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How I Use Sound in a Story

by Jim Metzner

The following is an exchange between radio production trainer, Catherine Stifter and radio producer, Jim Metzner. Metzner is the founder of the radio program Pulse of the Planet and a regular contributor to Saturday Weekend Edition on National Public Radio.

In an exchange of emails about a sound-rich piece that Metzner made about the Moroccan city of Fez for the radio program, Savvy Traveler, and a second piece called "First Contact," about a meeting with the Amazonian Korubo tribe, Stifter asked Metzner the following questions.

Catherine Stifter asks...

Jim,

I want to go and get a fez and walk down those bustling narrow streets. I'm trying to think of how to give you a critique that isn't just--"Wow I love how you put that together." But first let me say, "Wow I love how you put that together."

OK. I've tried doing some sound portraits in my day. Students always want to do a sound portrait *without words* as the ultimate tribute to the form. But, I've always felt that the words are as important if not more important than the sound.

I'm wondering about some design considerations that you have worked out over the years. Care to give away some secrets? Well, I'll ask anyway.

How long can a sound sustain attention by itself?

What kind of sounds can hold attention longest?

How complex of a soundscape can listeners understand without text clues?

Do you believe in "making" English speaking listeners hear a bit of the non-English language before any translations come in. How much is enough? How much is respectful? How much is really pushing it?

I'm sure some of those questions were prompted by the Korubo piece as well as my reporting experience. I am just amazed at how you give just enough of the sounds and language to make me listen hard and think about it, and then it's gone, replaced by something else. I almost have to listen to the piece again to get my fill of the sounds. Even some of the sounds that aren't so compelling to me just by themselves, are fascinating in the context that the storytelling provides.

One of the things I'm finding out in my life is that I'm having a lot of experiences that *could* be good sound pieces, but I'm just not willing to mediate my experience by carrying a recorder. How do you deal with that issue in your work/life?

Thanks for entertaining all of my questions.

Catherine

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Jim Metzner replies...

Dear Catherine:

Thanks for the thoughtful response to the work. I'll do my best to answer your questions.

>OK. I've tried doing some sound portraits in my day. Students always want to do a sound portrait *without words* as the ultimate tribute to the form. But, I've always felt that the words are as important if not more important than the sound.

Right off the bat you've hit on one of the big questions for me - the balance of words and context to sound. What's enough to bring the listener in? What's too much? The only answer I have is to keep this question in mind.

>I'm wondering about some design considerations that you have worked out over the years. Care to give away some secrets? Well, I'll ask anyway.

My formula is that there are no formulas. The sounds partly carry some of their own criteria with them, so long as you remember that people are encountering them for the first time and need to be introduced.

>How long can a sound sustain attention by itself?

Depends upon the sound (and the program format). In Korubo I had visions of letting the sounds play even longer than they did, but the demands of the story (and my editors - Bob Boilen and Ellen Weiss) meant making some cuts.

>What kind of sounds can hold attention longest?

In general, music holds the attention longer, I suppose because we can follow the changes and patterns in it. But,as Lord Byron said, "There's music in all things, if we but had the ears to hear it.."

>How complex of a soundscape can listeners understand without text clues?

I'd agree with you that the sounds become more compelling, the more we know about them. The tricky thing is to give the listener a handle on the sound, without spoiling their own listening experience - which is unique to them.

>Do you believe in "making" English speaking listeners hear a bit of the non-English language before any translations come in. How much is enough? How much is respectful? How much is really pushing it?

In a piece I did on a Japanese potter, I let the audience hear some of the potter's speech for a "few beats" before I faded under for narration, primarily because the sound of his voice revealed something about the potter. It was a stereo piece, and I experimented with panning the potter slightly left of center and the narrator slightly right of center. For me the question would be - is there a reason to hear the voice for any length of time?

>One of the things I'm finding out in my life is that I'm having a lot of experiences that *could* be good sound pieces, but I'm just not willing to mediate my experience by carrying a recorder. How do you deal with that issue in your work/life?

Well, you definitely pay a price for the distance the recorder puts between you and the experience. On the other hand, but for the recorder, I wouldn't have been in half of these places, so it's a toss-up. Sometimes I just put the recorder away.

Thanks for the comments, Catherine.

Jim