Singing in Podfic

[paraka]

Question: If a fic you're reading has a song in it, what's the best way to handle it?

I'm working on this one podfic where the characters are talking about a song, and there are italicized lyrics within the text of the fic. Should I sing them? Should I read them? Should I sing them if it won't be too horrible, but read them if I can't actually sing? Should I track down the song and splice that in?

How do others handle it? And which do listeners prefer?

Comments

[helens78]

From the POV of a listener, my top choices would be as follows:

1. Sing it yourself, if you can stay on pitch (you don't have to have an awesome voice!)
2. Get a friend/fellow podfic reader to sing it for you, if you can't stay on pitch but they can (they don't have to have an awesome voice, but if they do, more power to them!)
3. Read it
4. If the song itself features in the story (the characters aren't singing it but perhaps listening to it on the radio), and it won't be too disruptive, splice in a portion of the song.

I think getting a sudden change in audio is pretty disruptive, so I'd almost always rather stick with the voice I'm listening to at the time, and I'd far rather have a not-perfect singer who is also my podfic reader singing than have the jarring change of a recorded track (with instruments!). If reading the lyrics rather than singing them, I'd hope that the reader would take care to preserve the rhythm of the song instead of just reciting them as if they're prose. :)

If it's a bandom/band-related story, though, that might be different. :) It might make lots of sense for a band-related story to have the real song spliced in for bits and pieces!

My opinion is just mine, and others may have other reasons for other thoughts, so take that with a grain of salt!

[choosetolive]

I actually pretty completely agree with what you said. I've heard readers sing in fic before, and they weren't great vocalists, but they were on pitch and it was really quite nice. In general, I find that to be less disruptive than splicing in a song (though that can be done well, also).

For your particular instance, I'd make a decision based on context... like, do the lyrics act as a relevant scene divider? Are they just kind of spacing out the action within a scene? Or are the words actually worked into the story (e.g. if you took them out, you'd be disrupting the storyline itself)? That would help me determine if I would read them or sing them, were I the one doing the reading.

[paraka]

Heh, no not as a scene divider, although I might put a clip of the song at the end of the scene to round it out. But it's in orbedrowned where the boys are in the car listening to the song play and discussing it.

In the end I decided to just sing that bits and hope it sounds ok. :)

[choosetolive]

Since the song is actually playing in the fic, I'd see if the song itself would fit in - sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but if the edits wouldn't be too jarring, it would be nice to hear the actual song they're talking about. If it doesn't cut nicely, though, I think you should try and sing it, yes. :)

[paraka]

Cool, when I recorded the fic that brought on this question I recorded both myself saying it and singing it. After all this discussion I'm kept the version of me singing it.

I guess with me there have been a couple podfics that I've listened to where the podficer sings and, because it's hard to sing acapella, they were off a bit and it was noticeable to me. So I guess I just wondered if maybe other people had a stronger reaction.

[jesse_the_k]

Great response. My only addition is there's a way to read text in a "sing-songy" way, which is different than actual musical notes. More like poetry than prose: my goal would be to let the reader know "insert music here (if you happen to know it)".

But I'm eager to see what luzula has to say, since she's a gifted singer and has also written fan-ballads (really, like filk, but in due South and not Temeraire).

[paraka]

Yeah, I've definitely done the "sing-songy" way too in the past. Like if I didn't know what song the lyrics were from, or if it was from a made up song.

[luzula]

Um, well, my own way of doing it is to take every opportunity to sing, because I just love singing. : )

But if you don't feel that way, I'd look at the context, like choosetolive says. Is it a character singing the song? Then I think you should sing it, and sing it the way the character would (badly if they sing badly, and well if they sing well). Possibly you could bring in someone else to do it. But if the characters are, say, googling the lyrics on the internet and then discussing them, you could read them instead. If the lyrics are scene-dividers, you could go either way. Etc.

[paraka]

Yeah, the context of this one was actually what made me question it. The very first podfic I did had one of the characters breaking out into song while at the ER, and I never even though of doing anything but sing it myself. In this case, the characters are in a car discussing the music that they're listening to so it kind of makes sense to splice in the music, however the quoted lyrics are in the middle of a verse so I think it might sound weird. In the end I decided to just sing it myself, and maybe I'll add a clip of the song at the end of the scene.

[juniperphoenix]

I dealt with something like this recently. In my case, the characters were listening to a record. I spliced in the appropriate portion of the song, and then it occurred to me that it might seem a bit jarring. I decided to use other parts of the song to create an intro and outro for the podfic. This made it all flow together better and sent a signal up front that There Be Music Here. In some cases that might be overkill -- I think it worked in this particular case because the story and song were really thematically entwined and shared the same name.

On the other hand, one of my future projects features a song that is sung by a character, and I'm planning to sing that one myself.

[paraka]

Well, the fic that I'm podficing has a *lot* of music incorporated into it, so there's going to be a lot of different music added. When I went back and looked at the specific song lyrics in this scene though, the author had added notes in between the lyrics so I think it'll probably be kind of jarring if I put a clip, say something than continue the clip, so I've decided to just go with me singing it.

Thanks for the advice!

[fleurrochard]

As the posters above me said, I think it depends a bit on the context - if one of the characters is actually singing the song, then I think you (or another podficcer if you don't want to sing) should also sing the song.

If the songs/lyrics work more as a scene divider you could all of the things you mentioned. *g* (Though I'd be cautious if it is a very loud song or one with a whole of instruments - it might sound a bit disruptive then. But sometimes you can find accoustic/less loud versions of such songs which might work better then.)

[paraka]

Yeah, if it were the characters themselves singing it, I wouldn't hesitate to sing it myself (my very first podfic had that and I didn't even consider not singing it myself).

Though I'd be cautious if it is a very loud song or one with a whole of instruments - it might sound a bit disruptive then.
The first think I do whenever I add music to a podfic is drop the volume by about 20 decibels to try and make the volume lower than my speaking just to avoid that kind of jarring. I read all the discussions for and against music in podfic before I tried adding any myself so I've always been super cautious of that. :S