Link to essay on music in podfic

[podcath.livejournal.com]

I just posted an essay on my changing attitudes about music in podfic to the DW community podficmeta, and I thought some of you might find it interesting or have some comments:

From Hating Music in Podfic to Loving it: A Convert's Journey

Comments

[chemm80]

Hey, I was going to comment on the Dreamwidth post, but I haven't used that ID in a while. Both the post and comments were quite interesting. I wanted to say this:

I actually started doing podfics at least partly because of a story that included a lot of music lyrics in the text. The characters were musicians and the concert sequences were in integral part of the story, plus the characters communicated their feelings to one another by the songs they'd written and how and when they chose to play those songs. I couldn't help but think as I was reading it how great it would be to actually hear the songs as the story went on.

I still like to put a snippet of music at the beginning and end of longer stories, although I may not bother for a shorter one unless there's some particular piece of music that seems to fit well. I am actually working on a long one now in which the author herself used song lyrics to demarcate the different sections of the fic, specifically to denote changes in character POV. I only include about 20-60 seconds of the song at a time though, and never over the voice, as I agree with you about that.

In my opinion, to completely avoid using music and sound effects is to waste the potential of the audio medium, although one could certainly go overboard in the other direction.

[podcath.livejournal.com]

Hey, yeah, the two platform thing's annoying (esp right now for me as i'm logging in and out of various different IDs :)

i remember your Beautiful Disaster and the music was pretty much necessary for this story, yes!

i don't really record anything under 30 min (because I don't d'load anything below that) but I agree, there comes a point where stories get too short to justify podbook cover and musical surrounding IMHO :)

Re songs that the author includes. actually that was the first time I had even thought about using music. I started recording Ghosts as soon as I started recording anything (though I realized my reading improved so when I restarted for podbang 2010, I rerecorded everything I'd done before!) and the sections were preceded by song lyrics. I tried it for the first section and it was OK, a U2 song. The story was from the 90s but then the story took place in the 90s so that was OK. But then the second section had like 3 epigraphs, and it ended up just not working for me. So I decided on my own music that worked for me, now, and I think it was OK. (The author never wrote to bitch me out :)

But yes, i think if the author already sets the tone and it fits for me, I'd totally go with that music as well!

Re not using music. I think we're really still in its infancy as a fan art form. I used to just want to HEAR the story, but now I much more want to listen to a podfic, so we're still figuring this stuff out, are'nt we? :)

[chemm80]

i don't really record anything under 30 min (because I don't d'load anything below that)

That's pretty much my cut-off point as well, and for the same reason.

...(though I realized my reading improved so when I restarted for podbang 2010, I rerecorded everything I'd done before!)...

I did that with Beautiful Disaster and I still can't go back and listen to that one now because I was reading WAY too fast in parts, lol.

And I certainly agree that selecting music that wasn't part of the original fic is an art in itself. I've heard the idea that podfic is a transformative work of the original transformative work (this was discussed in regard to the necessity of obtaining permission to record from the author), and adding music, cover art, sound effects, etc. is certainly a way to make that even more true.

Re not using music. I think we're really still in its infancy as a fan art form. I used to just want to HEAR the story, but now I much more want to listen to a podfic, so we're still figuring this stuff out, are'nt we? :)

Oh, yes, I totally agree. And just to clarify, when I said not using music was "wasting" the medium, I didn't mean that you should always include it--just that to reject the idea of doing so out of hand was kind of a waste.

[podcath.livejournal.com]

I was on an SV kick, and I figured it might be long enough ago to listen to my first stories (and i've gotten much better at listening to my own voice due to editing). But I was appalled by my strong accent (i'm not sure but maybe reading a lot has made it better?) and by how freaking fast I was. I almost feel like going back and editing in breaks. i do that now. In fact, the fic I'm reading right now has the longest breaks i've ever done, but the prose is...needing it somehow? It's a story that often undermines the characters' thoughts on themselves. "He hardly ever wanted this any more. Or that's what he tried to make himself believe." That kind of thing. and it needs the breaks as rhetorical markers, so to speak.

i'm happy to hear i'm not the only one with a 30 min cutoff (straight up PWP might be the only exception :) I guess we're the folks who think podbang's the highlight of the year 9as opposed to the many fandoms amplificathon folks :) The beauty is that it's all there now...all the choices and possibilities and getting more all the time!

[chemm80]

In fact, the fic I'm reading right now has the longest breaks i've ever done, but the prose is...needing it somehow? It's a story that often undermines the characters' thoughts on themselves. "He hardly ever wanted this any more. Or that's what he tried to make himself believe." That kind of thing. and it needs the breaks as rhetorical markers, so to speak.

Oh yes, I know what you mean. I did one a while back in which there were several sections where Sam had sort of a "thought flashback", remembered things that had gone on years before. I've done this when writing fic myself, and I generally use italics to set off that section (as this author did) but it was a difficult thing to pull off when reading. I thought a lot about how I could differentiate between the "now" and the "then" but never came up with anything more satisfactory than a longer pause between sections and a slightly different tone to the reading--I just sort of tried to read more quietly and "thoughtfully", but i wasn't completely convinced I'd pulled it off in the end.