Weekly Summary-Week 5-So Many Sounds!
As I said with Week 3, as the semester goes along, classes can get easier or harder. Week 3 was easier than Week 4, and this week, Week 5, I do think was a bit easier than Week 4!
Saturday
On Saturday, I looked over the week’s assignments and what was posted on Slack.
I also did my first Daily Create of the week, about what plant I’d be. I was having trouble figuring out what plant, as I knew I wanted it to somehow connect to a cute little garden or something. I was quite happy when I thought of ivy, which I really like the look of, and it also involves old houses, which I also love (and want to be my career!).
I would be ivy, spending my time on a little old cottage overlooking a garden!@ds106dc #tdc2446 #ds106 pic.twitter.com/1nwvqwcuk3
— Francesca Maisano (@FCMaisano) September 22, 2018
Sunday
On Sunday, I did my first assignment of the week, which was saying a tongue twister and then putting sound behind it. This was overall a relatively easy and fun way to kick off the assignment! The hardest parts were finding a tongue twister and then saying it right! I really wanted to find a tongue twister that I could think of a background sound, and I eventually stumbled upon this one, which I had never heard of but was fun! The recording as hard because not only is it a tongue twister, but I am a bit of a perfectionist, so it took me a while to get a recording that I liked. Finding the frog sound that I put behind it was relatively easy and quick, as Freesound.com was a good place to look.
I also submitted 3 posts for the Writing showcase. I thought that ttueros, who was trying to organize our group, said to submit them by 10 am Monday, not Sunday! I felt, and still feel a guilty that I didn’t submit mine until late Sunday, since I know she was worried, and I know that I would’ve been too, if I wasn’t one of the people who were late!
Monday
On Monday, I did my second Daily Create, about what you’d have in your bomb shelter. I, of course, was serious about part of it (i.e. the food, water, sleeping bags, etc.) but obviously if you’re trapped for any amount of time, you’d need entertainment. Cards are so versatile and don’t need electricity, so I think they’re a good choice. I went with a gramophone and records, because music is always nice to have and some gramophones (I think) don’t need electricity, which is perfect for the apocalypse. Finally, I went with all of Tolkien’s works. If I’m hiding with my family, it’s great, because they all love Tolkien, and I’ve been meaning to read Lord of The Rings, so I’d have much time to read the series. Also, I made sure to include the Simarillion, as that is so dense it would take forever to read!
The essentials: many cans of food and water, sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows, as many clothes we can carry, soap, etc. For entertainment: cards, a gramophone, records, and all of Tolkien's works. The Silmarillion should take a while all on its own!@ds106dc #tdc2448 #ds106 pic.twitter.com/ZGrnSr91v3
— Francesca Maisano (@FCMaisano) September 24, 2018
I also did my three other assignments to get to 4 stars.
First, I did the mandatory “Sound Effects Story” assignment. I knew from the get-go that I was going to make this one the one involving my character. I wasn’t quite sure how, but then I decided to use the intro narrative I made for her introduction post. That narrative is obviously written, which is more my forte, so I decided to try and do it in sounds instead. This was a fun assignment to do! I already had the basis for the story, and along with that possible sounds. The hardest part was finding the right sounds on Freesound.com. Since I already wrote this story, I already had ideas on what I wanted each sound to sound like. So, I just had to do some digging to find what I was looking for. The other challenge was layering all of the sounds and getting the timing right. At seven sounds, it was the most I had ever used in one project up to that point. The minute-thirty limit was a bit of a challenge with all those sounds! I also used some effects on some of the sounds, which took a little while the figure out sometimes. Overall, I’m quite pleased with how it turned out!
Another assignment that I did was creating a place with sound. The hardest part with this assignment was thinking of what place to use! I’m not sure how I decided on this, but I went with my dorm room. Like with the assignment above, the hardest parts were finding the right sounds and layering and timing them right. I was really picky with what sounds to use, as the sounds that I am trying to find are ones that I hear everyday and I wanted this audio to be as accurate as possible! The layering and timing was also tricky. Remember how I said that seven sounds were the most I’d ever used? Well, here I use nine! It was annoying trying to time them all right when Audacity doesn’t show them all on the screen at once. In retrospective, I probably could’ve moved sound of the sounds to the same line, as long as they didn’t overlap, so I would’ve had less lines. As with the other one, I’m overall happy with this one too! Although, I have to make a correction. When I made this, my hallway door required three hits/shoves/hip hits to get it to open. It now requires at least 5, along with begging and pleading! (I’m going to put in a work order, as it’s a bit of a safety issue!)
For my final starred assignment, I had to make a recognizable, normal sound into something different. The first sound I thought of was my roommate’s electric pencil sharpener. As can be heard in the audio I made about my dorm room, which is the assignment I just talked about, the room is often very quiet when we’re in there doing homework or just on our computers. So, when a loud noise suddenly starts in the room, it scares me! So, I decided to take this noise and make it a siren, in homage of the tornado siren last week. The pencil sharpener noise was nice and consistent, which made the transformation of it easier. This wasn’t a super hard assignment. I just had to figure out what each of the Audacity effects were and how to work them. I eventually did figure out how to use the amplify feature to amplify gradually, and not i huge increments! I ended up using seven effects, which I believe is the most I’ve ever used in one project, and certainly the most on one sound! The resulting siren sounds quite ghostly, which actually kind of ties with our theme, and it more than I hoped for! I played it for my roommate, as it was her pencil sharpener, and she was quite impressed too! Apparently, she’s never used Audacity. I may have to show her how, as I had a lot of fun messing with it!
I also posted some ideas on the radio show. I have never been on a radio show before, nor have I really listened to any either, but I did try and think of some!
Finally, I also participated in the first live “tweet-along”. I really enjoyed listening to Anansi Boys, though it did take me a little bit to get used to critically thinking about the sounds, not just the plot, as well as quickly tweeting! Here is my tweet thread for the “tweet-along”. My blog post I made about it is under Tuesday.
Getting ready to listen to ds106 radio! #ds106 #ds106radio
— Francesca Maisano (@FCMaisano) September 25, 2018
Tuesday
On Tuesday, I did my third Daily Create, about describing your age without using a number. I decided to try and find an event or something that happened exactly on my birthday (same day, month, and year). I love space, even if I never want to actually space travel, except in a Star Trek ship!
I'm exactly as old as the First International Space Station Flight!@ds106dc #tdc2449 #ds106 pic.twitter.com/ezft3uLs4Q
— Francesca Maisano (@FCMaisano) September 25, 2018
I also created my radio bumper. It was a mixed bag for me. Again, I don’t listen to the radio, such I’m not super familiar with radio bumpers. However, I got the gist of it. The wording wasn’t too hard, although it did take me a few tries to get it right. The hardest part was finding the right music on Freesound.com. I really wanted music, and not just intro and outro notes. I eventually did find something that soundest mysterious, with goes well with this theme. The music even didn’t have any copyright, so Spotify should be OK with it!Then came the hard part of editing that already-made music to find my speech. Working out how to do the fading in and out with the fact that I cut and de-amplified parts of it was a bit hard to do, in order to make sure it didn’t sound choppy or awkward. This assignment did get my feet wet with making radio shows, though I still need some practice!
I also wrote up a blog post about Monday’s live “tweet-along”. This wasn’t super hard. I just referenced my tweets when writing the analysis and observations about the radio drama. I was thinking about the analysis and all while listening, which definitely helped! Honestly, the hardest part was finding a spider picture that I could stand to look at!
Finally, I participated in the second live “tweet-along”. While it wasn’t required, I did want to hear more of the story! It was easier the second time around to listen more critically and to tweet faster. I enjoyed it just as much as the first time! As before, here’s my twitter thread. My blog post is under Thursday.
Since I have the time, I might as well tune in for this night of #ds106radio too! #ds106
— Francesca Maisano (@FCMaisano) September 26, 2018
I also commented a couple times. First on this assignment that someone made of an audio of someone opening s closet door and everything falling on him-very sitcom-like! I thought it was well done and sounded painful!
(I’m not sure why this isn’t embedding properly, but the link still works)
I also commented on this post of that was created to sound like the NYC subway. While I’ve never been to NYC, I’ve always wanted to, so I enjoyed listening to this audio!
Wednesday
I didn’t do anything Wednesday, because umw.domains wouldn’t let me 1. log on or 2. if I was logged in, I couldn’t see the CPanel to get to my blog. I didn’t want to log into WordPress, as umw.domains is secured. I didn’t think it was on my end, as I tried to log into it from my computer and my phone. I also tried to use my roommate’s computer, in case it has something to do with cookies or cache, but that didn’t work either! I decided to wait until the next day to see if it would fix itself.
Thursday
Well, it works again! I did log into WordPress before it stared working again, so I hope that won’t bring any issues. I still don’t know why it’s working again, but hey! I’m just glad it is.
On Thursday, I completed the blog post for the second live “tweet-along”. I somehow felt a bit out of practice, as I hadn’t done anything for this class on Wednesday. One day shouldn’t make that much of a difference! However, using my tweets as notes, the analysis also wasn’t too difficult to do. I focused on the different things this night, as well as the difference between this night and the first night, so I had also the first blog post as help.
I also started to work on this blog. Clearly, I got into the swing of writing again, based on how long this weekly summary is again!
Finally, I finished my last assignment of the work, which was ironically the first on the weekly assignment post (several other weeks I’ve done that too. Maybe it’s a pattern). What Abumrad said in the videos was interesting, especially as I am like him and am a TV (and movie) person. “Moon Graffiti” was also interesting to listen to, but definitely was depressing! The audio was very good, though, and gave me a lot to think about. The hardest part of this assignment was pulling all of my thoughts together into cohesive, rational text. The end product makes sense to me at least!
P.S. While my blog says it was finished on Friday the 28th, I did publish it on Thursday. I’m not sure why, but the dates for posting both blogs and comments seem to be off a bit!
I also commented a couple times.
First, I commented on this audio post of a train whistle that was distorted. It was really well done-I would not be able to tell that it was originally a train whistle!
I also commented on this post about a realistic horror story. The build-up was great-the ending totally took me by surprise!
Friday
I turned this post in!
Overall, I enjoyed this week. I was really not looking forward to this week, as I hate listening to the sound of my own voice. I didn’t realize that audio wasn’t just voices, but also various sounds, noises, etc. So, many of my assignments this week were sound-based, which I really liked to do. Using sounds to tell a story is like making a puzzle-so satisfying to figure out! However, with the assignments that did involve me speaking, I did feel like I got more comfortable with listening to myself talk. I also did get more experienced with Audacity, which I found great fun and will probably be useful later!
About The Author
