Audio Project “Living As A Human” A poem by Erin Hanson

For my audio project, I decided to read the poem “Living As A Human”, by Erin Hanson. She is a young Australian poet who is in her early twenties. I love most of her poems and am often surprised by her insight.
This was a fun project and I look forward to doing more. I had a few issues along the way but it worked out. I had to write in code to get my computer to allow Soundcloud to use my microphone. Who knew?! I was able to record myself and then added music by Chronotope Project. I was listening to the radio a few months back and really liked what I heard. I had Siri listen and tell me what song I was listening to. I looked him up and sent him an email asking him if I could use his music for my project. Turns out he is a local and his wife teaches at LCC! Small world. If you like meditative music, you should check it out.
I also tried making my own music with my Kaossilator, which is an electronic instrument with a touchpad. It has hundreds of built-in options plus the added bonus of being able to upload and store your own sounds. I had fun with it but ultimately had to ditch the idea because I’m still learning my new gear. I can make sound effects at home but I need to learn the ins and outs of my new(ish) computer before I can really make it work. I might even sell some sounds at some point. I love having fun with my electronic instruments.
I looked at a lot of sites to find sound effects. Wow, the world wide web is a big place. It sure is easy to get lost in everything there is to see.
I utilized sound effects from soundeffectsplus.com. They’ve got a lot of fun stuff and it’s nice and organized, especially compared to some of the other free sound effects sites. I’m looking forward to creating more sounds! Except I probably won’t read anything. I don’t like the sound of my voice. Hahaha

For this project we were required to pick a story, create an ad, etc. and record and edit audio in Audacity. I chose to work with one of Aesop’s fables titled “Belling the Cat”. Going into this project I had ideas of thematic readings I’d been required to listen to in school, ones where there was clear audio and fun background sounds to complete the story being told. I was hoping to replicate this and have a final project that sounded similar to an assigned audio reading.

 In my time at Portland State University I took an entry-level audio engineering class. A class in which we had a few projects where audacity was required. Because of this I, foolishly, figured I’d have a super easy time and procrastinated the project. Much to my surprise when I began my workday I found that I had retained practically nothing from my past time spent working with audacity. Luckily as I got farther along a few tricks came back to me, but for the bulk of editing and exporting I had to rely on google searches. My main snag was getting my audio recording into Audacity. Since I’d recorded it in voice memos on my I had to look up how to convert simple audio files into a .wav format. Then I began sourcing sound bytes that I wanted to use to compliment my voice recording. All in all, I’m happy with my finished result, though I’m not sure the end project is what I had in mind at the beginning.

Listen Below

For this project, I gave a taste of the sport of water polo and its many noises using actual sound effects from footage of me playing. I chose to record and talk about water polo because it’s a sport I love and many people know very little about it, let alone how the game works. Since water polo is a contact sport played in a pool, sometimes players are halfway under water.  Despite this, players have to be good communicators and listeners to work well as a team. I play goalie, the position who is in charge of communicating with the defense. In the recording, you can hear me calling out where the ball is, calling the defense, and encouraging my teammates. I used audacity to record and edit this project. All the sound effects were from a film that my father had of me playing in high school and college. I also used some royalty free music from Bensound.com, which has loads of quality royalty free music. This was the first project I have ever done where only audio is recorded. I think Audacity is a good site and both Teresa’s in class tutorials and the many Youtube tutorials were very helpful.

For my audio assignment, I wanted to make a little commercial about Lane’s Gender Equity Center. I’ve been working at the GEC for a little bit before Covid closed the school. The center is a super fun and open place for anyone to hang out in and my goal for this project was to shine some light on the GEC and the things we do there for those who didn’t know!

I’ve been editing videos and audio for a couple years before this so I had a good understanding of how to accomplish my goal for the project. I used Premiere Pro to edit the audio clips together since I find that software pretty easy and fast to edit with and I actually ended up using Snapchat to record my audio. I know it sounds strange but I can assure you that this way sounded better than the audio from my phone’s camera, since it doesn’t have an audio memo app. I ended up having to record my audio several times to make sure I got a good and “lively” read. I wanted to make sure that it didn’t just sound like I was reading off my computer, but I did end up with that a couple times. I think one of my main struggles was my voice and making sure it was relatively fast and loud, but also making sure that you can understand the words clearly. After a couple takes I was able to find a good audio and uploaded that to Premiere. 

For this project I wanted to have more than one voice, and to make it seem more commercial like I asked one of my fellow colleagues if she could write and record a little bit about her experience at the GEC and what she enjoys. I also asked one of my friends who spends a lot of time at the GEC to give me her review of the place. This helped my audio a lot with the flow and organization of the piece since I wanted it to seem like something you would see on TV. Having some reviews of the place helped me with that. 

Finding a good background song for my video was also a bit challenging since I was unsure of who exactly I was targeting for this. I chose two different songs with two different feels to them but I ended up settling with a more upbeat song. After this I cut some of the breaks in my audio and gave it a more finished feeling. And there you have it ! Ta Da !

by Jimila

Pola’s Flower is a true story based on a Tibetan girl and her family. Since the Chinese occupation of Tibet, ten of thousands of Tibetan Children have fled their homeland. Many of them without their parents. These youth risk imprisonment, injury, and death in a perilous journey across the Himalayas in search of cultural, religious and educational freedom. My husband was one of them who tried to cross the Himalayas on his foot ended with being torched and jailed for months. My son is born in the United States, free land of religion, apart from our motherland, but we will let him remember what Tibetan culture means and what Tibetan history is through learning its language and reading him books.

Tibet is one of the most beautiful places where I have been and Tibetans are some of the most kind people who I known in the world. they practice compassion into their daily life, even without a bad thoughts towards to their enemies who were taking their country. They have living proof that the goodness in their hearts is the most important thing, which we will pass on to our son.

I really like this book as it is a way to tell the culture and life in Tibet ,as well as its history. This book is written by Diana Lynn Nadeau, who has had ten years of intensive training in Tibetan Buddhism. She is also a a Certified Mediator. The illustrator of this book, Lobsang Gyatso, who is a very good friend of mine and my husband’s hometown mate. He is a local artist and he has stand at the Saturday market in Eugene.

Background music is from Tibetan Buddhism script of Maha Karuna Dharani.