Sound School Podcast

Almost every reporting trip has its pitfalls. Andrew Leland's recent story for Radiolab had more than most: He reported people with disabilities participating in tests for travel in space. Along with the nausea and recording challenges in zero gravity, Andrew has lost much of his sight. On this HowSound, Andrew lays out how he navigated it all.

For more than twenty years, radio journalist Laurel Morales followed the rules: Don't share scripts with sources. Laurel now produces the podcast "2 Lives" and she's tossed that rule out the window. She explains why on this episode of HowSound.

Ben Calhoun, formerly of This American Life, sat for two hours staring at a Google doc trying to figure out what to say. It was a delicate piece of writing about race and his own identity. Ben unpacks what he wrote on this episode of HowSound.

Back in 2007, when Andrea Silenzi was a rookie reporter just learning the craft as a student, she reported a story about a woman dying of ALS. It was not easy to report and she regularly wondered "Who am I to be here?" That's a vital question for all journalists. How do you answer it?

Hillary Frank says middle school can be brutal. The bullying, the harassment, the homophobia, the racism, the sexism... it's all there, along with the complicated emotions of pre-teens. "Here Lies Me," a podcast Hillary wrote, directed, and produced, tackles it all and then some. Hillary lays out what made this podcast one of the best of last year — and maybe this year, too.

Davia Nelson, one half of the legendary Kitchen Sisters, shares the pair's incredible news: The Library of Congress will acquire the Kitchen Sisters' archive, decades of innovative audio work. Davia also talks with Rob about collaborating with performance artist Laurie Anderson on "The Great Amish Pandemic Sewing Frolic," a story about the power of working together.

Rob doles out another collection of darts and laurels on this episode. Darts for missing credits and superfluous sound effects. Laurels for stupendous production values, character development, and just plain weirdness. Featured work is from The BBC, Vice, Wonder Media, and others.

One of the most helpful tools for organizing a story is a "scene chart." Think of it as an outline for the "chapters" in an audio story. Rob dissects one of his favorite audio stories, one he's used in workshops for years, to help explain the idea of thinking in scenes and outlining stories.

A breath may seem like the most insignificant detail in an audio story. But, Rob says breaths are incredibly important when you're editing. All you have to do is listen to stories where the breaths are cut out. They sound weird and off-kilter. Rob offers suggestions for preventing that problem, starting with, "remember to breathe!"

Vermont Public Radio reporter Angela Evancie says with the decline in trust of the media, the best way to build back that trust is with listener engagement and podcasts like the one she produces: Brave Little State.

Silence is often viewed as a no-no on the radio and in podcasts. Silence sounds like something's wrong — the radio station went off the air, the podcast paused. But, what if a story is about silence?

Audio producer and sound artist Kristina Loring was walking the beach with her dog when she stumbled across an actual message in a bottle. That moment led to an unusual audio installation involving bottles, and a telephone hotline with messages for a Covid-weary world.

Al Letson set his sights on true crime storytelling in an unusual way — with a covenant for listeners in the true crime series he reported for Reveal, "Mississippi Goddam: The Ballad of Billey Joe." Rob asks "Why go after true crime like that?"

When the story is about a family (and also not about a family), but the parents are divorced, and the kids and their father haven't spoken for years, how do you, as a reporter, navigate those tricky waters? Aviva DeKornfeld of This American Life artfully made it work.

Producer Nina Porzucki is giving audio producers a gift on this episode — she's sharing a work in progress, a first-draft pilot for a podcast. Nina lays out how she got to the pilot stage and now, what needs to happen next.

Erica Heilman's story "Finn and the Bell" is the best I’ve heard this year. It's a painful, graceful story about a young man's suicide in rural Vermont. Erica's heart is in the piece; you can hear it in every production and editorial choice. The story of how she made those choices is enlightening.

Rob offers darts and laurels for stories he's recently heard — what's good, what's not so good. On the list, productions from "Kids Short Stories," "Nice Try," "Demented," "The Skewer," and others.

Cat Jaffee and her team put community first and foremost at House of Pod, a local podcast hub in Denver. But, after four years, House of Pod will be without a house — a loss for Denver and podcasting in general as community-based podcast facilities are few and far between. Cat explains what happened on this episode of HowSound.

On this archive episode, a fascinating minute of audio — the sound of war and peace reconstructed from the exact end of World War I. Even more fascinating, the producers conjured the sound using audio shadows captured on film.

Headphones on for this one. Rob marks the passing of the groundbreaking composer and sound ecologist R. Murray Schafer with his colleague and fellow composer, Hildegard Westerkamp. This episode will crack open your ears and, hopefully, spark new ways of thinking about the sonic environment and your work as an audio storyteller and producer.

Ruby Schwartz pitched a story to Snap Judgement based on a memoir. They gave her the green light. And then she had to figure out how she was going to squeeze a 320-page book into a short radio documentary. How Ruby did it on this episode of HowSound.

Don't just interview to grab a bunch of information, interview for story and make your work a whole lot stronger. Alix Spiegel of Invisibilia and This American Life explains how.

Megan Tan produced a story about dating during Covid but she didn't record any of the dates. So, what did she do to create scenes? The answer is an unusual production choice that worked incredibly well.

Good producers hide the difficulties. They make it all sound easy. Cariad Harmon's "Record Booth" is an excellent example. She seamlessly weaves together narration, interviews, scene tape, music, and archive tape -- like it’s no big thing. Wellllll, not so fast. Cariad shares the backstory on this HowSound.

On this episode of HowSound, a wide-ranging chat about writing for audio with one of the masters: Jonathan Goldstein of the Heavyweight podcast from Gimlet. From the importance of feeling what you write to Jonathan's penchant for courier font and a maneuver we jokingly dubbed "The Goldstein," you're bound to pick up a solid tip or three about writing.

Narrating a stand-up on location as events unfold in front of your mic is no easy thing but reporter Robert Smith makes it sound like it is. He's a master of the stand-up and he explains how he makes them work oh-so-well on this rerun episode from the HowSound archives.

Rob Rosenthal has stepped away from teaching the Transom Story Workshop on Cape Cod. To mark the occasion, Rob's put together a fireworks show of great stories from Transom students over the years. Wear headphones!

Shapearl Wells says the truest form of journalism lets others speak their own truth. And that's just what she did as host and the main character for "Somebody," a podcast that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. "Somebody" traces Shapearl's search for the truth in the murder of her 22-year old son. On this “HowSound,” she recounts what it took to produce “Somebody” as a distraught mother with a (sometimes hidden) microphone.

The CBC's Mic Drop is a small but mighty podcast amplifying young people's voices "without any adult interruptions," as the kids put it. On this HowSound, Shari Okeke, the show's founder and producer, tells us how it all works.

Creative audio journalism and storytelling is sometimes influenced by film, avant-garde music, and literature. But what about anthropology? Nanna Hauge Kristensen is a radio producer with an anthropology degree — a background and approach that influences her storytelling in fascinating ways.

One of the most difficult tasks in writing is keeping a story on target. One way to wrangle an unruly story — or any story, really — is with a focus sentence.

There's an old maxim in radio: the tape rules. "According to Need" by Katie Mingle and 99% Invisible is proof that good tape can drive a story. However, Katie says she wasn’t very practiced in producing tape-driven stories. It took her two years and, as she put it, the work "tested all my skills and then some."

One of the best ways to learn how to improve at the craft of audio storytelling is to take a deep listen to good work and dissect it. On this HowSound, I point out some of the best parts of a story about vaccinations from “The Experiment” podcast. You'll want to take notes

The list of names at the end of some podcasts is mind-boggling. Who are these people? What do they do? Antonia Cereijido, Sophia Paliza-Carre, and Audrey Quinn of the "Norco 80" podcast have an answer and a few surprising observations about their production process.

Rob's been puzzling over one particular question about trailers for serialized podcasts: What should the relationship, the handshake, if you will, be between the trailer and the top to the first episode? Rob explores an answer with clips from The Piketon Massacre, The Realness, Nice White Parents, and The Sink.

You should lie down with your eyes closed for this one! That's because the interviewees in the stories I feature were -- lying down, eyes closed, lights off, candle lit, answering questions. They were being interviewed by producers using the Schwartz Technique, Stephen Schwartz’ celebrated method for getting people to talk in pictures.

A friend once said "What feels like a groove might actually be a rut." So, how do you get out of your rut? Sarah Geis has an answer: Audio Playground.

When the reporting gets violent, the reporter suits up. Casey Martin of KUOW tells stories about staying safe on the front lines of reporting during the violence of the BLM and far-right protests of the last year.

There are a lot of photographs and incredible footage from the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. But wait until you hear the startling, unguarded conversations between the rioters that day. Micah Loewinger of On the Media gives the backstory on how he acquired the recordings.

If Dr. Suess was going to write a book about podcasting, he'd probably call it "Oh, The Sounds You'll Hear!" That's what's in store for you on this episode of HowSound. From an Inuit oral history project to prisoners in Darwin, Australia, to the sound of a wife's broken heart and more. It'll perk up your ears!

What's the sound of climate change? Walk down 7th Avenue in Calgary and you just might hear it thanks to "Herald/Harbinger," a sound installation from data artist Ben Rubin.

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone says, "I think that story would make a great podcast series." In my head I usually think, "Nope. Wouldn't work." But why? How do you know you have a story worthy of a podcast series? Emily Guerin of Southern California’s KPCC has a few answers. She produced a five-and-a-half-minute feature and turned it into a 9-part series called "California City: The Dark Side of the American Dream."

It's always good to be reminded of the best writing practices. That's why we dusted off this old episode of HowSound with This American Life's Brian Reed about the writing maxim "show, don't tell."

Raise a mic in the air with Rob in honor of "Nancy," the now-cancelled podcast from WNYC about the LGBTQ experience.

Cleaning out the "closet" of audio stories and found a few choice cuts to share from podcasts like Resistance, Louder Than A Riot, and Latino USA.

Chana Joffe-Walt is one of my fav writers. She excels at portraying character. Chana and I listen to some of her ninja moves from "Nice White Parents," the podcast she reported and produced for Serial and The New York Times.

If you were producing a podcast on climate change, what tone would you choose to approach the topic? Serious, right? Well, there's a lot of serious reporting in Gimlet's "How to Save a Planet." And there's also a light, "chatcast" feel woven throughout the show. Gimlet co-founder and co-host of the podcast, Alex Blumberg, explains why in this episode.

Step 1: Find a comfortable place to sit. Step 2: Make sure you’re free from interruption. Step 3: Put on headphones. Step 4: Place a mask over your eyes (or just close them). Step 5: Listen to Sam Harnett and Chris Hoff of The World According to Sound take you behind the scenes of the online audio event they produced during the pandemic.

What do you get when you mix folklore, radio journalism, and a pear? An award-winning story from Canadian producer Rebecca Nolan that brings it all together in an unexpected way.

From time to time, you might learn something unfavorable about a character when reporting a story. Inevitably you ask yourself: should I include this detail or not? To help answer that question, take the squirm test.