Our interviews with famous dead Canadians are pretty much wrapped up now. I learned a few things in the process.
- If you’re going to alter people’s voices to make girls sound like guys and guys sound like girls, subtle changes are best. If the changes are too dramatic, they just sound silly. Don’t change the pitch of the voice too much.
- Subtle changes in the speed someone talks at change how you perceive their voice. A slighter faster voice sounds higher (and more feminine) and a slightly slower one sounds lower (and more masculine).
- Audacity is limited in how many different tracks you can have in use at once. It seems to handle ten to 20 just fine, but some kids had more and we had to trim that down. If we didn’t the program would crash repeatedly. That was quite frustrating until I figured it out. None the less, considering the software is free and pretty easy to learn (and also comes in a portable version you can take with you) it’s pretty hard to complain.
- This assignment was fun. Though it took a few weeks from beginning to end, the kids were usually pretty motivated. Even the kids who are often unmotivated didn’t complain. I either have an unusually eager bunch of kids this year, or researching and “interviewing” famous late, great Canadians is actually something that Grade 9 students enjoy.
Overall it was a great project and it will be repeated next year.
