Ira Glass makes a point of saying that audio does not progress the same way as traditional stories, in that the writing style is different. He says to always raise questions, which will definitely keep the listener interested. The first building block is anecdotes and the second one is recap/reflection. I think he just proves the flexibility of audio, in that you can choose the direction audio takes from the way you deliver it. The best example I can think of is just listening to SNL without seeing the video. The delivery itself is what makes it funny, not the actual blocking. Through accents, dialects, and tones, the story is transformed into a hilarious skit. Glass also talks about abandoning crap and being a killer, with getting things really good. It’s ok to abandon certain concepts, which a lot of people have problems with.

I love to tell stories, except I’m not very good at it. I get carried away and get awfully tangental. By video 3 of Glass, I was finding it hard to focus. I have a really short attention span and his voice seemed static to me. I upspeak and also inflect certain words. I also study in accents, which helps me remember better. When Glass shows his eighth year clip, it made me think of the Delicious Dish-NPR snl skit, found here. I think we are brainwashed into thinking we need to change the way we sound, as Glass suggests. I am becoming more comfortable with the way I sound, so I stay myself.  (I also happen to have a wonderful personality, so I stopped listening fully to Glass then).

Abumrad says the best thing about radio is what it doesn’t have, as in pictures. It allows the listener to picture everything in their own minds, which Abumrad calls co-authorship. The voice is an incredibly powerful tool; I think in part because emotions carry better through vocal vibrations rather than written word. There’s something special and different in that spoken word can elicit more emotions than written word or other mediums.