Brother John Reads A Poem.
My friend Don Smith (over at Creative Endeavors) has been interested in associating music with some of his WordPress posts. I will be exploring various ways to do this in WordPress starting with this simple technique. I’m going to give you all a sample of one of my Sister’s poems. A scary Halloween’ish ditty called “Deep Dank Hollows”. And you get a special treat! It is being read by yours truly (I also added the spooky music layer hand crafted by your’s truly specifically for this reading). Enjoy!
It this works you should see a small player above that you can click on and play. (Assuming of course you have headphones and a sound card 
)
If you like the poem, you can check out some of her other works at: September Butterfly.
Author said,
May 16, 2008 at 2:32 am
Nice voice brother John!
Would you conider doing a step by step, idiot proof post on how to insert this gadget in a post? How? Where from? OK?
Brother John said,
May 16, 2008 at 6:41 am
Author, Why… thank you for the nice compliment.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I’d open up this post (in image form) and show you what’s inside. I’ll include a link at the end of the comment.
In a nutshell, WordPress (only in posts), lets you place a special “tag” that will build a music player. Two things you should know:
The actual “tag” looks something like this:
[audio link-to-your-audio-file-here.mp3]
It’s a left bracket followed by the word: audio, followed by a single space, followed by the full path to your audio link, followed by a final right bracket. (Notice that there are only two (2) brackets in use).
When you finally publish your post, WordPress will read the “tag” and will automatically build an audio player for you set to play the specified MP3 file. This will then appear as it did in my final post.
Here’s the promised link.
Brother John
Lansdowne, Pennsylvania
Don Smith said,
May 17, 2008 at 5:59 am
Uh….. If you is not all that busy ….. How do you turn off smiley things in WordPress. I cannot seem to find an option to disable.
DS
Author said,
May 17, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Brother John,
I’m in complete awe! Thank you for such carefully written instructions. They are very clear.
Just one problem – “followed by the full path to your audio link” – where do I get an audio link from?
Sorry if I sound useless – I admit to being non-technical! Can you explain the audio link bit to me please?
I’ll revisit again to see if you’ve posted more.
Many thanks so far though ….. you’re a star!
Brother John said,
May 17, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Author, There are lots of places that let you store audio and music files for free. So if you have something that’s not copyright protected (Don’t want the digital rights management folks [DRM] or the Recording Industry Association of America [RIAA] after you), you can upload it to these free storage sites.
Here are a few free sites I just looked up that might get you started. (My Comcast Account gives me lots of free space which I use. I also use Photobucket for my pictures and other images). But you could look into these.
http://www.xdrive.com/storage-plans/
http://www.filefactory.com/info/faq.php
http://www.fileden.com/
http://www.snapdrive.net/index.php
http://www.4shared.com/
And if you want to use legal music by other people, there are lots of places to try:
http://mashable.com/2007/10/31/free-and-legal-music/
http://fingertipsmusic.blogspot.com/
http://www.last100.com/2007/08/17/10-sites-for-free-legal-music/
http://www.redferret.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php
And for older music that is now in the Public Domain:
http://www.pdinfo.com/
Author said,
May 18, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Thank you so much – I can’t wait to get started!
Kelsi said,
May 21, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Wow – that was creepy. But in a good way. Did you produce the audio too? What kind of program do you use – Adobe, Pro Tools… or a free web download?
Good job!
Brother John said,
May 21, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Kelsi, Thank you! My Sister was pleased with the job I did on that one. She had just written it and forwarded a copy to me for critical reaction. Well… you heard the results of my “reaction”. I had immediately visualized this concept piece and set about bringing it to life. Later, my Sister said my interpretation was spot on! Nice!
I have plenty of commercial audio software but… (believe it or not), I like good old Open Source Audacity! It’s just downright comfortable compared to other products I own.
I’d so love to branch away from Medical Systems programming. I’ve been a software developer for over 30 years and I’m pretty good at it… but that’s a long time to be doing the same thing. I really enjoy multimedia, digital art, audio, music, etc. The whole media thing.
And with an extremely disabled wife, working from home on a full time basis would be great!
You have similar interests do you not?
Brother John
Lansdowne, Pennsylvania USA
Brother John said,
May 21, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Oh! And Kelsi? I did it in… one… take!
Kelsi said,
May 21, 2008 at 6:45 pm
I produce freelance pieces for CBC National and I also produce short travel features for private radio stations across the country. Working from home is the best.
One take? Nice work. Super spooky goodness…
localmalcontent said,
May 25, 2008 at 10:26 pm
That was just terrific! I’M SORRY, I meant terrifying!
And Author is correct- you have a good radio voice, John. This sounded like that actor, Vincent Price almost. Goosebumps!
I wonder if something like this would work with dilapidated ‘Blogger’ format… which I dislike.
Brother John said,
May 25, 2008 at 11:47 pm
LocalMalcontent, Thank you for the compliment! I must remind you that the scary part was born in the mind of my talented sister, I just “seasoned” the script.
I did the entire thing myself, including where I taped a mic to my chest and ran until I got my heart rate really going. (I think it was to the other side of my office room
). I layered in and timed in the increasing pitter patter after first laying down the music. In fact there are lots of layers with wind and various sound effects that are mostly homemade.
The reading I did in one take, and yes, there is at least one mistake in it which I left in. My sister didn’t notice until I pointed it out. This was the first time she heard me do this kind of thing and she was very pleased with how it turned out.
As you know, I love creativity, which is another way of saying I love Creation! I love it in all the many varied ways it can be expressed, or in how it expresses itself!
Brother John
Lansdowne, Pennsylvania USA