Audio Biography Reflection

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My audio biography is a more in-depth version of the initial “I Am From” poem that we did in class. When we were first assigned this I was wary because I didn’t think that I would be able to come up with good things to write into it, but it was easier than I had initially thought. Once I wrote the first draft of the poem, it gave me a good outline to go into more detail. I ultimately chose to do my version of “I Am From” for my audio biography because I think that it’s a cool and interesting way to tell a story about yourself, without actually describing your location (which I eventually did). It’s a nice way to explain where you come from in terms of your ways of growing up and how it helped shaped you as a person. Telling my story this way made it easier for me knowing that others would hear it because I had a guide to go off of, rather than trying to think of one significant thing to talk about. The only challenges I feel I faced in the actual writing was the initial draft and maybe later on just deciding what to elaborate on. I think that in the writing process I chose to go into more detail about the most significant aspects of my story, rather than just adding in other random details. When I first wrote my drafts I didn’t include certain things until my final draft, like the importance Peter and my Nana passing away or my mom being a single parent. I’m glad that I did explain these parts more because I think that they are important parts of my life as far as the process of growing older. I was pretty happy with my final outcome, but as far as doing something differently I would probably narrow it down to the sound effects. I decided to use light background music with fade in at the beginning and fade out at the end, but I maybe could have not played the music continuously or added some other sound effects. I think that it would sound nice altogether if done right, but in all honesty, I didn’t feel like for my piece on-and-off music and other sound effects would mesh together that well. When putting together my final draft I probably recorded it through seven or eight times. I really hate hearing my own voice on a recording so it was a little bit challenging because I was being super critical, but I guess in the end I can’t really change the sound of my voice too much. I realized that when recording a piece it’s difficult because the slightest thing can get you off track and make you start over again, so that’s something to work through. I think the biggest thing that I am taking away from creating an audio biography and relating it to our refugee project is that it’s not easy to tell your story. There are certain things that are hard in everyone’s life to share, so when telling our story we have to decide what is off limits to us and what we are comfortable speaking about. Being asked to talk about yourself is even harder when it is a complete stranger, so I definitely want to make Esther, (our refugee interviewee), as comfortable as possible and empowered to share her story.