I was creating a Storify of all of the short video reflections that folks are making for the IMMOOC (Innovator’s Mindset), grabbing them and tucking them into the curated project. (see it here) But when I was tinkering with the template of the Storify, and tried to use the slideshow template, suddenly, my speakers were filled with all of the voices, talking all at once.
At first, I panicked — too loud! too loud! — and turned the volume off. After some reflection and a spark of curiosity, though, I turned it back on and … I listened. I listened to the swirling sounds of all of our voices. I could hear different textures of sounds. I could hear individual words and phrases lifting up from the chaos, every now and then. Clusters of noise came together and then apart, weaving this noisy tapestry.
And I realized — this is a song of human voice and experience and questions. This is the collective songs of educators, deep in inquiry. This is music.
Which got me thinking: could I record all of those voices together (yes, I could) and then add a looping music track underneath it all, guiding the sounds into some sense of song? I could. What made it all work, in fact, is that towards the end, voices begin ending, slowly, like an audio tail wagging, and we are left with one lone voice, and her daughter, telling the entire IMMOOC community to “have a great day,” and that voice of that young daughter of Sheila Vick (@sheila_vick) was the magic sauce that made it all work.
Listen in headphones, if you can, and tell me this is not beautiful in its own way. It is longer than I would have liked, but I could not force myself to cut out anyone’s voice. (And some videos were added to the Storify later that did not make it into my audio recording. Sorry.)
Peace (sounds like …),
Kevin
PS — this is how I did it:
- Launched Audacity recording software
- Placed microphone by speakers
- Started the Storify
- Downloaded audio file as MP3
- Launched Soundtrap website
- Uploaded audio
- Used loops to create underlying music
- Downloaded and then uploaded to Soundcloud
- Shared in social media
Love it. You can hear phrases of learning amend possibilities, a chorus of innovating individuals, each of whose notes raise our awareness. And “have a great day”. Thanks for creating.