Audio Project 2: Historical Audio Essay
Workshop Date: March 20 / Due Date: March 27
This assignment asks you to create a historical audio essay based on a “sound studies” topic of your choice, and is designed to build on our first two assignments. As you recall, in Audio Project 1, I asked you to respond to any media text using sound. In Writing Project 1, I asked you to historically analyze a sonic environment in a more traditional paper format. This time, you will analyze a sonic environment, sound technology, or other topic related to auditory culture using the medium of sound.
Like our previous assignments, choosing your topic here will be critical, and I will be happy to help through email or in my office hours. At this point we have done enough readings that you should have a taste for some general topics in sound studies, but almost anything is fair game—and I have been impressed by the topics you chose in your first two assignments. To be honest, though, at this point you should actually be thinking of TWO topics: one for this assignment, and one for your final paper and project. I will require that these topics be unique. So if you are starting to formulate something that you really want to dig in on and spend some time with, maybe save that for your final. If you have a smaller intellectual itch that you think you can scratch in 4–6 minutes, then that is more appropriate here. While you should use Spring Break primarily to relax, it is also a good time to start thinking about the topics you most want to explore in the second half of the course.
The Steps
- Choose a topic. Like I said above, this can be almost anything, but it should have a “historical” component to it, even if we are talking about relatively recent history. There are important historical moments that can unfold in a span of weeks, months, or years. The topic will likely determine your scope here.
- You will need to make a strong thesis statement, and then use your audio resources to support that statement.
- Speaking of audio resources, you will need at least three: your spoken voice, some music, and some non-music. In addition, you can also incorporate other voices (i.e., voices from historical speeches, music, films, etc.), or really any other sound. Do this with purpose, though, not just because I said you could.
- You will also need written resources. You should be prepared to hand in a three-source (or more) bibliography with your project. You don’t need to explicitly cite these in your audio essay (“According to Smith…”), but I should be able to get a sense that you drew on them for parts of your assignment.
- Once all of your pieces are in place, create a polished audio essay which you are comfortable workshopping in front of your peers. Your target length is 4–6 minutes.
Evaluation
This assignment is about two things: using historical evidence to construct a compelling and well-reasoned argument, and using the medium of recorded sound to advance that argument in creative and interesting ways. The standards for audio fidelity are the same as the first assignment—I don’t expect you to have transformed into a professional audio engineer in the last 4 weeks! That being said, I will assume a basic level of proficiency here: intelligibility and clarity are important. We can review some GarageBand tips and tricks after Spring Break.
Beyond these factors, when I listen to your assignment for the purpose of grading it, here are some other things I’ll be taking into consideration:
- Did you meet all of the requirements (length, number of tracks, having a thesis)?
- Did you use sound in a way that created a cohesive argument and feeling? Did your music and sound effects match your overall tone?
- Were there any glaring audio “errors”: clipped/unintelligible speech or music? Erratic shifts in volume?
- Did you show dedication, creativity, and commitment to the assignment?
Please reach out with any questions or raise them in class. And as always, have fun with it!