 |
| Recording in Session |
I recently jointed a multi-national volunteer organization, called LibriVox, whose ambition is to record all the books in the public domain and make them available for download for free -- a lofty goal indeed! As you may be wondering why there are people doing this, here is what they say about it on their FAQ -
Why are you doing this? What's in it for you?
"We love reading, love books, love literature, think the public domain should be defended and enriched, we like free stuff, we like to hear people read to us, and we like reading to other people. It's fun, it's a great community, it's a rewarding public service to the world. And "nothing" is in it for us, except the satisfaction of participating in a wonderful project."
Well, it can't be said any better. I've been listening to their free audio-books for some time and as they always begin and end their recordings with calls to volunteering, I finally decided to give it a try and signed up. (They are not very particular about signing people up; no qualification is required.) For the past several weeks I've recorded six chapters, three each in two books, and spent many late-night hours reading and re-reading paragraphs in the books and heavily editing my recording. Compared to those of the experienced readers, my reading sounds laborious and has a unmistakeable foreign accent but they don't seem to mind it once the recording meets certain guidelines. (I'll let you know what I read once they publish the two audio-books in question.) Several of my readers will be a great fit for doing this kind of thing; I won't name names but you all know who they are.
Reading out loud, though everybody does it, is not as easy as it sounds; to many of my friends who are professional pedagogues, for whom the ability to get their points across effectively with voice is essential, speaking/reading out loud is perhaps as easy as second nature. Though I've been speaking English almost exclusively for over 30 years, it still frustrates me when I can't speak well, explain myself clearly, or when I feel that I speak with a foreign accent, and I don't mean in occasional episodes of public speaking but just ordinary day-to-day conversation. As a way to improve my English, I read out loud to myself from time to time just to keep my tongue nimble. Therefore, to volunteer to read for LibriVox seems like a great opportunity for me to practice my English. I hope it gets easier as I continue to work on it.
Hmm, you may be thinking, "This is another of her early retirement projects, like blogging and learning to play the piano; how fun!" Well, yes, and many thanks to Kirk that I have been able to do this. As a New York Times' article asks "What do you want to be, now that you're grown?", I feel like I've been given a second life, to do whatever I like to do, now that I've left off, albeit not entirely voluntarily, being an income-producing adult, whose life is tied to the job that pays. I have, however, never been at a loss to have something to "do" with my time; quite the reverse, I'm concerned about not having enough time to do all the things I like and want to do.
2 comments:
And there is a huge difference between reading aloud well and producing a good spoken word recording. When we read aloud to each other we can make many flubs and restarts and the listening mind somehow edits them out--like your eye edits out the lamp shade that is right behind the person you mean to take a photo of and which you only notice in the photo. But with a recording, the standard goes way up. There is more to it than people haven't done it will ever think. But it is a special kind of huge fun, I think. You should be closer by! We could have some fun messing with the sound files and stuff!
When are you signing up? I was hoping that you and Judy would. They also read poetry and dramatic work and some philosophy too. Audacity is the software recommended for recording and editing; I probably spend more time doing the latter than the former.
Post a Comment