{"id":228,"date":"2025-10-28T03:46:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T03:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=228"},"modified":"2025-10-28T03:58:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T03:58:00","slug":"my-week-learning-audio-from-sounds-to-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=228","title":{"rendered":"My Week Learning Audio: From Sounds to Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This week in class, I dove headfirst into the world of&nbsp;<strong>audio storytelling<\/strong>, and what a ride it\u2019s been! I didn\u2019t just learn how to edit sounds, I learned how to&nbsp;<strong>create emotion, rhythm, and atmosphere<\/strong>&nbsp;using audio. Each project pushed me to experiment, problem-solve, and appreciate just how much work goes into producing professional-quality sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of my first creations was a&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=226\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=226\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);color:#0693e3\" class=\"has-inline-color\">spooky horror soundscape<\/mark><\/a><\/strong>, inspired by classic horror films. Using pre-recorded audio from Freesound, I arranged eerie clips to build a chilling atmosphere that felt straight out of a scary movie. From there, I switched gears and created a&nbsp;<strong>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=222\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=222\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);color:#0693e3\" class=\"has-inline-color\">Sick Beat<\/mark><\/a>,\u201d<\/strong>&nbsp;mixing and layering sounds to produce a music track that I was genuinely proud of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next, I took those same audio skills and used them to tell a story through sound, an <strong>audio journey through <a href=\"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=224\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=224\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);color:#0693e3\" class=\"has-inline-color\">Central Park<\/mark><\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;in New York City. My goal was to capture what it <em>feels<\/em>&nbsp;like to walk through the park: the chatter of people, birds chirping, dogs barking, and the distant hum of music and laughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, I learned the art of&nbsp;<strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);color:#0693e3\" class=\"has-inline-color\">recording vocal<\/mark><span class=\"highlight\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);color:#0693e3\" class=\"has-inline-color\">s<\/mark><\/span><\/strong>. For that project, I recorded myself saying a tongue twister, \u201cShe sells sea shells by the sea shore\u201d, as quickly as I could, layering it over a background track. Finding the right balance between voice and music was tricky. I recorded the vocals multiple times to keep them from getting drowned out, and though it still needs work, it taught me a lot about&nbsp;<strong>vocal clarity and mixing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout all these projects, I discovered that&nbsp;<strong>audio production is both challenging and rewarding<\/strong>. The hardest part was definitely learning how to use the software. I used&nbsp;<strong>Audacity<\/strong>, a digital audio workstation (DAW), and there were plenty of moments when I had to redo a section over and over to get it just right. Sometimes it felt like I was moving files a million times, yes, I\u2019m exaggerating, but only a little!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thankfully, online tutorials and resources like\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/freesound.org\/\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);color:#0693e3\" class=\"has-inline-color\">Freesound.org<\/mark><\/a>\u00a0made the process a lot smoother. Still, editing took hours of patience and precision. I was warned that it would be time-consuming, and that warning was spot on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Daily Creates<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This week\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=230\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/?p=230\">\u00a0<strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);color:#0693e3\" class=\"has-inline-color\">Daily Creates<\/mark><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0were all about creativity and expression. For\u00a0<strong>Week 9<\/strong>, I had three fun and imaginative prompts that let me play with both language and visuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the challenges, the experience was incredibly&nbsp;<strong>fulfilling<\/strong>. Seeing each project come together piece by piece was worth every minute. Learning audio isn\u2019t for the faint of heart, it takes focus, creativity, and persistence, but when you finally listen to your finished track, you feel a real sense of pride knowing you built something entirely from scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This week reminded me that audio isn\u2019t just about sound, it\u2019s about&nbsp;<strong>crafting emotion through rhythm and tone<\/strong>. And after all the time, effort, and (yes) a few moments of frustration, I can truly say it was all worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week in class, I dove headfirst into the world of&nbsp;audio storytelling, and what a ride it\u2019s been! I didn\u2019t just learn how to edit sounds, I learned how to&nbsp;create emotion, rhythm, and atmosphere&nbsp;using audio. Each project pushed me to experiment, problem-solve, and appreciate just how much work goes into producing professional-quality sound. One of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,10,13],"tags":[40,27,41],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-other-assignments","category-audio-assignments","category-reflections-assignments","tag-audio-assignments","tag-reflective-assignments","tag-week-9"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235,"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions\/235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacolewis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}