During her first year away at her scholarly castle, the Fandom Princess would go to the pub in town every Sunday night and listen to the Phoenix Choir, a choir of, yes, phoenixes and their trainers. They would vocalize songs of melody and harmony, and even, on special nights, imitate sounds of the deep forests. With their talents, they were even able to manipulate their vocal cords to tell different stories, using nothing but sound. The Princess decided to look into this one day and soon discovered that she too could use sound to tell stories and create enchanting music:

Let me just say first off: I LOVED THIS BUMPER ACTIVITY! Once I started playing around with Audacity, I was able to create and make my own radio bumper! This was a bunch of fun! I even knew what song I would want to do it to! Well, that’s a lie. I knew I wanted to use the band Coldplay because in my perfect world, everyone would love and idolize Coldplay as much as I do, so I figured I would use one of my favorite songs by them, “Shiver.” I actually uploaded it first, and since I had previous experience using something like Audacity (although I can’t remember what it was called. I used it in high school in a web design class. I’m getting old, don’t judge), I was able to easily figure out how to cut tracks and move them and monitor the sound levels. Of course, I still watched this lovely tutorial, just to make sure I was doing everything correctly. And BOOM! The finished product!

Pretty cool, huh?

We also had to create a story using nothing but sound effects. This was a bit of a challenge, and I spend a lot of time first trying to figure out what I wanted my story to be able. While browsing on Freesound.org, I came across a piano sound that I absolutely loved. And that’s when it hit me. I would tell a story about how a nervous 15 year old boy, named Simon, was supposed to play a song he had written on his own for the first time in front of a large crowd. Nerve wracking, right? Listen to see how Simon’s story ended:

Both these assignments were probably my favorite part of this week’s to-do. I had so much fun that I think I’m going to make about 5 more bumpers just because I loved it so much! Might also be useful to know if I ever need to put together an ad for something! This was a great exercise for us!