Playing with Sound — Adding Downbeat Tempo to a Discourse on Shakespeare

June 2nd, 2008 | Posted in Podcasting 5 Comments »

A strange thing happens when you take an audio file of someone speaking and set it to music — the two separate tracks combine such that the result is greater than the sum of the parts. For example, listen to the 3 minute track below that combines a 1981 speech by Shakespearean English scholar Arthur Henry King with Kiln’s Fyrepond.

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I have not altered either track in any way. I simply layered them together. Listening to both the speech and music brought together this way gives more depth to both.

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Kai says:

June 3, 2008 at 1:15 am

Oooh, sounds like the Dark Side of the Rainbow is coming to podcasts!

Lakym97 says:

June 3, 2008 at 11:57 am

niiiiiiiice.

deirdre says:

June 3, 2008 at 12:12 pm

I like it. Did you choose any old random track or did you have this one specifically in mind? It seems to merge very well with his pauses. I’d be interested in hearing just him alone — it seems that he takes a long time to get the next word out.

Sid says:

July 31, 2008 at 1:42 pm

Interesting stuff.
I suppose that both music and public speaking has a beat to it. In this case the audio files complement each other well when played together.

Sids last blog post..Audio editors sound editing software

Sweet & Sticky Tour says:

August 3, 2008 at 3:08 pm

Hm… you are right! This sounds very well and i must agree that this seems to be more than a sum of the parts. I really like it and i hope that you will give us more of that.

I’d Rather Be Writing – Tom Johnson