Sonic Storytelling

May 8, 2021

Progress Journal II

Adaptations

After the in-class critique session, I realized that the ending should be modified to enhance the emotional impact of this audio piece, and that the plots I planned in the middle of the narration is not obvious enough. I returned to my inspiration, One in 8 Millions series and observed how they managed to have the narration integrated so well with the relevant background noises, and then made some specific changes.

       Here are three overall tips I concluded:

  1. Background noises should include people talking (verbal conversations), so that it does not be like an ambiance but rather a background sound.
  2. When people are talking, make sure their voices stand out. There should be something in the background, but very subtle.
  3. Volumes should be consistent.

 

Here are four types of changes I made in particular:

  1. Re-recorded the soundtracks to purify the quality
  2. Re-recorded background noises to amplify people talking
  3. Edited the end, make the music (chorus) continue after a short break to make the audience immerse in their own experience

 

May 5, 2021

Progress Journal I

This piece of sonic storytelling has carried so many layers of expression and emotions that I hope does not only connect to myself but also to a wider audience. It was a concrete story or a slice of a story that I’ve created in this three-minute audio, but I hope it can evoke something that touches on almost everyone who has experienced a falling from cloud nine moment. I depicted a story in which a young girl who works in Shanghai flew all her way to Seoul for a concert that she had been dreaming of for eight years, carousing the beautiful dreamlike nights fermented by music for the entire weekend and then returned to her mundane working life. To catch the airplane, she had to leave in the middle of the concert. She exited the stadium, burst into the street of a foreign land, searched for subways to take her to the airplane. As she was going through these steps, she was calmly replaying how this weekend had been like a wonder in her life. When she settled on the airplane and finally got a chance to rest, the music started playing insider her head, and she broke into tears.


I employed multiple soundtracks, mainly there are three most distinguishable tracks: the music (either the real music from the concert or the background music that accompanies her), the real-life happenings (including the sound of a door shut, the talk on the street, the subway arriving sound, and the airplane sound), and the narration. The music soundtracks are retrieved online. It’s a mix of the instrumental version and the concert version. The concert version has a larger volume, and it has the audiences’ cheers or singings as well. The instrumental version can serve as a non-distracting background, softly repeating the melody. The narration is recorded by me. I wrote a rough draft for the script, but then I thought maybe it’s better to make it sound like an interview so that my voice is less pretentious. I spoke very relaxed and tried to make it not much an embarrassing one when I listen to it myself. The real-life happening sounds are mostly retrieved online, but I also did mixtures, for example, for the street scene, I played the street noises and the ambiance from a Korea café vlog on YouTube together and recorded it so that it has Korean conversations going on casually in the street noises.