Song/Casting: Combining Podcasts and Songs to Create a Hybrid Medium
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Nate Sahr 1 Song/Casting: Combining Podcasts and Songs to Create a Hybrid Medium A Thesis Presented to the Honors Tutorial College, Ohio University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation from the Honors Tutorial College with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Media Arts & Studies By Nate Sahr May 2021 Nate Sahr 2 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Introduction – What is a Songcast? 4 The Hypothetical Songcast: Preliminary Research & Codification 9 Storytelling in Podcasts 10 Storytelling in Songs 12 Parasocial Relationships 14 Music 16 The Actual Songcast: Creative Process 17 Evaluating my Songcast 30 Conclusion 32 Bibliography 34 Nate Sahr 3 Abstract In my creative project and associated paper, I explore a hybrid medium, songcasting, that combines the most compelling elements of podcasts with the most compelling elements of songs. For the creation of this specific songcast, I interviewed 7 talented storytellers to capture audio recordings of them telling stories. From these, I chose a story about a Minnesotan teenager and his sister exploring Australia in 1979, and I built my songcast around it. This story explores coming of age, what it means to live in the modern world, cross-cultural relations, and more. The music and narration are carefully arranged and fused together to provide an immersive listening experience. While this songcast highlights the medium’s strengths, it is only one example of the many possibilities of songcasting. By synthesizing music, an emphasis on parasocial relationships, and the storytelling modes of both songs and podcasts, songcasts stand apart as unique audio format. Nate Sahr 4 Introduction – What is a Songcast? Imagine a spectrum: on one side of the spectrum is the color blue, on the other side is the color yellow. What lies in the center of this spectrum? If you know anything about color theory, or if you have ever experimented with mixing paints in art class, you likely answered: the color green. This spectrum is simple; it exists within a system defined by the laws of nature. When blue and yellow mix, in equal amounts, we see green. Identifying the intersection is easy. However, many spectrums and intersections are not so simple as this. Imagine another spectrum: this time one that spans between podcasts and songs. What lies in the center of this spectrum? This is, essentially, the question I have studied and explored in my creative project: what would a hybrid medium, one that combined components from both music and podcasting, sound like? What would it be? This podcast-song spectrum is much less straight forward than the blue-yellow spectrum, but there are some similarities, nonetheless. In the blue-yellow spectrum (image 1), green exists distinctly from blue and yellow. Green is not blue in the same way that blue is not yellow. However, while green is distinct in the blue-yellow spectrum, it is not independent. Without blue, green would not exist. Without yellow, green would not exist. In other words, green is blue and yellow at the same time, while simultaneously being neither parent color. Nate Sahr 5 Image 1: Blue-Yellow Color Spectrum (Towns) So, how does this have anything to do with the podcast-song spectrum? First, to avoid confusion, I will refer to this hypothetical hybrid medium that lies in the center of the podcast-song spectrum by a name: “songcasts”. Now, songcasts and the color green have a few things in common. Namely, songcasts are a distinct medium. Just as green is not blue, songcasts are neither a podcast nor a song. Instead, they are something new and different. Furthermore, while songcasts are distinct, they are still a combination of both podcasts and songs; they are dependent on these mediums. Just as green would not exist without both blue and yellow, songcasts would not exist without both podcasts and songs. Songcasts are a podcast and a song at the same time, while simultaneously being neither medium. Of course, this is not a perfect analogy. Combining blue and yellow makes green; this is a simple law of nature. However, combining a podcast and a song might simply Nate Sahr 6 make a podcast with lots of music in it, or a song with lots of talking. What distinguishes a songcast? There are no laws of nature to define it, only varying perceptions and clashing definitions. Furthermore, it is impossible to even know if a distinct, hybrid medium even exists on the podcast-song spectrum without exploring that space in great depth. Consequently, exploring that space is exactly what I have done via my creative project. I studied aspects of both podcasting and music, specifically songs with lyrical content, to identify why these mediums are so compelling. I identified what aspects of podcasting draw in its listeners, and what components of a song move the heart and mind. Once I understood these aspects and how to replicate them, I created a hybrid work by combining the most compelling aspects of podcasting and the most compelling aspects of music. Throughout this process, I have encountered a few common misconceptions about songcasts, so I offer a few clarifications. Songcasts are not podcasts about music or songs about podcasting. Songcasts are not podcasts that use lots of music, nor are they songs that include lots of talking. Ideally, listeners will struggle to identify a songcast as either a song or a podcast. Instead, a songcast is both of these things and neither of them at the same time. Consider the television show “Sherlock.” While each episode runs for 90 minutes, the length of some movies, the show is still episodic and serial (Heritage). This series combines aspects typical to movies and television shows to create something unique. While it is presented and distributed as a television show, “Sherlock” could arguably be defined as either a show or a series of movies. Nate Sahr 7 By exploring the intersection of movies and shows, Sherlock’s writers and producers made something incredibly unique and compelling. As a result, the show’s second series averaged over 8 million viewers per episode when it premiered (Marszal). Ultimately, this commercial success has much to do with the actual story, not just the form. There have been other television shows to follow similar formats with less success. The story of “Sherlock,” however, relies on the form; it would be completely different if the episodes were only 45 minutes long. Form is important; it is the framework around which compelling stories are told. New forms allow for new stories. “Sherlock” combines aspects of movies and television shows: two incredibly compelling and successful mediums that are extremely similar in many ways. I am interested in combining music in podcasts because they, like television and movies, are both incredibly compelling and similar mediums. The market value of podcasting and music point to their emotional value; in 2019 the podcasting industry generated $479.1 million dollars (Hogan), and the music industry generated $11.1 billion (Friedlander). Clearly, these mediums have the power to move people, as said people have shown by paying for access to these mediums. Additionally, both of these industries are built on the same technologies. The most influential of these technologies is audio recording; its implementation shattered the boundaries of time and space that previously held music captive. More recently, digital distribution and streaming have further democratized music. Now, anyone with a connection to the internet can access tens of millions of songs within minutes or less. While music was transformed by these technologies, podcasting was born from the opportunities they create. Digital distribution allowed podcasts to form as a medium Nate Sahr 8 distinct from radio; no longer did consumers have to tune in at the right time to hear their favorite shows (McHugh). Instead, they could simply download them and listen whenever and wherever they pleased. With the advent of streaming, that ease of access has only increased. Anecdotally, the similarities between podcasting and music can be seen by how Spotify and Apple, owners of the world’s two largest music streaming platforms, also operate the world’s two largest podcasting streaming platforms (Mulligan). Their infrastructure and customer base translate so easily between music and podcasts because they are such similar mediums. In the case of Spotify, these services are even part of the same application (image 2); you can stream podcasts and music in the same place. Clearly, then, podcasting and music are already intersecting commercially and technologically. Since they are both strictly audio mediums, they use the same technologies to record and distribute that audio. Image 2: The Spotify Desktop Application (Spotify). Nate Sahr 9 There is also some existing creative overlap between the mediums. For example, Daft Punk’s “Giorgio by Moroder” has sections that feel very much like a hybrid between podcast and song, even if the piece as a whole is clearly still a song. On the other hand, podcasts frequently use music to enhance their narratives and elicit emotional responses from their listeners. Other podcasts are all about music or music culture. The podcast Song Exploder showcases different songwriters dissecting songs they have written. At the end of each episode, the song that was discussed is played in its entirety (Hirway). Other creatives, like Ryan O’Neal of Sleeping at Last, have created podcasts to accompany their musical works. In The Sleeping at Last Podcast, O’Neal discusses songs he has written and his motivation behind creating music. These existing interactions between podcasting and music point to a greater potential that has yet to be fulfilled. While technologically these mediums are fairly integrated, the creative intersection of podcasts and songs has only been lightly explored.