When deciding what to do my podcast assignment on there were a few things that I wanted to take into account first. When picking a subject for a project like this I wanted to chose something that I was interested in, and something I had a decent amount of knowledge about prior to the assignment. Music has become a large part of my life. Whether it’s making music, working with people who make music from a business stand point, or simply enjoying the many parts of the music scene, I am very involved with all of it.  For this project, mainly due to the audio component do it, I decided to do my podcast about the underground music scene in San Francisco. I spend a great deal of my weekend time going to concerts and shows in many different cities in California.

There are a number of things I am taking into account when preparing to record my podcast. Because I am focusing on a subject that heavily involves music, I want music to be a significant part of my podcast. There will be a musical intro and outro, as well as music spread throughout the podcast itself. One tip I learned from Terry Fitzpatrick of UPIU, is that if you chose to use music within your podcast, you should really only use it when changing the mood of the conversation. Using music to induce a certain feeling, and then proceeding into an interview that goes along with this mood can be very effective.

Another technique that i found very useful was to keep your podcast flowing; don’t jump around too much with your questions. You want to keep your listener interested in what you have to say, and jumping around too much can lose their attention. It is also important to keep the sound of all the parts of the podcast similar. I got some points lost from my last podcast project when i re-recorded my questions at a later point because it sounded to jumpy. The sound when I recorded the interview was different than when i re-recorded the questions, and this made it sound a bit strange.

Sometimes, as an interviewer, you can look a bit intimidating when interviewing your subjects. A technique I was taught to avoid this is to hold the mic at a 45 degree angle when interviewing. This way the mic isn’t right up in the persons face, but off to the side. This is not as intimidating, and actually records a better sound in the long run. The point of a podcast is to paint a picture for your listener with the audio you record. These tips are important to use if you hope to achieve a mental picture with a podcast.