- What place does sound have in your life?
- How often do you listen?
- Do you have a favourite sound, and how often do you hear it?
- What does it mean if something is ‘musical’? Is what you create ‘musical’ in any way?
- If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?
In devising the questions I would be asking my interviewee I felt that in order to try and provoke some more unexpected answers, I should make them as abstract and open ended as possible, allowing for multiple interpretations, in each question I feel there is opportunity to get a wide variety of answers from a wide variety of people. I very much wanted to interview fellow podcast sound designer and friend Kathryn Stanley. I felt that we were different enough that she would give some interesting answers, but also that the more abstract elements of sound wouldn’t go amiss as it would if I asked, say, my grandmother.
Because Katie is based in the U.S. there were a few hurdles to get past. The first being timezones, which was as simple as figuring out when we were awake but also still mentally prepared enough to do an interview. The second was doing the interview over the internet, there was a few ways to go about this, the first was to get on a call (discord, zoom, hangouts etc.) and then record our ends of the convo, doing a countdown to a clap. However having done things like this before, I knew that there was a program called zencastr which records and automatically syncs up the audio, this meant all I had to worry about was the interview itself
I found the interview nice, though I felt I was a bit nervous for some reason, perhaps it was the fact that the pressure was on me, it being my first interview on the asking end of things. I did genuinely enjoy the conversation. I think it’s always nice to sit and talk about the elements of sound with one’s peers, it’s interesting to see different perspectives from one’s own and this is the easiest and most basic way to do it. Listening back I really find myself quite frustrating to listen to. Um-ing and Ah-ing in circles, Katie was very good to put up with it and still gave some really nicely thought out answers despite my dithering. I think if I were to do it again I’d try to get the structure down properly, the delay over the internet didn’t help the flow of conversation and so having a more regimented structure might help develop it. The only issue with that is there isn’t a lot of room for follow up questions and it would not have the same conversational nature that I would like.
In the end I’m glad I had the conversation, I think if I was less nervous and had more time it might be nice to do it again a few times and refine the question. I didn’t have a purpose beyond seeing the thoughts of my peers and I would definitely not go as far as to call it ‘research’ but nevertheless I think I will try this again.