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auronluI've been toying with the idea of recording Love Her and Despair as a book on tape.
Once upon a time, I was an amateur bard performing songs and stories. But now, asthma and sinusitis have given me a nasal and breathless delivery. I never could manage reading dialog and action very well; I was better at a folktale delivery where one didn't have to indicate change of speaker.
Option 2 is to use NaturalReader software to create Mp3s artificially. The pronunciation editor is flaky-- rather than let me type phonics, I have to try various misspellings and hope it gets one of them right-- and sometimes it gets the emphasis in a word or sentence incorrect. But on the whole, it does a remarkably good job.
Either way, I have to do a certain amount of editing and processing to get a passable recording, snipping out my stammers and pops or beating on Heather's wonky pronunciations and pacing to the extent that I can.
So here's recordings for Chapter 44 of Love Her and Despair, broken into two chunks since it's a long chapter:
Live recording: Part One | Part Two
Text-to-Speech: Part One | Part Two
[Poll #1651551]
Once upon a time, I was an amateur bard performing songs and stories. But now, asthma and sinusitis have given me a nasal and breathless delivery. I never could manage reading dialog and action very well; I was better at a folktale delivery where one didn't have to indicate change of speaker.
Option 2 is to use NaturalReader software to create Mp3s artificially. The pronunciation editor is flaky-- rather than let me type phonics, I have to try various misspellings and hope it gets one of them right-- and sometimes it gets the emphasis in a word or sentence incorrect. But on the whole, it does a remarkably good job.
Either way, I have to do a certain amount of editing and processing to get a passable recording, snipping out my stammers and pops or beating on Heather's wonky pronunciations and pacing to the extent that I can.
So here's recordings for Chapter 44 of Love Her and Despair, broken into two chunks since it's a long chapter:
Live recording: Part One | Part Two
Text-to-Speech: Part One | Part Two
[Poll #1651551]
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-02 06:09 am (UTC)This is what I've lost. I had lousy mikes and too much reverb, but LISTEN to what my voice was like before all those years of sinus infections:
SIlly little song written for the bards' guild in Rivendell (http://sepdet.istad.org/recordings/valley.mp3) in the style of The Hobbit elves
Pippin's Song in Elvish (http://sepdet.istad.org/recordings/pippin.mp3) -- my translation ("Home is behind / the world ahead / and there are many paths to tread / through shadows til the edge of night / until the stars are all alight / mist and shadows / cloud and shade / all shall fade, all shall fade" )
Bread and Roses (http://sepdet.istad.org/recordings/breadandroses.mp3) recorded in 1996 in a noisy apartment
Tale of Two Jackals (http://www.istad.org/thoth/2jackals.mp3) - my retelling of an ancient Egyptian folktale
It makes me wistful to hear those recordings now, even though I was embarrassed about them back then. I had no training, and I had crackle pops and made all kinds of amateur mistakes, but dammit, I had a pleasant voice once!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-02 02:59 pm (UTC)(Now I'm sure you're going to be tempted to enumerate them ;) but many years of choral singing lead me to advise you not to do so. Of course the performer is going to know where the flaws are, but the audience doesn't know what to listen for, and chances are they went right by... unless you point them out.)
Also, I often prefer audiobooks of author's reading their own work, even over professional actors/readers, because they know things about the intended emotional impact that a reader might not.