Music and My Favourite Thing

Stingers, Bumpers and Music

This week we discussed the function that music plays in radio and video.  Music helps set the mood, and often in radio there are short clips of music that listeners identify with the show and that are used to help separate different segments of a radio program, these are called stingers.  If you listen to CBC radio's Daybreak South in the morning you are probably familiar with the music they use in their stinger for the start of each segment after the news breaks (it's upbeat and groovy).  The CBC radio show Q uses the intro music from the BROS' song Tell Me. 

Radio shows also use bumpers.  A bumper is a short segment of audio that is prerecorded and usually consists of a voice over music, for instance a bumper for our radio show might say "you are listening to the Creation Station on Peach City Radio!"  Bumpers serve as transitions from one audio segment to another.

Where to find music to use with an audio segment though?  This week we looked at a music site called Incompetech.  This site has royalty free music and graph paper -- an intriguing combination!  (I have to admit to using the site for both of these items.)  Royalty free music is music that is free, or that you have to only pay for once, that you can use in different projects for as long as you like.  If you've ever tried to add a favourite track of music to a video that you are uploading to YouTube you may have had the unpleasant experience of having your music blocked.  This is probably because you do not have permission from the song's distributor to use the track.  Royalty free music can be used without this problem.  Incompetech's site is really handy because you can search for music based on how it feels (ie the mood it conveys).  Maybe you need a piece of music that is bouncy and humorous sounding, or perhaps you are looking for something eerie and dark.

My Favourite Thing

Students exercised their creative and divergent thinking muscles this week by playing 'My Favourite Thing'.  In this storytelling activity students are shown an ordinary object and they have to explain (in 2 or 3 sentences) why it is their favourite thing.  The Wednesday classes told some great tales about a frying pan, sponge, fake flower, and other items.  The Tuesday class came up with riveting yarns about a tissue box, a small plastic hand, and part of a marble works track.
  

Project Time

Students continued to work on their radio projects.  All of the classes got quite a bit of recording done.  The Wednesday morning class tackled another fractured fairy tale, this time written by Char G.  The tale involved 10 voice actors and the students did a great job working together to get the recording done!   

Check out the photos below of the students at work (and at play!)
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