How to use music in podcasts

Date

06/04/2024

Time

12:00pm-2:00pm EST

Where

Online Workshop

Cost

$100.00

Scoring, or the art of selecting and placing music into a podcast, is high stakes stuff. At its best, it can lend style, set pacing, and elevate work to its peak. At its worst, scoring can distract, confuse, and grind an otherwise strong story to a halt. It can feel challenging and even scary for beginners but, with a little knowledge and technique, scoring not only becomes surmountable, it can even be a whole lot of fun.

In this workshop, producer Benjamin Frisch walks you through the basics of the craft, art, and philosophy of scoring. You’ll go from conceptualization, to picking good tunes, and effectively implementing them with finesse and a few tips and tricks. Through presentations and live demonstrations, you’ll learn practical ways to use music to pace and punctuate your work effectively, techniques and effects to modify music to lend it a sense of space and place, and also learn to think about music as a meaning-making part of your editorial process. Benjamin will also discuss licenses and the landscape of music libraries. After the class you’ll come away with new ways of thinking about scoring, to make your stories sing.

Who's this class for?

This class is open to all skill levels, but basic DAW skills are recommended. This workshop is oriented towards scoring non-fiction work, but elements may apply to fiction as well.

About Your Instructor

Benjamin Frisch

Benjamin Frisch is a producer and artist from Williamsburg, Virginia. The co-creator of Slate’s Decoder Ring podcast, he’s produced dozens of audio documentaries on subjects as diverse as the Segway personal scooter, orgasmic meditation, illegal abortion in Brazil, and bad Tasmanian Devil tattoos, for which he won a Writer’s Guild Award in 2022. Most recently he was a senior producer on Prologue Project’s Think Twice: Michael Jackson, on the pop singer’s unsettled legacy, and his audio work has appeared on Love+Radio, Un-Fictional, and Out on The Wire, among others.

Testimonials

"It was so great, thank you!"

"I absolutely loved this class. I was about to start scoring a 30-min investigative podcast episode, and what I learned in this class helped me approach and complete that project with new excitement and specific tools and resources. Benjamin...You were so prepared and thoughtful about what you shared with us. You taught in a very accessible way, and shared specific tools and techniques we could use that were super helpful. I loved the punctuation metaphors and how you talked about how putting voices with music is like composing - I feel that way, too! The class felt like a playful invitation to go on a treasure hunt and experiment with music and sound. Thank you!"

"This was a very good class on this topic. One of the better ones I have attended. Well done!"

Notes on this Class

Refund and recording policy: Classes will not be recorded and are non-refundable. We are not able to issue a refund if you cancel or do not attend a class. If you are unable to make a class, you are welcome to sell or give away your ticket and email the name of the new attendee to info@radiobootcamp.org. You will receive a Zoom link for the workshop the day before it begins.