Bringing stories and music to life
“Jack Donovan Foley was born in Yorkville, New York, on April 12, 1891. He was a grandson of Irish immigrants and grew up in the Seagate section of Coney Island,” according to Martin Chalakoski. Little did he know that he would invent a method of sound effects creation that is still used today. According to Media…
By now, it should be clear that stories2music audio stories would not be what they are without the film music. It is an integral part of the storytelling. Part of this has to do with the type of music being used. The short, orchestral film music somehow works perfectly with the stories. But where did…
Since 2011, when I created my first stories2music story, I have watched my production process evolve. When I first started out, I was teaching myself how to use the sound editing software, Audacity, so there was a lot of trial and error and experimentation. The one constant, however, was the uncanny “coincidence” of how the…
How many of you recognize this radio broadcast? On Halloween in 1938, radio listeners experienced the scare of their lives when they heard that Martians had landed on Earth. The broadcast of Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds supposedly caused a mass panic because it was presented as a news broadcast, so listeners believed it…
In an audio story, does the inclusion of orchestra film music and sound effects enhance the vividness of the images created in the participants’ imaginations? To answer that question, I created a sound experiment and a survey to test the above research question. One of my stories2music stories—Aurora’s Secret—has music and sound effects, so I used that…
The bird flew. When you read those words, your imagination probably conjured up an image of a bird flying. You pictured a bird from your memory, and you saw the image of how the bird was flying—soaring, flapping wings, swooping, etc. This sentence gave your imagination complete freedom to determine the bird and its flight.…
Let’s try an experiment. Listen to these film music excerpts. As you listen, jot down what the music is communicating to you. Excerpt 1 Excerpt 5 Excerpt 2 Excerpt 6 Excerpt 3 Excerpt 7 Excerpt 4 Excerpt 8 If you are like most people who have been exposed to film music…
“For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” Believe it or not, those six words are a story. According to Josh Jones, an urban legend claims that the story was allegedly written by Ernest Hemingway to settle a bar bet that he couldn’t write a six-word story. David Mikkelson said, “Papa won the bet: His short story…
My earliest recollection of childhood joy and contentment was reading a cherished book by the fireside. There was something magical about words, something powerful and wonderful about the way they could captivate my imagination, rouse my deepest emotions and cause my spirit to soar. I had a passion for books that I could not explain,…
