Introducing: Field Notes.

A new creative adventure! Yay. I’ve recently been experimenting with adding audio to some of my posts. Initially this was just a practical exercise to see how it was done and whether it added anything to the posts themselves.

To do this, I used AI voices, heavily edited to alter tone, pace and spacing, sometimes with background music, sometimes without.

On the face of it I think “it worked” in so far as they turned out pretty well, and at the very least afford the visitor the opportunity to listen to the article while scrolling through the images.

Sounds simple enough, but converting each article was incredibly time consuming and a little bit hit and miss when it came to certain pronunciations.

But the seed had been well and truly sown.

What if, I thought, I did the narration? That would add authenticity for sure. What if I included incidental sound effects? That would help bring the story to life, right? I mean, after all, there’s a world of free sound effects out there, and I could record some of my own.

Looking ahead to my next trip to Poland, I suddenly visualised the creation of sound only, experimental articles that combined my narration with location-accurate sounds to reinforce emotions.

Take my writing on Sobibor - how much more absorbing could that be with actual sound and a personal narration. I think, significantly more.

A little bit of research unearthed the practice of “field recording”, the discovery and collection of sounds in context. What’s more, it doesn’t need any expensive kit. Bonus.

But in typical Dave style, I felt I wanted to incentivise myself to make a “thing” out of this idea.

Introducing “Field Notes”

My goal is to use my in-field recordings as the basis of some kind of an audio blog. Not a podcast, per se.

An audio blog is, in essence, a weblog that includes sound files, but, unlike a podcast, these can be recordings, a spoken journal, or music. In an audio blog, there can be text, video, and sound. Hence any sound file can be recorded and uploaded to the blog.

The advantage of this format is that it gives the visitor a closer relationship with the content creator, in this case, me!

I think it could be a closer relationship than the one you might have with a writer or a journalist who only writes. From what I can gather, unlike podcasts, audio bloggers often use live broadcasts to interact with listeners, who ask questions and comment, usually in chats. So that’s another avenue to explore.

Another advantage of the audio blog format is surely its flexibility. Content can be developed by uploading sound files or by phone calls, and the audio is then stored on audio blog servers. Making life not only more interesting, but in terms of workflow, more straight forward.

Thinking about it, the fundamental difference when it comes to podcasts is that the listener has less freedom to choose what to listen to, and is at the mercy of what the content creator is broadcasting at the time. On the other hand, the audio blog author can authorise other users to add comments or other audio files on the same page to complement the content initially published.

So, my audio blog could become a series of recordings, with scope for subjects, chapters and genres.

Why do I think audio blog is better for me right now than a podcast?

As usual, with my head, it’s impossible to say. Some would answer that question by claiming that podcasting is superior because of its simplicity and because all smart speakers can play a podcast whereas they cannot “play blogs”.

At least for now.

Other people might prefer to read in some cases, and, depending on the content, in particular, sometimes they will need images or video to bring them into the story.

Apparently, audio blogs may have certain advantages in terms of SEO seeing as automatic audio transcription technology currently allows search engines to identify sound (or video) files concerning searches.

This doesn’t really concern me. I’m doing this for me, with an imaginary audience!

Ultimately time will tell. The answer to which medium is best will doubtless depend on two key factors.

The first one is my own strengths and weaknesses.

If I believe I have a good (enough) voice and ability to convey information solely through audio, podcasts may end up being my thing.

If, on the other hand, I am a more visual person (which I am damn sure I am) and like to complement images with text and audio, audio blogging may be a better option.

Well... let me see what transpires. First task is to make some simple recordings and see how I get in in an audio-editing environment.

Why not accompany me on the ride?