness”… I may want to use different passages or sections as well as personal anecdotes and experience to create a sort of audio collage.

Obviously I still have a lot to think about, but I do have an idea of the central point I want my reader to feel, as well as a general method of conveying this message.

Internet

I could not think of a topic for the life of me. I needed inspiration. So, I read the few proposals that were uploaded to the site. Nothing. So, I read them again, I didn’t have any ideas anyway… When I re-read Brian’s post, I got an idea. I read the hashtag “#firstworldproblems” and an idea sprung. Hashtags themselves are new, a creation of the Internet. I am on the Internet right now, writing this prompt. I wouldn’t be able to do this assignment without the power of the Internet. Even though the Internet is a fairly new entity, is time irreversible? For the rest of eternity will the human race be subjected to the web? If so, it’s a good thing… right?

Well these questions are exactly what I want to ask people. The first one being, “Can you survive without the internet? And why?” I am hoping for very interesting responses. Initially, I suspect many people will say no, how they can’t live without it. But, hopefully after a few seconds to think about the question, their minds wander and they present me with fodder to work with.

Hopefully I stick with this idea, but there is always the possibility that I change it, but I have a few ideas. I want to ask a range of people, like young people to old people for example. I hope to ask students that go to this school, but also professors and others. Maybe I’ll even ask a few people on the train ride home.

Judging by the responses, I will organize them in some way. I am not sure how yet, because I clearly haven’t started asking the question. Judging by the responses that I get, I may ask a few more questions but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. I will be using my iPod to record, and my MacBook to edit. Hopefully the responses I get won’t be too long, but enough to get a few ‘Grade A’ thoughts in there.

The purpose of this project is to see why the Internet is/isn’t important to people, why do we need it, and why was it widely successful. I hope I don’t get generic answers, but I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

———————-

Well, this is my second attempt at an audio proposal. I left the original at the top for my own reference, but please pay no attention to it.

Best/Worst Teachers

I have had my share of… lets say, interesting… teachers.  Some of them have been really good, and some of them have been really bad. For me, the good teachers are the ones that stick in my mind. For the most part, I have been pretty lucky with the teachers that have been shaping what kind of a student I am. A few come to mind, especially my 10^th grade English teacher and my 6^th grade English teacher. The 10^th grade one, Mrs. Connelly, was my favorite. She was interesting, funny, and made me actually like the subject. But, she had to undo a lot of the damage that was done in 6^th grade. Mrs. Ellis, an elderly woman who was nice, but her teaching style was dry and (honestly) boring. She was a tough grader and did tend to get a bit angry if students’ minds began to wander, which was evident in their blank stares out the window and hushed conversations among their peers about the upcoming weekend. Now let me get to the point of the proposal.

The question I would like to ask people is, ‘Who is your favorite/least favorite teacher of all time.’ This question has the potential to be interesting because I want to know if people are more affected by positive or negative experiences in their lives. In the above paragraph, I tended to talk a little more about my least favorite teacher but notice that I put my favorite teacher first. When I proposed the question to myself, I immediately thought about Mrs. Connelly, but when I remembered Mrs. Ellis, I had a lot more to say… So, hopefully the results will be interesting enough for me to use in this project. I suspect that people will have mostly different responses, and maybe even have a few stories to share. I want to see how people learn, not just what people learn. What sticks with us through the years and why?

After haphazardly trying to come up with a concept that would be both mentally stimulating and entertaining, I believe I’ve arrived at a thought. Yes, just a thought. There’s a very good chance I’ll want to scrap everything and start something completely new, but at least I have something.

There were a lot of interesting ideas on ds106 site, and while I would have seriously considered the movie mash-up idea, I don’t have the time, or patience to do something on that large a scale. That, and it’d be really hard trying to come up with a real purpose for doing it other than brining Fanny Brice and Dolly Levi into the same quirky universe.

The “Over-Dramatized Reading” assignment is perfect for me – but I’ve decided to couple it with “Teenage Angst” assignment to give it more of a “meaningful and thought provoking sentiment.” Now the thought…

Everyone knows about #firstworldproblems, #teenageproblems, and how hilarious – if not completely true – they are. “Oh, my life is so hard!!” tweets a college sophomore from his brand new iPad as he has to wait longer than he expected for his coffee order that he paid for with a credit card his parents gave him. One of my major inspirations for this concept has to do with something we’ve all probably experienced at Baruch: the escalator “construction.” As I write this, I’ve already had to enture the trauma that is the third floor up escalator not working twice this week. Yeah, I had to actually walk. It’s ridiculous, but it’s our society.

So why not design a broadcast around the idea of an average teenager (spoiler: me), being stuck in the real world with all these problems? Like on Survivor, the broadcast would be diary-like confessionals where I express the hardships of having to actually buy a textbook because I can’t find a free download of it online, or that I have to get up and move to a different seat in the library because I need to charge my phone. Woe. Is. Me.

It should be a fairly simple process, just recording into my phone every time I come across one of these “problems,” and then editing it together with Garageband. I’m still working on how I want to incorporate music and sound effects, but I can almost guarantee some type of Cher-reference. (It’ll tie in, trust me.)

Oh, right. My purpose. The “grand scheme of things.” The “Modus operandi.” There’s two levels to it. I want to draw attention to the realization that we have so many advantages in life, and we usually take them for granted. I want people to realize how ridiculous they sound when the say the world is over because their DVR reset itself on them. Because it’s true. The second level is more for me personally: Why do I think these things? What drives me to be more upset over a lack of Wi-Fi rather than being happy with the fact that I’m a – supposedly – stable, healthy human being with everything he needs to thrive? I want this project to be a wake-up call.

I am thinking about two possible choices for this project: one, to do something like “50 People, 1 Question” with the question – If you’re going to give away something, what would it be and who would you give it to? Why? Or two, to do the audio assignment “Sing My Life” found in DS106 (not literally sing, but a song that describes my life and I can relate to it). Even though the latter seems more interesting to do, I think it will be more feasible to do the former. I might change if I cannot compile the answers from random people that I will question to get a point/purpose/message across.

The question that I pose before is an inspiration from the word “give” while listening to Ira Glass’s “20 Acts in 60 Minutes” in class. I thought that as human beings, we’re very selfish creatures, always wanting something for ourselves and are willing to rob it from others. So what if the situation is reversed, where instead are asked to give something away? I expect that there would be two sides to this: one, people who will give away something worthless that they don’t want or need, or two, people who will give away something precious that they value and want a special person to have it.

Depending on the answers I get, my direction towards how I want to present this project will be different. If I get a lot of answers of people wanting to give away something because they don’t want it anymore, it would confirm what I thought human beings are likely to be – selfish. And so, I might take a sarcastic approach to how I want to present it, to show the ugliness of the human heart. Or if I get a lot of answer of people wanting to entrust something precious that they have to someone they care about, I would use music to try to bring out the nostalgia and affections that exists between human beings.

For my question, I want to question very diverse people. There’s an event coming up that I will attend on Oct. 12-14 called NYAF (New York Anime Festival). There will be many people from the city and other states attending this event. There will definitely be terrible background noises because of the amount of people gathering, but I think it will be worth a shot. That said, I will be trying to interview people in school or maybe on the street as well. (I only have my phone… hopefully it can get the job done…)

Most of the talking will be directly from the recordings I get from interviewing people. I imagine the segments to have about 15 to 25 seconds for each of the selected persons in the Audio-Essay. That would mean I will have anywhere from nine to twelve different voices in my piece.

I actually do not know where I will exactly record my audio clips. But as I mentioned above, it would be either from people in Baruch College, on the streets around Baruch College, and/or in NYAF (which I believe will have lots of background noises).

To make this possible, I will be using my phone’s voice recorder, sound editing software (Audacity or GarageBand), and various soundtrack(s) that might come in handy to set up the mood of my Audio-Essay. I haven’t decided on which soundtrack(s) or song to use yet; it might become clearer as the project progresses.

As for the questions that I have:

1. Do we need to create some sort of citations for the sounds or songs that we use or can we just use it? The only reason I’m asking this is because I am thinking of using soundtracks from Japanese songs (of course, these will only be instrumentals).

2. What does the draft due on Oct. 15 entail? Does this mean that we should have the “draft” of the sound file? If I understand this, the only written work to hand in is the Draft Cover Letter. Correct? I’m a bit concern because I plan record much of my materials will be recorded in NYAF which is very near the due date for the draft. It will be nice to know what we need for the draft beforehand so we can prepare it properly.

Sometimes the most difficult thing about a project like this is coming up with a good idea. After approximately 2 hours of reading Google search results for thought provoking questions , I decided to ask for help. My parents suggested I talk about immigration, dogs, or read an essay I had already written. I didn’t really feel any of those topics. Then I thought, who better to call than my best friend? He spent an hour on the phone with me trying to help me come up with a great topic. “You’re over-thinking this. Anything you choose will be great if you do it right. You were on the speech team anyways right?” I just wasn’t convinced. I really can’t see myself talking for 4 minutes on the radio, although I could easily go on for more than 10 in real life. Exhausted, I mockingly suggested, “I should just make my project about me asking people what I should do for this project.”

“That would be awesome,” he said. He suggested that the deeper meaning could be the fact that humans rely on one another for ideas. We need help from others to form a basic starting point for our own thoughts and ideas, the same way we rely on Google or Bing to form the factual basis of our research (he’s an Engineer, what can i say?) And that’s how my Audio-Essay proposal came to be. A few Tylenols later, I’m sitting here sharing it with you.

I can’t say that I have this assignment planned out to the last detail or that it won’t be completely different by the time I submit it, but here’s my idea. I’ll give a brief explanation of the situation, as I did here, in the beginning of the essay and introduce the question. Then I plan to interview many people, mainly looking for short answers but periodically focusing on some interesting ones that the audience would like to see developed (hopefully such ideas will, in fact, come along so that I don’t raise my hopes for nothing). Each segment will be under 5 seconds long, aside from the ones that will be developed, which will be approximately 20-30 seconds long. As was suggested in the assignment, this essay could be part of, or the beginning of a potentially longer Audio-Essay which goes on to actually explore the topics suggested (which I probably won’t do). I’ll be broadcasting from many locations, but primarily from Baruch and my home. As for recording equipment, I will be using my handy dandy smartphone and Macbook. My questions are: Do you have any suggestions for improving my essay? How can I make it more interesting/appealing to the audience? Do you think it has the potential to be funny or serious? Also, from a technical standpoint, what is the best technology to use for the technologically challenged?

In my Audio-Essay, I will be talking about New York City. I came across a quote online one day while procrastinating, apparently from a comic book titled “The New York Five”:

“NY 101: It’ll rob you and cheat you. It’ll take your friends and turn them on you. It’ll kick your ass and break your heart. But then it’ll pick you up again, make you feel so totally alive and untouchable. It’s the center of the world, it’s the best place in the world, and once it’s in your heart, it’ll never leave you.”

Once I saw “The City” under possible topics, I knew that the message from this quote is what I wanted to focus on because it was so true to me. I wanted to record this with me doing the talking about the city life and my experiences with it. I also wanted to broadcast from my dorm room, which happens to be right in the city. I was not planning on interviewing anyone since it is a personal Audio-Essay, however I may end up interviewing my dad. He grew up in the projects to be successful and I think his story could be a perfect fit to what the city can do for someone – a rags to riches story. I think all I will need is an audio recorder and my own experiences for me to make my point. I do need an audio recorder though, unless I can figure out how to do it on my computer or phone.

I want to start by talking about how I see the city in a negative light, such as the pollution, dirt, homeless, difference in wealth and how these are so evident in NYC. How the city has defeated the homeless, the poor and how when they beg, no one pays attention because they are all too much in a hurry. Everyone cares for himself or herself. This will be about half my piece, probably around 1.5 minutes. But then the other half of the piece (2ish minutes) will transition into how NYC is the melting pot of every culture, how people come from all over to make this city home and to look to make their dreams come true. The success stories I see on the streets. The lights, the city that never sleeps, the New York state of mind are all things that revive the spirit when someone is down. Looking out my window and seeing the streets and cars late at night just bring me to life, wow, I am living in the city, the center of the universe. The city becomes home no matter what, it’s like your family and no matter where you go, your experiences here never leave you.

I was also thinking of playing “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z or “New York State of Mind” by Billy Joel under my speaking. But I plan on choosing the song after the story so that it can benefit the mood and tone of my story better. I am going for the message and tone that NYC is awe inspiring and that there is nowhere else in the world like it. One issue for me that may come up is interview or no interview. I also don’t know how to edit sound very well so that may cause some difficulty as well. But for me I think the biggest trouble will be finding a tone that shows how NYC has broken me down hard at times, but that it has picked me up, left me awe inspired, and after 17 years of living here, it will never leave me – a feeling many New Yorkers can realize and relate to.

I looked beyond the options provided on the project sheet for my draft proposal. I scoured the DS106 site for a topic that I thought I could really pour my heart into. The topic that I stumbled upon is called “SongStory”, and its description is provided here: http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/songstory/

In essence, what this assignment asks me to do is take a song that invokes some sort of memory in me. A place I don’t think about on a regular basis, but always think about when I hear this particular song. So the song that I chose was “Home”, by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjFaenf1T-Y). This song always takes me back to my sleep-away camp days at Frost Valley. Frost Valley was an integral part of my early adolescence, and I wanted to share my “home away from home” experience.

For starters, I imagine that I will be doing the majority of the talking in my piece. I would like to talk about a couple of things in my piece. One, the specific memories that are jolted into my mind just upon hearing the song. Second, the specific lyrics that connect to specific memories and people that I remember from camp. To add a different voice, I am considering including my sister, who also has gone to Frost Valley. I wouldn’t be “interviewing” her, I might just introduce who she is, and ask her what she remembers best about Frost Valley when listening to the song. I imagine I’ll be talking over the song for the majority of the piece, although I would like to play a bit of the opening of the song as well as the end. I estimate that the musical interludes will take up maybe 30-40 seconds of the total piece. My pieces would take up about 3-3.5 minutes, with approximately 2 minutes for memories and 1 minute for lyrical interpretations. I expect my sister’s bit to take anywhere from .5-1 minutes. This is a little longer than proposed on the project sheet, but I would like this to last the duration of the song, so that I can play it constantly in the background without break.

I would ideally like to broadcast from Prospect Park, because being in a natural surrounding (as opposed to the city streets) stirs up the nostalgia that I feel for camp. I think the emotions and feelings that I have for Frost Valley will come out much more clearly if I broadcast from the park. The issue with that is, of course, equipment. I would have to bring everything with me and set it all up outside. My phone can record audio, but especially considering that it isn’t a smartphone, I don’t know how good the quality would be. I could potentially borrow my sister’s iPhone, especially if I have her in my segment. I see the recording as a stumbling block that I’ll have to overcome.

I would like to convey a sentimental, nostalgic tone. Hopefully my description of my “home away from home” will cause others to think about their “‘home away from home” and what it means to them. I also hope to create a feel-good story through my anecdotes and stories. I expect the song to also add to the mood that I’m trying to create with this project. The song itself is very upbeat and sounds a lot like a mountain song. So I am hoping that it will serve to set the rustic scene, and listeners will be able to picture wide green fields, dense forests, lakes, and more. The music should also help to communicate the message of my piece, that everyone has a special place that they hold dear in their heart, even if they sometimes forget about it. And, everyone should take time to reflect on these places, for ofen they have a profound effect on who we are as people.

As far as hardware, I will definitely have to use Audacity/GarageBand. Between mixing in the song, my parts, my sister’s parts, and any other sound effects that I might find useful, a lot of audio editing will definitely be taking place. I have GarageBand on my Mac, so I have the most crucial application that I’ll need.

My questions include: How long is too long? If it’s a 5 minute song, should I cut it so my segment is more around 4 minutes? I’d like to keep the whole song, but if it’s too long, I’ll pare it down. Also, how long should the musical interludes be in relation to the whole piece? I have about 30-40 seconds planned, is that too long? Should I start my piece with some exposition as to what Frost Valley is, or maybe I should ask the audience to think about a place that’s a “home away from home” for them? I’m not sure how to start my piece. Ayuda, por favor?

-Ben Chatham

For now, I think I want my audio-essay proposal to follow a similar guideline to that of the Fifty People One Question video. The only talking I’ll do will happen in the first few seconds of the segment when I’m asking the intended question. I will try and interview as many people as I can so that I can find some sort of common theme and try to organize it so that my segment makes sense. My question will be: If you could accomplish something without the risk of failing what would you do? The segments will be as long as the person needs to answer the question. Quick answers would be nicer but I won’t impede the flow of the person’s thought processes. I will only interrupt if they’re talking for too long and I lose my patience (sorry not sorry). Hopefully the segments aren’t longer than 20-35 seconds so that I can compile enough responses to convey a trend. Right now I don’t know if I want to interview people on the street or ask people I know in school or at the dorms. Maybe I’ll try both and see which one is more convenient. Even as I write this I think that asking people I know will be much easier. The Fifty People One Question videos can manipulate the intended effect in more ways than I can by simply asking people. I feel like just standing on a corner recording people’s answers will end up sounding messy, noisy, and not at all what I envision them to be. I think I’m going to try to ask between 3 to 5 people of every different age group to see if there is any trend in their answers. If this doesn’t work I’ll focus on just one age group that does display a common trend. I’ll need a voice recorder (which I don’t own) and I’m not really sure what else….As of right now I think I’ll have access to everything I’ll need but I’m sure this will change as we discuss the project in more depth. I don’t know what programs I’ll need on my computer to work the editing and I definitely will not know how to work them so I’ll have a ton of questions when I find out. I’m mostly worried because this is so different and I’m basically a grandma when it comes to using a computer for things other than research and Microsoft Word…I finally learned how to copy and paste on the Mac recently….Help?