The other day, I dropped off some computer speakers at a friend’s house. She came to the door and I thought to myself right there, in the moment, “I’m a little nervous but I’ll do it.” The “it” was to share the seed of an idea. So, I told her, with trepidation, I’d send her a sound poem about cicadas.
I’ll be frank with you. HowSound is fairly predictable in terms of the overall sound and the writing and the storytelling. There’s value in that predictability. Listeners can rely on it; they know what they’re getting when they download an episode.
This is true for most podcasts. Love + Radio will blow your ears and mind. Reveal consistently leaves you more informed about an important topic. I mean, it’s not the other way around. You don’t listen to Love + Radio to be informed, right?
But, there’s another side to that predictability — especially for the producer. Some days it can feel stale. In the case of HowSound, while I try from time to time to mix things up and play a little bit, the essential structure, that predictable format and content, is still there.
The first time I listened to “Magicicada” by Mair Bosworth and Fiona Benson I thought “Wow. There must be something else I can do. Some other way to work and play with sound and storytelling.” Mair and Fiona’s “sound poem” is that inspiring.
“Magicicada” is about 17-year cicadas, those buzzy bugs that come out in the summer and screech in your backyard. Mair, a sound artist and documentary producer, and Fiona, a poet, produced the piece as part of a series mixing sound art and poetry called “In the Company of Insects.” They traveled England and the U.S collecting sound, as well as interviewing entomologists and bug geeks about fireflies, crickets, glowworms, mosquitos, and a slew of other insects, including cicadas.
My great hope is that by hearing “Magicicada,” you’ll feel the same impetus I did — to try something new. Which leads me back to the conversation I had on a friend’s doorstep while dropping off speakers. The friend is an accomplished musician and sound artist and poet who pushes to the edge with her music. I’ve never worked with someone with that skill set and so I told her, “I want to plant a seed. I’ll send you this really ear-catching sound poem. I know you’ll love it. And, who knows, maybe it’ll give you an idea for something we could do together down the road. Because I know I surely need to break out of the confines of what I do.”
She said, “I know exactly what you mean.”
