Audio Essay - Following the Deer Trails

In the audio essay, we were challenged to create an original work that incorporated a poem, our voice, and a host of other sonic materials. We had to pick between relating the poem to a personal story, or to an aspect of culture. I wanted to relate my poem to an aspect of culture, but what aspect of culture should I choose? I thought about an experience I had the night before. I was driving through back country roads at way-to-late in the night when a deer ran out in front of my car. Not good! I braked in time to avoid a collision, but the experience led me to think about nature, animals, and really, about deer. I still didn't know what kind of aspect of culture I should write my e-poem on, but I knew I was on the right track. After some advice by Professor Anderson, I started looking through the works of an ecological poet named Gary Snyder. I liked his style, and he had a poem about deer.... The rest was history.

The audio essay exercised my skills in diction and word choice, my narrative capabilities, and my ability weaving together sonic elements to create a cohesive story using purely sound. 

The first step was writing a draft. I learned composing my spoken word for a transcript required a fundamentally different approach than writing an essay. What reads well on paper doesn't necessarily sound well when spoken in an audio essay. There were challenges. I struggled speaking clearly and not fumbling over my words while recording. I've had a speech impediment since childhood, and while speech therapy cured ninety five percent, the other five percent creeps back in when I've nervous or under stress. Sometimes speaking a single sentence right required fifteen takes. But breaking up the recording process into a few separate sessions helped immensely in alleviating the symptoms, as well as my ability to keep a clear, even, tone of voice. 

During my final draft, I made a few difficult creative decisions which shaped the finished result. For one, all of my spoken audio is re-recorded. This is because I was originally recording my dialogue at sixty percent of the input device's threshold. Why was I recording my dialogue at sixty percent? Because Audacity's default was set at sixty percent, and I didn't realize it wasn't recording at full volume until the project was finished. Why is Audacity's default input recording set at 60%? I don't know either. Go figure. Problems like these invariably turn up during the drafting process, but the ability we had to revise our essays allowed me the opportunity to iron out the wrinkles, reflect on ways to improve, and elevate the quality of my work.  

A thematic change came from re-working the final section of the audio essay, which involved incorporating a new speech or otherwise another external audio clip into my essay. In my first draft, I had used a clip from President Obama speaking about the dangers of climate change. I had chosen this because I felt that if I were to include an external audio clip, I wanted it to be important enough to warrant it's inclusion. Feedback from Professor Anderson and some of my classmates made me rethink this decision. Climate change is somewhat related to the relationship between humans and animals, but making it fit into my established narrative was a stretch. A different choice would better serve the purposes of my essay. I searched for videos related to animal studies and post-human organisms, and I came across a clip from a PBS nature documentary about a man bonding with a deer. This was perfect. I chose a short, relevant section from the documentary, clipped the audio I needed, and imported the file into Audacity. You can watch my revisions video below for what the revisions process looks like.

I discuss here my creative choices, technical challenges and solutions, and provide a retrospective on the revisions process. Next up are my e-poems.