Book Review
Rodrigue, T. K., and Stedman, K. D. (2022). Soundwriting: A Guide to Making Audio Projects. Broadview Press.
“This is an exciting moment for sound” (p. 9), Tanka K. Rodrigue and Kyle D. Stedman begin their preface to Soundwriting: A Guide to Making Audio Projects. As a listener to podcasts and audiobooks, I agree that sound is having a moment; still, I have never composed my own soundwriting, and I’ve only incorporated sound into my writing courses intermittently. However, after reading Rodrigue and Stedman’s Soundwriting, I feel equipped—and excited—to incorporate soundwriting into my courses and take up my own soundwriting projects.
Soundwriting: A Guide to Making Audio Projects is a textbook for undergraduate writing and rhetoric students, but it is also a guide for soundwriters beyond the university. Soundwriting is both “the product and process of composing with sound” (p. 25). Rodrigue and Stedman specify that “soundwriting describes all the things you could create in a digital audio editing program, whether you’re using linguistic or nonlinguistic modes” (p. 25-26). The authors deliberately draw parallels between the process of composing with sound and composing with written language—each entails brainstorming, organizing, researching, revising. Soundwriting is where writing and rhetoric scholars take up sound studies (p. 26).
As a textbook, Soundwriting does not need to be read sequentially, although each chapter builds on previous ones. Knowing that students may be reading out of order, the authors include “Learn More” callout boxes that guide readers to additional content in the book or their companion website. Each chapter also includes “Tips” (with definitions, further readings, and resources), “Try-It” activities (with exercises and prompts for readers to practice soundwriting skills) and concludes with a bulleted list of key takeaways and discussion questions that encourage readers to reflect.
Chapter One, “Sound, Soundwriting, and Rhetoric,” introduces readers to basic soundwriting terms, providing the foundation for the rest of the book. Rhetoric is at the heart of soundwriting (and Soundwriting). Rodrigue and Stedman define the rhetorical situation and explore each factor—purpose, audience, context, and genre—with examples of soundwriting. For example, to explain the importance of context, they share how the podcast Radiolab released an episode, “Nina,” about protest and Nina Simone’s music in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement during the summer of 2020, explaining that “the national context added power to the episode’s purpose” (p. 31). The authors go beyond defining the rhetorical situation, and they encourage readers to be flexible and playful as they engage in rhetorical analysis. When it comes to genre, the authors write that genres should be used “as a playful beginning, as a list of forms to be used rhetorically, yes, but also combined and broken” (p. 33). Readers are encouraged throughout the book to take a similarly fun and creative approach to composing with sound.
In Chapter Two, “Listen Like a Soundwriter,” Rodrigue and Stedman coin their listening-like-a-soundwriter (LLS) approach, which they define as “toggling between immersing ourselves in soundwriting—taking on the role of a listener—and naming and analyzing strategies and their rhetorical effects—taking on the role of an analyzer” (p. 56). To begin to listen like a soundwriter, the authors suggest preparing to listen by “attuning your ears and body to the world” (p. 62)—perhaps through a soundwalk, as they suggest in “Try-It” 2.2 (p. 64). After this preparation stage comes the practice stage where soundwriters shift between listening to be immersed and listening to rhetorical choices (p. 65). The authors conclude Chapter Two with a note on “sounds that harm” (p. 75). They write that it is important to “recogniz[e] that sounds and their qualities don’t simply exist; they emerge in and respond to culture, history, society, and develop meaning as a result” (p. 75). They conclude that “anti-racism work can begin with listening, but it can’t end there” (p. 76). The authors call on readers to listen for the ways that sounds might perpetuate stereotypes in order to disrupt them in their own work—for example, linguistic profiling based on accents and dialects (p. 76). Though short, this reminder is important and should act as a catalyst for further in-class discussion with students.
This reminder also matters because throughout the book, Rodrigue and Stedman describe listening as a full body experience that includes “hearing, feeling, and seeing” (p. 59), or what rhetorician Steph Ceraso describes as “multimodal listening” (p. 59). The authors also cite the experience of deaf musician, Evelyn Glennie, who describes hearing music through her body (pp. 59-60). Here and throughout the book, Rodrigue and Stedman integrate disability into their text, not as an afterthought, but as a central, valued way of knowing. For example, later on, in Chapter Four, the authors include the tip, “Interviewing That Supports All Bodies” (p. 165). Here, they cite Disability Studies scholars Margaret Price and Stephanie Kerschbaum on not just making interviews more “inclusive” but on “cripping the interview space itself” (2017, p. 20-21). By including disability in this way, the authors remind readers that composing in alternate or multiple modes—such as sound—is not inherently more accessible than written text, and soundwriters should consider all the ways they can make their soundwriting accessible.
In Chapter Three, “A Toolbox of Choices,” Rodrigue and Stedman use the metaphor of a toolbox (inspired by Stephen King’s On Writing) to offer a “sonic toolbox” (p. 90). The sonic tools covered in this chapter are voice, music, sound effects, and silence. For each tool, the authors include a helpful table that, at a glance, tells readers what the tool can do and how to use it. Readers will likely reference this chapter as they plan their soundwriting project, and having each tool summarized into takeaways makes it easy for readers to return to for reference. Then, the last section in chapter three—silence—is particularly rich and helpful for students. Where paragraph breaks and blank space help to organize a written piece, silence is used to structure audio (p. 117). Further, used rhetorically, “silence offers the listener the chance to create their own experience…that is, listeners can become co-creators” (p. 119). For undergraduate students who have perhaps never considered the rhetorical power of silence, this section and the “Try-It” exercises—one of which asks readers to add silence to an existing political speech and consider why silence is effective—guide readers to develop an awareness of the ways silence is used rhetorically.
Where Chapters One, Two, and Three provide a theoretical background on sound and soundwriting, Chapters Four and Five offer more technical advice. In Chapter Four, “Planning and Gathering Sounds,” Rodrigue and Stedman dive deeper into the different sound assets that can be used in soundwriting projects in five different sections: “Generating Ideas,” “Planning and Pitching Your Ideas,” “Scripting, Collecting and Downloading Sound,” and “Choosing Tape for Your Project.” Because this chapter covers a breadth of information, readers will likely revisit the sections that are most relevant to their soundwriting. For example, in the “Scripting” section, there are several subsections dedicated to interviewing, with advice on composing questions before the interview, as well as technical advice on how to best record the interview.
In their fifth and final chapter, “Editing, Revising, and Sharing,” Rodrigue and Stedman define basic audio editing terms, discuss revision techniques, and share how to publish a soundwriting project. Similar to the previous chapter, Chapter Five covers technical, how-to information that readers will likely want to reference as they edit and share their soundwriting. That Rodrigue and Stedman emphasize the importance of sharing soundwriting is crucial for undergraduate students in particular; all writing—including soundwriting—is a social process, and so often, students don’t see the work they do in school as part of the “real world.” Rodrigue and Stedman encourage readers to share their work with a wider audience in a way that feels available to students and first-time soundwriters.
In the interludes between each chapter, Rodrigue and Stedman share lessons they’ve learned from their own soundwriting projects. For example, in Interlude A, Stedman shares his composing process for his audio memoir “Pincushion,” which he revised from an alphabetically written essay into a soundwritten essay. “Pincushion” is then referenced throughout the book, as in Chapter Four, where Stedman’s original text and revised script are used as an example of writing for reading and writing for sound (p. 153). Having a glimpse into their personal soundwriting processes is useful to those of us who are new to composing with sound. The interludes allow the authors to break from a traditional textbook format; their advice is warm, personal, and relatable. Their reflections on their own soundwriting and composing processes show students that soundwriting (and writing) does not have to be “perfect” to be shared.
Rodrigue and Stedman’s companion website (accessed with a code found in the book) includes further resources that are referenced throughout the book. They list podcasts and podcast episodes throughout the book, and all of these are linked on the companion site. There are also links to videos and articles about using Audacity, the free audio editor that the authors recommend using. Many of the companion resources are soundwriting works, giving the textbook a multimodal dimension, and making it easy for those new to soundwriting to access a diversity of soundwriting. Altogether, Soundwriting: A Guide to Making Audio Projects covers a breadth of information from sonic rhetorics, to the technicalities of recording, and everything in between, while the resources in the book and on the companion website allow readers to dive deeper into the world of sound. Rodrigue and Stedman prove that this is indeed an exciting moment for sound, and that soundwriting is approachable and, importantly, should be taken up by writing and rhetoric scholars.
References
Kerschbaum, S. L., and M. Price. (2017). Centering disability in qualitative interviewing. Research in the Teaching of English, 52(1), 98–107.
— Rachel Roy, University of New Hampshire
Rachel Roy is a PhD Candidate in English Composition Studies at the University of New Hampshire. She is interested in disability studies, embodied rhetorics, and mental health rhetorics. Her current research is on how students with disabilities rhetorically access writing in the university, focusing on the ways they utilize disclosure.