A man – Homo narrans – always enjoyed a good story. But what makes a good story on paper, isn’t exactly what will make it equally interesting when spoken out loud. Whenever someone is telling a story, you will notice that a very important part of that storytelling is – the sound of the words, the way that certain parts of the story are emphasized, spoken louder or quieter etc. That is because a sound is an integral part of – the word. Old storytellers knew that, and have adjusted their voice to the story, and also, sometimes, in order to achieve deeper immersion, they have used different props to make sounds.
The sound affects the way we receive and experience the story, sometimes even more than the image or the words themselves. Try it yourself – choose a photograph, for example, of the forest and observe it while listening to calming sounds, cheerful melody, or dark, haunting sounds. You will notice how your impression of the forest changes.
Can you remember a scene from a film that made you cry, or laugh? How much did the film music influence that experience?
And while the film music is the most unnatural part of the film media (real life events are never accompanied by an orchestra), other sounds that you hear in the film are exactly what makes the film seem more real – the sound of someone walking, breathing, doors squeaking etc. make the scenes seem real, and films without these sounds would seem quite weird.
After playing a few sound games, try to make your own sound story, a story without any images or words. A story made exclusively of sounds!
A sound story can be very thrilling. Listen to an example. (I recommend using headphones for a better experience).
Author: Brandy Machado
A sound story for children can, of course, be quite simple and closer to their experience. Listen to the sound story “Morning”
(source: Gabelica, Težak, 2019. Kreativni pristup lektiri. Zagreb: Naklada Ljevak.)
If we wish to make a sound story more interactive, we can ask the children to listen to a sound and then try to find it in the sound story and figure out what the sound was. For example, before listening the sound story “Morning”, we can play this sound and figure out what it was by putting it in the context of the sound story.
HOW TO MAKE A SOUND STORY?
1. WRITE A SCRIPT
Even a sound story has a story sequence. This is why it is important to write down the sequence of sounds that we will be using in editing later on.
2. RECORDING SOUNDS
After writing the script, we can record the sounds simply by using a mobile phone, or we can search for sounds on the internet, in different available sound databases.
3. EDITING
In this video tutorial, find out how to edit multiple sounds into a sound story. Make sure to finish the basic steps in editing first, using this tutorial.
Jedna misao o “SOUND STORY”