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National Poetry Month: Mark Rushton (disquiet0067​-​odysseymachine)

from Mark Rushton - Disquiet Junto - 2013 by Mark Rushton

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More on this 67th Disquiet Junto project at: disquiet.com/2013/04/11/disquie…67-odysseymachine/

My process: Per the rules, I rolled a combined "8" for Book VIII, and with the 3 die I ended up with line 80, which is:

He set before him, next, a polish'd board
And basket, and a goblet fill'd with wine
For his own use, and at his own command.

After looking at numerous online text-to-speech tools, I ended up using NaturalReaders.com and eventually settled with UK-en voice "Peter" with speed set at -4. Later on, I added a touch of reverb and some chorus in Sound Forge.

It was important that I found the right voice and at the right pacing. I wanted older, British, slow, perhaps having downed a few drinks already, and I got it. The pacing was controlled by the way I arranged the text on the screen. After recording, there was only one tiny split-second glitch that got excised.

I help produce a literary audio magazine, Bound Off www.boundoff.com - it's been published monthly since 2006 and presents short fiction read aloud by the authors or other readers. I perform audio editing of the stories, when needed, and half the battle of what I do is being aware of the pacing, editing out any mistakes of the readers, and trying to doctor whatever recording I receive the best I can.

The other thing I like is when readers slowwwww ddddddown. Slow down so I can hear it. Slow down so I can understand it. Slow down so I can enjoy it. So it was nice that NaturalReaders.com enabled me to "slow down" UK Peter. That's really key. Especially when it comes to poetry. Particularly when you're only presenting one line.

As you can see, the setup was really crucial.

The music? Eh... I am biased in that I don't like music or sounds to overwhelm words or poetry in this sort of a presentation. I kept it very minimal. I loaded up the recording in Samplr on my iPad and recorded off some audio. 4 different loops were mixed in, although they are at a very low volume. It would be disrespectful to UK Peter -4 to compete. So I made a decision to put most of my effort in the "reading" rather than the "music".

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

This project was inspired by the National Poetry Month event at SoundCloud, more details on which here:

soundcloud.com/groups/national-poetry-month-collaborations

The source text for this project is William Cowper’s translation of The Odyssey of Homer, available here:

archive.org/stream/theodysseyof…4269gut/24269-0.txt

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from Mark Rushton - Disquiet Junto - 2013, released April 27, 2014

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Mark Rushton Iowa

I make way too much electronic music. Mostly ambient, some beat-driven.

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