A week and a half ago I shared the beginning of an audio project that I was working on – Project 2: Audio in progress. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but hadn’t nailed down a theme yet when I started. The project revolved around the general theme of reminiscing/reflecting, and it had to be less than 5 minutes in length. So, I thought about ballroom dancing and the dance routine I did a few years ago.

Part 1: Interview

I asked my dance instructor and friend, Daniel, to say a few things in general about ballroom dancing. We sat in his car outside of a Starbucks and I conducted my interview. With all the soundproofing involved in the engineering of a vehicle, it was a great recording studio. I had Eric’s microphone, my laptop and Audacity. The original recording was over 3 minutes long – me asking questions and him answering. Several times, I asked him to repeat what he said in order to have statements.

I went home that night and listened to his recording and edited out most of it. I took out the “um’s” and “ah’s” and pauses on words (e.g. “sooooooo”). With cutting out my voice too, I had 3 clear statements: about the Argentine Tango, what the judges look for at a competition, and what an instructor looks for in a student.

Part 2: Group Class

I remembered that I had videoed a dance class a few years ago, and in that video, the instructor was teaching a new dance pattern.

I had uploaded the video to YouTube (Watch the Video), so I downloaded it and extracted the audio simply using Quick Time Pro. In Audacity, I created a loop of the instructor saying the steps. There was no music playing during the instruction, so creating the loop was easy. Of course, the steps of the students can also be heard, so it provided a great ambient sound. It was also a great segue into my narration.

Remembering that I even had this video made me so happy!

Part 3: My Narration

Listening to Daniel’s recording several times, I wrote my part around it (see Project 2: Audio in progress). I recorded my part in the quiet of my living room (sans mewing cats). Again, there were several takes, and then I went to work on the editing in Audacity. My recording is exactly the same as the written narrative. It’s almost 3 minutes long. But, I knew that I would be editing out quite a bit.

Part 4: Putting it Together

The song segment that I danced to was only 2m:30s. However, I couldn’t use the whole song. Much like the group class audio, the song was there to complement the narration. So, I had to make deliberate edits.

Some of the edits made were in regards to pacing. I talk fast, but I had slowed down my speech to make my recording. However, more pauses were necessary for both Daniel’s and my part to help make the point. Segments of the narration were also eliminated because they were superfluous.

The Final: The Overly Obsessed Version

Version 1 of the audio was more like a final draft. Much of the work had been done, but I had neglected to finish the ducking. There were parts that I had a hard time hearing my own voice, but I left something to be edited later. I also knew that I had used the music too much. Even though the story is about the song, the piece needed to be about my experience. So, I took out parts of the music.

Here is the final project. Thanks for listening!