I had fun with this final installment to our course, although I admit that it was also quite an experience for me to learn the basics of Audacity. Only after hours of practicing with the help of a number of U-Tube videos did I feel comfortable with putting together five short mp3 recordings and assembling them into my first audio tape. In addition to Alan Levine’s introduction, I found the videos published by Dusty Porter and Rich Johnson to be especially helpful.
In planning this project I found that my skills as a piano tuner-technician gave me a head-start in constructing my sound-effect story. My model for it is “Dissecting Joanne Rosser, Papermaker” by Rob Rosenthal. The outcome is a four-minute audiotape in which I show four segments of a tuning session at my own piano, introduced and interspersed with snippets from Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer (available free from the public domain) that fade in and out. I conclude the presentation with a few phrases of J.S. Bach’s well-known Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring and, to show how good I felt upon completing the assignment, and this course, at the end comes a fireworks display and, fittingly, an applause. Enjoy!
To hear my audiotape, click The Piano Tuner’s Craft or go to the link in the footer of my website.
