Sound School Podcast

By Rob Rosenthal/PRX/Transom.org

The Backstory to Great Audio Storytelling, hosted by Rob Rosenthal, for Transom and PRX.

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FAQs about Sound School Podcast:

How many episodes does Sound School Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 595 episodes available.

Sound School Podcast episodes:

May 05, 2015 The Path To Primary Care
In this episode of HowSound, Rob Rosenthal talks with producer Karen Brown about her piece, "The Path to Primary Care: Who Will Be the Next Generation of Frontline Doctors." A local piece with national appeal.
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18min
April 21, 2015 Radio Writing With Alex Chadwick
On this edition of HowSound, Alex Chadwick and Rob Rosenthal trade tips on writing for radio that new producers will find invaluable.
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18min
April 21, 2015 Radio Writing With Alex Chadwick - HowSound
If only I’d had Alex Chadwick as my guide when I was learning to write for radio (and now, for that matter). Wooooboy, life would have been a whole lot easier and my writing a whole lot better. Alex is a master at parsing out what works and what doesn’t. His Transom manifesto on writing is gold.
On this edition of HowSound, Alex and I trade tips on writing that new producers will find invaluable. Between this episode and the manifesto, most of the basics are covered.
During our interview, Alex said one thing that caught my ear. It’s not in the episode or the manifesto. It’s a writing practice I never would have guessed he would use given that he’s a radio reporter and the primary tools are a mic and a recorder. Alex says a lot of what he writes in his narration comes from the notebook he uses while reporting.
Alex has a unique writing style. (For another medium, I’d say writing “voice” but in radio “voice” means something else.) And, it sounds like that style stems from his note taking. He sounds somewhat literary at times, though to be fair, Alex bristled when I said that to him. In radio it’s not a compliment to say someone sounds literary. But, I meant it as a compliment and he understood that.
What I mean is this: Alex’s writing is sometimes more complicated than what is usually considered appropriate for the medium. Occasionally he can be ornate and descriptive. But it works. And that sets him apart. Indeed, it’s what makes his work interesting.
One of the better examples of what I’m talking about can be heard in Alex’s award-winning documentary from the early ‘90s “Natasha Dudinska: Hope and Courage in Czechoslovakia.” It’s a 25-minute documentary recorded as the country forged a new, post-Soviet direction. What follows is a clip of the last few minutes of the documentary plus Alex’s reflection on the value of note taking for writing.
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18min
April 21, 2015 Radio Writing With Alex Chadwick
On this edition of HowSound, Alex Chadwick and Rob Rosenthal trade tips on writing for radio that new producers will find invaluable.
...more
18min
April 07, 2015 Concerning Breakfast
This week on HowSound, Rob Rosenthal shares one of his favorite pieces of all time, "Concerning Breakfast" produced by Annie Cheney and Jay Allison for the series, “Life Stories,” (Associate Producer, Christina Egloff).
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25min
April 07, 2015 Concerning Breakfast - HowSound
Certain radio stories I heard years ago made such an impression on me they still bounce around in my head like a long echo.

Clear as a bell, I can hear Lloyd Newman and LeAlan Jones narrating their lives in Ghetto Life 101. Tony Schwartz knocking the rust out of my ears with the simple sounds of his New York City postal zone in the series Lost and Found Sound, produced by The Kitchen Sisters with Jay Allison. Josh Cutler’s Tourrette’s Syndrome outbursts in the Teen Diaries series produced by Joe Richman and Radio Diaries. In fact, not only have these documentaries never left my ears, they inspired me to pick up a microphone and start producing.
One other piece to add to that list is Annie Cheney’s Concerning Breakfast. Even though I first heard the piece about fifteen years ago, in my mind it’s like I listened to it yesterday. I think about her use of the old recording level-setting practice of asking people what they had for breakfast as a narrative tool nearly every time I do the same thing before an interview.
On this edition of HowSound we’ll listen to Concerning Breakfast in its entirety. No interview. No teachable moment. Just the story. It deserves that spotlight.
By the way, Concerning Breakfast was part of a series of pieces produced by Jay Allison with Christina Egloff called The Life Stories Collection. You can listen to many of them at PRX.
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25min
April 07, 2015 Concerning Breakfast
This week on HowSound, Rob Rosenthal shares one of his favorite pieces of all time, "Concerning Breakfast" produced by Annie Cheney and Jay Allison for the series, “Life Stories,” (Associate Producer, Christina Egloff).
...more
25min
March 24, 2015 Death, Sex And Money With Anna Sale
Anna Sale, the host of the podcast "Death, Sex and Money" talks with Rob Rosenthal in front of a live audience about the art of interviewing and getting people to talk about difficult things.
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58min
March 24, 2015 Death, Sex And Money With Anna Sale - HowSound
What stands out about WNYC’s podcast Death, Sex, and Money are the guests. The program has featured its share of celebrities — Dan Savage, Margaret Cho, and Ellen Burstyn to name a few. But, most of the time, the interviewees are not famous. They aren’t newsmakers. They aren’t politicians or PhDs. They haven’t just published a book. Nothing they’ve said has gone viral. They’re just… well, I never know quite how to say it, but, they’re ‘regular people’ living their lives out of the spotlight. And that’s refreshing. So refreshing.

And then there’s the tone of the program. Death, Sex, and Money is a “safe place,” as Anna Sale, the host of the show put it. Guests are remarkably candid about “the big questions and hard choices that are often left out of polite conversation,” to quote WNYC’s description of the show. So candid, in fact, that you can’t help but look at your radio (or phone) and think “Did they just say that? On mic?!”
How Anna’s approach to interviewing creates that “safe space” and such an ear-catching program is the topic of this edition of HowSound. We chatted for a couple of hours at a public event sponsored by Rob Boynton, the Director of NYU’s Literary Reportage concentration.
I didn’t have time to include the audience questions in this episode so we’ve collected most of them here. Anna answers a range of really good questions on everything from diversity in public media to “When you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
When you’re finished listening, you’ll want to subscribe to Death, Sex, and Money, I’m sure.
Questions from the Audience
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58min
March 24, 2015 Death, Sex And Money With Anna Sale
Anna Sale, the host of the podcast "Death, Sex and Money" talks with Rob Rosenthal in front of a live audience about the art of interviewing and getting people to talk about difficult things.
...more
58min

FAQs about Sound School Podcast:

How many episodes does Sound School Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 595 episodes available.

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