For my next design assignment this week I did “Interview/Music Mashup” (3 stars). I loved the example that was posted on the assignment page, as well as some of the other people’s takes on it. They all turned out super funny so I figured I would give it a try. I think the hardest part for me was figuring out who to interview and what to ask them about. I thought about doing something about Ebola but I figured that would be hard to find songs for. Then I thought about interviewing Ray Rice about beating his then-fiance or Reggie Bush about beating his kid but I figured those hit a little too close to home (and also may be hard to find songs for). So I decided to go with the big news around DC right now, the fact that Kirk Cousins will be the starter for the Washington Redskins for the remainder of their season.
First, the interview:
Here is the list of songs and artists that I used:
This Is Our Time by Kenny Chesney
Honky Tonk Badonkadonk by Trace Adkins
We are the Champions by Queen
All Jacked Up by Gretchen Wilson
And the Crowd Goes Wild by Mark Wills
Angry All the Time by Tim McGraw
It was actually a lot easier to choose questions and songs than I expected it to be. I thought that would be the hardest part but it turned out that choosing the person to interview and the topic was the hardest part.
How I did it:
First I made a Word document with all of the questions that I wanted to ask and thought of songs for them as I made them. I found the lyrics to the songs using Google. Then when I picked the part of the song I wanted to put the lyrics in the Word document so that I would remember which part of the song I needed once I downloaded it. I downloaded them from YouTube using a YouTube to mp3 converter. When I did that for all of the songs I needed, I opened Audacity. I recorded all of the questions first so that I would have them all there. I then imported the songs one at a time as I got to the questions that they answered. I had to listen to the song to find the right part and delete the parts that I didn’t need. I did that for all of the songs and then lined them up so they sounded natural. I then selected all and clicked on Effect>Normalize to make all of the different clips the same volume. Then I saved it as an audacity file and exported it as an MP3 file. I uploaded it to Twitter and the Hub via Known and uploaded it to SoundCloud separately (I can’t figure out why it won’t work).
I hope you enjoyed listening as much as I enjoyed making it!
For this audio assignment, I had to pretend to interview someone and have their responses be snippets from songs.
I chose to interview Luis Suarez, a profession Uruguayan soccer player. If you don’t know what happened recently in a World Cup match, Suarez was caught biting an opponent. This is the third time he’s been caught doing so and there is a lot of controversy about the event. You can read more about it here and also watch a video clip if you are curious! I decided to pick Suarez to interview because it’s been in the news a lot lately and would make a funny audio mashup!
I brainstormed songs on my own to use. I also Googled songs about being hungry or other topics related to the event, for example, biting, hunger, and being sorry. Once I had a list of songs, I created questions that would match the lyrics. Here is a list of the songs I used snippets from:
Once you find the song on YouTube, just copy the link and paste it into the box above the buttons that says “Covert Video.” Then click the “Covert Video” button. The image below should come up. Then, click the “Download” link and the mp3 will be downloaded to your computer. You will then be able to access it from GarageBand.
Once you have done this for all the songs, you can drag the songs from the Media Browser under the Audio tab onto the track.
Now you have a bunch of full-length songs, when you only need snippets of then. To break up a song into segments, you need to use the Split tool under the Edit menu. Make sure the red time bar is located at the time where you want to split the song, then split it.
Do this repeatedly for all the songs until you have all the snippets you need. Then, just use the Record feature (the red circle) to record yourself asking the questions. Rearrange the snippets as needed.
For this audio assignment I chose to do the interview/mashup. I based my interview on ESPN and Lebron James because well, he have been trending on twitter all day since he revealed he will be returning to Cleveland. Here it is:
Here is the transcript of the interview. All songs are hyperlinked with their appropriate lyrics.
This is Randi Crabbe reporting live from ESPN Sportscenter. I am here with Lebron James on his first interview after announcing his return to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
This has been breaking news from Sportscenter. I’m Randi Crabbe. Have a great night America Sportscenter theme song
Even though this assignment took me a couple of hours to complete, I had a lot of fun doing so. Once again I used Audacity to loop all of my sounds together. I downloaded each sound from YouTube using http://en.savefrom.net/.
Then I tried to import them to Audacity, but it gave me a message saying I must convert these videos into either an AIFF or WAV file. To do this I simply used an online converter and was easily able to save these newly converted files.
Now that I had all the files converted, one by one I recorded each segment of my own voice and then imported the songs I had chosen. To get the portion of the song I wanted, after I imported it I used the zoom key to view the song in greater detail, where I then cut out the appropriate words and deleted the rest.
Here is a snippet of my Audacity file to show you what it looked like.
For a better tutorial on how to use Audacity, I encourage you to watch the video by Alan Levine.
Since basketball has infiltrated our house once more this spring in the realm of the NBA playoffs, I decided to dedicate my second audio assignment of the week to the Washington Wizards who, though by a thread, are a part of the playoffs this year.
I interviewed Randy Wittman about the Wizards’ chances in the playoffs and his plans once the season is over. I gathered some intelligence from this Washington Post article to prepare for the interview.
I recorded this directly into SoundCloud and uploaded the file to embed into this blog. I compiled the songs from Youtube clips. I cued up the part of the songs I wanted to use and had them ready to go as I recorded. There is a bit of a delay as I was moving between screens, so I might perhaps have printed out the questions so I wouldn’t have to go back and forth. Here is a list of the questions and songs I chose.
Q. The Wizards are playing the Chicago Bulls tomorrow at 7pm. Are you excited for this match up?
This assignment was a great way to work on pulling audio together. These songs really have no connection to each other, but as part of a story really work quite well together!
I have just completed the “Audio Assignments” section of my free online Digital Storytelling DS106 course and I have learned two very important facts. Having struggled through the creation of a 14 minute radio interview, I now have the utmost respect for the technical wizards who work “behind the scenes” to craft a radio show. Secondly, I have a new-found appreciation for the power and possibilities that Audacity, the free Macintosh, Linux and Windows audio editor and recording application, has to engage students in K-12 classrooms. With its wealth of online resources and support, Audacity should be a standard classroom and student application.
My “Interview/Music Mashup” audio assignment followed the Dickie Goodman interview style. Feeling that it was important to share the powerful ideas and learning that is associated with the DS106 phenomenon, I decided to create an investigative radio interview. I directed 20 probing questions at two “anonymous” DS106 students and they, in turn, answered with relevant snippets from popular songs.
The K-12 Perspective
What have I learned during this exercise that might apply to K-12 students?
First, and foremost, students today are engaged when they use technology to support their learning. The fact that Audacity is a free, open source application (that runs on a variety of operating systems) means that students can install this application on their home computers and work on an audio assignment outside regular school hours.
For example, I’d recommend that students be required to collaborate with partners as they produce audio assignments such as the following:
Social Studies students might create a campfire talk between Radisson and Groseilliers as they discuss exploration and fur trading with the Hudson’s Bay Company. Can you hear the cracking fire, the loon and the wolves howling in the distance?
What would two privates, who are in the front line trenches preparing to go “over the top” during World War I, talk about? Imagine the sound effects of battle that could be added to enhance the realism.
Two students could compare and contrast a poem or novel in a Language Arts class.
Music students might make a recoding of a duet together with an added “Extra Features” section which outlines the learning journey that they went through in creating the musical recording.
Science students might create an audio interview where they ask questions of scientists such as: Archimedes, Marie Curie, Einstein, Euclid, Galileo, Frederick Sanger or Jonas Salk.
Students who are interested in sports, might create an interview where they dissect a recent game and compare and contrast different coaching styles and player performance.
Regardless of the audio assignment chosen, I think that all students should include an “Extra Feature” that outlines what they learned during the activity, what they might do differently (if they were to select this same project again), and suggestions and tips for future students.
As an educator you would not want your students to upload their .mp3 formatted audio assignment to a web server. However, students could still transfer their home-created audio files to a USB memory device and bring them to school where they could be shared on a CD or showcased from the teacher’s computer behind the school’s firewall.
Regardless of the subject-specific learning opportunity presented to students, I can assure readers that using Audacity together with technology to tell a particular story is a powerful and engaging educational process.
The DS106 Perspective For me, this audio assignment opened up an entirely new way of telling a story. True, I have used Audacity in past but I have limited my use to a very simplistic process. For example, in past, I simply recorded my voice and added any additional audio into the single, primary audio track in the Audacity application. However, this assignment challenged me to use multiple tracks for the announcer’s questions, the vocal snippet replies, and the the musical interlude. I even played with a robotic modification of the two student’s responses to preserve their anonymity.
I began by roughing out an interview script where I identified “20 questions” (based on the old radio show of the same name) that I thought might highlight some aspect of the DS106 phenomenon. I then searched YouTube for songs that I though might contain lyrics that would apply to some aspect of the DS106 experience. I must admit that I spent a great deal of time searching for the right music tracks. Furthermore, it is often necessary to listen to the entire song to find the most appropriate lyrics or the section where the audio is clearest. Unfortunately, during this time consuming process, there were many songs that were considered but rejected.
One thing that I would like to see is an efficient way to search for all songs that contain a specific word or phrase. For example, when I was searching for music that would help share with listeners the time commitment that students may invest in DS106, the only song that came to my mind was Jim Croce’s “Time in a bottle”. Although the word “time” was in the title, Jim’s lyrics did not help me portray how busy students can be with this innovative DS106 course. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to efficiently search a comprehensive data base containing all the lyrics to popular songs. If you the reader can suggest a search technique to find possible lyrics and music, I would be very much appreciate if you could share your strategy through a comment at the end of this post.
In past, I would have began this assignment by recoding the first interview question into Audacity and then adding the appropriate musical segment as an answer. I would then continue repeating these two steps, which might span several days, until all 20 questions and answers were mixed to my satisfaction. However, knowing that on subsequent days, I would have difficulty making certain that the audio levels and that my microphone position were in the exact same location, I was concerned that there would be a noticeable difference between questions.
In order to maintain the same audio “balance” between all 20 questions, I decided to record the interview question track all at the same time. I had my script written out and I simply read out each question and left a three second placeholder interval between questions. Once I saved the respective Audacity project file (e.g. “interview-V1.aup”), I then could add in an additional track containing the vocal lyric answer which could be slid along the timeline and tweaked to fit into the respective “placeholder interval”. Knowing how much effort I was putting into this assignment, I made certain to save my “creations” on a regular basis. I used my traditional “version” naming convention and simply increased the “version value” each time I added a new lyric reply to a new question. This process allows me to save filenames as: “interview-V1.aup”, ”interview-V2.aup”, “interview-V3.aup”, etc. Should a “hiccup” occur, I can always go back and retrieve an earlier version to continue my work.
Extra Features
My tip to others who wish to create a Dickie Goodman-style interview using Audacity with musical lyric replies is to pay very close attention to the “sampling rate” of all components. Where possible, it is best if all audio portions can have the same sample sampling rate.
For example, when I started recording my main 20 question track into Audacity, I simply proceeded using Audacity’s default sampling rate which was set at the 44100 Hz level. In Audacity, one can set this sampling rate from a low of 8000 to a high of 96000 Hz. Obviously the quality of the recoding, together with the audio file size, increases as the corresponding Hz value increases. However, when I started acquiring my musical lyric replies, I failed to notice that most of these audio snippets had a slightly higher sampling rate of 48000 Hz. It was only when I was part way though blending these musical replies, that I noticed a particularly familiar snippet seemed to slow down and change in pitch when it was mixed with my primary 20 question track. It was then that I noticed the difference in the sampling rate between my question recording at 44100 Hz and the musical snippet at 48000 Hz. I explored all avenues and could not find a way to reduce the sampling rate on the individual musical replies without distorting the melody. So I continued blending my lowered sampled interview questions with the higher and more precise audio snippets. Once the final mixed interview track was completed at 44100 Hz, I simply re-saved the entire file at the higher 48000 Hz level which preserved the original melody speed and pitch. Unfortunately, this “tweak” sped up and slightly changed the pitch of my interview and any other components that were originally introduced to the mix at the lower 44100 Hz level. Once the remix interview was completed to my satisfaction, I used Audacity to export the project file as an .mp3 file which I uploaded to SoundCloud for sharing.
My recommendation is that you first open the song snippets or any other audio tracks in Audacity and determine the sampling rate that applies to most of the audio components. Once this value is established, start Audacity and change the default sampling rate so that this application will work without “hiccups” because now all your audio components will be utilizing a common sampling rate.
Lastly, but most important. In this musical mashup interview, I have used snippets from the following tunes listed below. In order that I might demonstrate the educational fair use of such music, I have purchased individual tracks for each of these songs on my iTunes card.
In the Mood – Glenn Miller
Magic – Olivia Newton John
You Really Got A Hold On Me – Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
I Heard It Through The Grapevine – Marvin Gaye
The Reverend Mr. Black – The Kingston Trio
Who Let The Dogs Out? – Baha Men
I’m So Excited – The Pointer Sisters
Just My Imagination – The Temptations
Makin’ It Work – Doug and the Slugs
Eight Days a Week – The Beatles
Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? – Chicago
Help – The Beatles
With A Little Help From My Friends – The Beatles
ABC – Glee
Let’s All Sing Like The Birdies Sing – Jay Wilbur & His Metropole Players
I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter – Nat King Cole
That’ll Be The Day – Buddy Holly
I’m Sorry – Brenda Lee
I’m A Believer – The Monkees
Taking Care Of Business – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
We Are The Champions – Queen
My Way – Frank Sinatra
Unfortunately, many of the songs containing the musical snippets may be more familiar to the “more experienced’ listener as opposed to our younger students. However, this fact should in no way diminish the power of using an audio interview to engage students in a powerful, new and exciting way.
_cokwr: In the 70s, Dickie Goodman created a series of interviews where the interviewee responded with snippets from popular songs. They were hilarious. , _cpzh4: Audio, _cre1l: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDNlSpKLEEo, _chk2m: Laura Blankenship, _ciyn3: 78, _ckd7g: AudioAssignments78, _clrrx: AudioAssignments, _cztg3: AudioTutorials78
So i’m sure by now everyone has heard of the events that’s happened in the last few days. We lost Dr.Oblivion, and now the prime suspect, Jim Groom has gone missing…but not before going mad and banishing some people. Fortunately for us, there is an audio recording of the event that wasn’t audible to the naked ear during the live broadcast. I’ve managed to capture this audio using audacity. I know in doing this I have put my life in further danger. Fear not ds106er, we must fight on. We must not let fear keep us from speaking out. Whether you are with ds106 or ds107, we are all students praying for the safe return of Dr.Oblivion so that we can nurture our curiosity in peace.
Although I have been banished from ds106 I know that Jim Groom will one day forgive me. I am only fighting for ds106 and when his sanity returns he may even thank me…
in the meantime I have completed my second audio assignment – a musical interview with Jim Groom about the ds106 course. Interviewing jimgroom by loumcgill
My son came up with the idea of using only REM songs so here is our first one… made using youtube clips taken into media streamclip and audio selections saved. these were brought into audacity and then I recorded my own voice over it.
For the interview/music mashup I did a remix of Dickie Goodman’s “Kong” (original can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsELgtExsEs) where Goodman interviews King Kong while he is roaming around New York City. I used audacity again, had to find the close to exact timings of all of the songs that were edited into the interview already to overwrite them and the same for the snippets of the songs I put in, all of which had to be toned down a lot (using amplify, decreasing dB). While all of the songs might not fit in perfectly, this one took a while to do and a good amount of thinking and searching through songs. I tried to use a set of music that allows everyone to recognize at least a few songs! Here’s what I chose (in order in the remix):
Don’t Worry Baby – The Beach Boys
Help! – The Beatles
Never Gonna Give You Up – Rick Astley (rickroll ftw!)
Let it Be – The Beatles
In My Dreams – Kid Cudi
Crank That – Soulja Boy
People Are Strange – The Doors
You’re a Jerk – New Boyz
Airplanes – B.o.B. (feat. Hayley Williams)
Young, Wild, and Free – Wiz Khalifa (feat. Snoop Dogg)
Sky’s the Limit – Lil Wayne
Popular – Lil Wayne (feat. Lil Twist)
This crazy mashup was so fun to do. i think the hardest part was thinking up questions and then thinking of the right songs to respond. It doesn’t help if you don’t listen to a lot of music. After i imported the songs i wanted to use, it was very annoying cutting away to the precise point where the answer began. I made a major mistake for this one, and that was using the same artist for the responses. At first I wanted it to be one contestant, but then one become three with very interesting personalities (I want to make it longer and more intricate!!!) but here is the demo. As for why the contestants have the same voice, I’ll tell you that they are triplets!!!
