Sound School Podcast
Episodes
Delicately Revealing Your Identity in the Story
21 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 wr...
Who Am I To Be Here?
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Producing YA Fiction
24 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Collaboration Is the Only Way Forward
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Davia Nelson, one half of the legendary Kitchen Sisters, shares the pair's incredible news: The Library of Congress will acquire the Kitchen Sisters' ...
More Darts And Laurels
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rob doles out another collection of darts and laurels on this episode. Darts for missing credits and superfluous sound effects. Laurels for stupendous...
Thinking in Scenes
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Remember to Breathe!
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ha...
Engage Listeners To Build Trust
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 engag...
Radio Silence (Rerun)
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 pod...
Audio Message in a Bottle
15 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Al Letson’s Covenant with Listeners About True Crime Stories
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 Revea...
Navigating Tricky Story Dynamics
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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, ...
So You Want To Start A Podcast, Eh?
04 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Exquisitely Challenging: Reporting on Suicide
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 Verm...
Darts and Laurels
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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," ...
House Of Pod Closes The House
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 w...
A Sonic Conjuring (Rerun)
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 fasci...
The World Orchestra Is Always Playing
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Headphones on for this one. Rob marks the passing of the groundbreaking composer and sound ecologist R. Murray Schafer with his colleague and fellow c...
From Memoir to Radio Story
12 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Interviewing for Story
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Megan Tan Way
14 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 un...
Sounds Easy, But...
31 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Good producers hide the difficulties. They make it all sound easy. Cariad Harmon's "Record Booth" is an excellent example. She seamlessly weaves toget...
Goldstein on Writing, Fonts, and “The Goldstein”
17 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 G...
Stand-Ups (Rerun)
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ma...
Fireworks
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 grea...
Narrative Justice
06 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 "...
The Kids Will Have Their Say
22 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 HowSo...
When Anthropology Meets Audio Storytelling
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Creative audio journalism and storytelling is sometimes influenced by film, avant-garde music, and literature. But what about anthropology? Nanna Haug...
Wrangling Stories With A Focus Sentence
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 foc...
Tape-Driven Storytelling
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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. Howeve...
Dissecting a Good Story, Well Told
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Who Are Those People in Podcast Credits?
13 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 Aud...
Thoughts On Trailers
30 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Rob's been puzzling over one particular question about trailers for serialized podcasts: What should the relationship, the handshake, if you will, be ...
Schwartz Is A Verb
16 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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, ligh...
Audio Playground
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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.
Gas Mask? Check. Bullet Proof Vest? Check...What to Wear When the Reporting Gets Dangerous
16 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
Eavesdropping on the Insurrection
02 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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,...
Perk Up Your Ears!
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ep...
Bow Glacier Asserting Its Existence
05 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
How Do You Know a Story is Worthy of a Podcast Series?
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Show, Don't Tell
08 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 R...
Nancy Was Here
24 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Raise a mic in the air with Rob in honor of "Nancy," the now-cancelled podcast from WNYC about the LGBTQ experience.
Things I Like
10 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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.
Portraying Character
27 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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,...
Why So Chatty, Alex Blumberg?
13 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 re...
A Night of Ear Candy
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
The Intersection of Folklore, Radio Journalism and a Pear
15 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 to...
The Squirm Test
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
From time to time, you might learn something unfavorable about a character when reporting a story. Inevitably you ask yourself: should I include this ...
Effective Sound Effects
18 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
History podcasts face a serious problem: sound. So much documentation from the past lacks audio. The Last Archive solved the problem in a very unique ...
Pandemic Diary
04 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There needs to be a radio and podcasting merit badge: reporters and producers earn one when they stretch above and beyond for a story. If there was on...
Sound Art Meets Poetry Meets Cicadas
21 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Rob's secret hope with every HowSound is that you'll hear creative storytelling and production and think "Oh wait! I wanna do that!" He has no doubt t...
Walking In The Margins Of Journalism Ethics
07 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Emily Green says she "walked in the margins" of journalism ethics to report a story on kidnapping at the US/Mexico border for This American Life. Emil...
Leave In The Question
23 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This American Life's Sean Cole is the guest on this episode of HowSound. Rob dug this one out of the HowSound archive from 2010. It features a fantast...
A Feast For Your Ears
09 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is aptly named: “A Feast For Your Ears”. Rob features a handful of ear-catching clips. From a psychedelic road trip in Australia in t...
The Recesses Of Jay's Mind
26 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
You may know Jay Allison for his work on the Moth Radio Hour and in his role as the founder and executive editor of Transom. But, back in the day, Jay...
AfroQueer And Podcasting In Kenya
12 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Selly Thiam says producing an LGBTQ podcast in Kenya is incredibly challenging. There's homophobia, government censorship, and a potential audience th...
What Do You Stand For?
28 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why do you report a story or produce a podcast and send it out into the world? What gives you purpose? What do you stand for? Rob finds meaning from t...
Gathering Scene Tape While Reporting From A Closet
14 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Because of COVID 19, Reporters are scrambling to figure out how to report from home given social distancing guidelines and shelter in place orders. In...
Take A Walk With Your Mic
31 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This historic moment may be a good time to reconnect to the sonic environment. The latest episode of HowSound provides inspiration to do just that.
Poetry As Narration
17 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Narration in stories is usually just that - narration. Someone in a booth reading or ad-libing a script. But, "Borders Between Us" is different. Produ...
Two Student Stories About Music
03 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Two stories, produced in a week by Transom Traveling Workshop students. The first, by Georgia Walker at our workshop at WPLN in Nashville. And the se...
Being Present With A Microphone
18 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The first time Rob listened to "A Cow a Day" he thought "What the??!" But then he listened again and was hooked. Rob talks to Pejk Malinovsky, the pro...
Got Your Ears On?
04 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Got your ears on? You'll want them as Rob threads his way through a wide variety of clips that caught his attention over the last few months. A man ...
Shereen Goes Quiet
21 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Shereen Marisol Meraji of Code Switch told me she's sick of her voice -- the authoritative narrator. In response, Shereen recently experimented gettin...
When The Story Is About You But Not About You
07 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Let's face it: Use of the pronoun "I" has gotten out of hand. There's much too much navel gazing and self-indulgence in so many podcasts. And yet, som...
Pigeons and Octopuses – Two Transom Story Workshop Stories
24 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Two treats for your ears. Stories produced by graduates of the Transom Story Workshop -- Ruby Schwartz and Cariad Harmon. They're well worth a listen ...
Reporting On The Reverse Freedom Riders
10 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The backstory to WGBH's Gabrielle Emanuel's reporting on a hidden past is fascinating. How she found people connected to the Reverse Freedom Riders…...
Staying The Course In A Tough Interview
26 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When you're yelled at. Called a prostitute. Told you're a liar and shameless and malicious... How do you stay the course and keep interviewing? Brazil...
Navigating Mongolia With Fixers
12 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Emily Kwong had never been to Mongolia. She doesn't speak the language. She didn't know her way around. It was winter and very cold. She was in-countr...
Scoring Stories: Part 2
29 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Rob talks specifically about how to bring music in and out of a story. And, then, he takes a stab at the impossible: explaining one aspect of how to s...
Scoring Stories: Part 1
15 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How do you score a story with music is one of the most frequent questions, HowSound's Rob Rosenthal is asked. Up now, the first of two episodes on the...
Interviewing For Emotions
01 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
HowSound listeners always seem to want tips on interviewing. Liz Mak of Snap Judgement delivers on this episode with her approach to interviewing for ...
Jaw-Dropping Clips
17 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Get your ears on for this episode. Rob presents clips from podcasts that made his jaw drop including Love + Radio, The Ballad of Billy Balls, and Have...
Anything Can Happen. That's The Best Part.
03 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Reporting in the field can be chaos. Anything can happen. NPR host Noel King says that's the best part of being a journalist -- chasing a story that's...
Bellwether's Speculative Journalism
21 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 2017, producer Sam Greenspan took a leap. He left his producing job at 99% Invisible for... well, he wasn't exactly sure at the time. Now, two year...
HowSound Reviews "Song Exploder"
06 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In an effort to try something new, Rob offers another podcast review. This time, "Song Exploder" from Radiotopia.
HowSound Reviews "Stay Free: The Story Of The Clash"
23 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Despite hours of great material, there are a couple things about Spotify's "Stay Free: The Story of the Clash" that really make Rob cranky.
The Hidden Work Of An Associate Producer
09 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Who are all those people at the end of an episode of Reply All, given credit for putting it together? One of them is Jessica Yung. She's an Associate ...
First, Tell Them An Anecdote
25 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When you have guests as famous and interesting at Tan France, Ramy Youseff, Wazina Zondon, Ryan Harris, and Alia Shawkat, why does the host of Tell ...
When The Going Gets Tough, Keep Asking Questions
11 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
NPR reporter Uri Berliner breaks from his usual approach to storytelling and finds interviewing his dad about growing up in Berlin in the 1930s to be ...
Some Fav And Not-So-Fav Sounds
29 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sewage pipes, a radio crime, and sound designing inner thoughts.... Must be another episode of Rob's fav sounds but this time with a twist -- a sound ...
Getting Inside Someone Else’s Skin
14 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Every once in a while, I think HowSound should focus solely on interviewing. To heck with sound design, writing, ethics, tracking, and the like. Just ...
Eight Things I Like About 10 Things That Scare Me
30 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, the convention-busting production choices of "10 Things That Scare Me."
Nuggets
16 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes, there's just too much good work to feature on HowSound. To solve the problem, from time to time I feature a slew of ear-catching clips on o...
How Sruthi Tracks
02 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
At a school where I taught radio, in the mic booth, there was a photo of Studs Terkel hanging on the wall. Under it, someone wrote “Talk to Studs.”...
An Editor’s Fingerprints
19 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Since 2009, Julia Barton's edited a lot of radio and podcasts you probably listen to including Revisionist History. On this HowSound, Julia talks shop...
All The Sound We Can Not Hear
05 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff Emtmen pulled an audio sleight of hand in an episode of Hear Be Monsters about Mexican free-tail bats. It's a delight to listen to. To understand...
Two From The Road In Nashville
19 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Why do students at Transom's Traveling Workshops produce such solid work on very little sleep? Because they're driven to learn? Yup. Because they want...
A Sonic Conjuring
05 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, a fascinating minute of audio - the sound of war and peace reconstructed from the exact end of World War I. Even more fascinating, th...
Twitter Vox
22 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Back in September, Barrie Hardymon and Dana Cronin produced a short, sharp, shock of a story. One that featured tweets recorded by listeners including...
Taking Control Of The Music
08 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jim Briggs and Fernando Arruda compose music for stories at Reveal. HowSound's Rob Rosenthal talks with them about the way they think about music and ...
Your Skull Is An Ear
26 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Up now on HowSound, a recent doc from BBC 3 called "Right Between the Ears" features ear-catching sound design and reveals how ears aren't the only pa...
Making Sense Of A Pile Of Tape
11 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A pile of tape just might be a treasure trove of radio gold. But how do you go manage it? Bianca Giaever has answers and a touching documentary called...
Enticing Listeners To Press Play Again
27 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
That feeling you have at the end of a serialized podcast where all you want to do is press play again -- what causes that? Rob talks to Leah Sottlile ...
These Are A Few Of My Favorite (Recent) Clips
13 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A student once asked me “How do you find the stories you feature on HowSound?” I’m asked that a lot, actually. And, I’m sorry to say, I don’...
You Just Won’t Know If You Don’t Ask
31 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Kingsley was so nervous when she started "Humans of the Arctic" she didn't eat for a week. But, she stepped off the boat in Svalbard with her...
Fictional Sounds For A Fictional Story
16 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Producer Morgan Givens lays out his elaborate thinking behind a few sound effects he recorded for a historical fiction story he produced about an esca...
The Podcast Mindset: Part 2
02 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It's a hackneyed idea, but it bears repeating: you can have all the right gear and marketing and everything else to make your podcast successful, but ...
The Podcast Mindset: Part 1
18 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Recording equipment? Check. Marketing plan? Check. Theme music? Check. Mindset?..... You can have all the technical and logistical aspects of podcasti...
Color Notes
05 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Often, sound brings to light the visuals in a radio story. But, narration can paint pictures, too. NPR's John Burnett talks "color notes" in radio sto...