Promiscuous McLuhan
I was at a bar yesterday and "Promiscuous Girl" by Nelly Furtado came on. I normally would not have even noticed that it was playing, but I recognized it immediately, and got up to dance. I kept waiting to hear the part where Nelly Furtado sings backing vocals, having forgotten that it is actually only for a very small part of the song. This part had gained particular significance (nothing too meaningful, but it is imprinted in my acoustic memory) after Lisa and I looped it and used it as the intro and end to our music piece.
One of the pleasures of working on this assignment was getting to know this song that I otherwise wouldn't have really paid attention to (Lisa was enamored of it because it put her in a good mood), and having fun mixing it up with McLuhan.
I have worked on audio before, and specifically chopping up interview recordings and arranging them into songs (well, I have done this once before). This time I was over the initial enthusiasm of working with the software that allows you to visually arrange sound pieces on a timeline, and of creating a rich (if not overwhelming) soundscape, so I was able to focus on having clear, simple audio, with interesting juxtapositions, and not too many things going on to distract your attention.
Lisa also had experience hearing/directing audio mixes (or so it seemed -- she has a good ear) and her insights were always valuable, and we seemed to understand each other pretty well, in terms of how we wanted the final piece to sound. We worked very well together to make a fun (maybe also a little subversive?) sound piece.
I had forgotten how much fun it can be to work with sound/music, and I would like to work on it more in the future. I was also surprised at how well GarageBand can work as a sound editing environment.