Five minutes, 20 slides. What would you say?

At every Ignite, 16 artists, technologists, thinkers, and personalities will take the stage to answer this challenge.

Location:

Washington, D.C. 20001
RSVP | Map and Directions

Ignite no. 1

David Schulman

For a while, I dreamed of a website called 'clamor'...

(For slides, narrator, electric violin and looping station, and rough voice/crowd samples recorded earlier at the event)

A rough outline:

SLIDE 1: (NARR:) For a while, I dreamed of a website called 'clamor.' Not for long, because the domain was taken.

SLIDE 2: (NARR:) It would be a participatory soundscape. A participatory soundscape. People would post voice recordings. People would post field recordings. People would post ambient sounds. They would bounce off of each other. They would recombine.

SLIDE 3: (vox/Ambient sound played and looped)

SLIDE 4: (another vox/Ambient sound played and looped)

SLIDE 5: (NARR:) You could choose which sounds you wanted to mix together. You could create your own soundscape from other people's voices, other people's field recordings, other people's music ...

SLIDE 6: (add violin to loop)

SLIDE 7: (add another violin layer)

SLIDE 8: (Add another violin layer)

SLIDE 9:

Clamor, it would be called. But the domain was taken. Not for long. Not for long...

SLIDE 10: (New sounds and music play over loops, but aren't added to the loop.)

SLIDE 10: (New sounds and music play over loops, but aren't added to the loop.)

SLIDE 11: (NARR) This was before the iPhone.

SLIDE 12:

I don't have an iPhone. But I have a violin ...

SLIDE 13-15 violin adds/subtracts to loops, and fades out.

About David Schulman:

David Schulman is creator of Musicians in their own words, a CPB-supported series of first-person public radio portraits that brings listeners inside the creative lives of musicians. Featured performers include unsung heroes of American music as well as icons such as Renée Fleming, Poncho Sanchez, Yo-Yo Ma, and the late Bo Diddley.

To date more than 35 Musicians in their own words features have aired nationally on Morning Edition and other NPR newsmagazines. Additional features have aired on major market stations including WAMU, WBUR, WBEZ, KUOW and KUSC. In 2006-07 David wrote, directed and mixed four hour-length Musicians in their own words specials distributed nationally by PRI.

David also curated a series of audio short subjects — audioambush.org — presented at the American Film Institute's Silver Theatre. He recently produced a series of sound-rich features on great books for the National Endowment for the Arts that airs on XM Satellite Radio. Other work includes projects for Weekend Edition Sunday (NPR), The Story with Dick Gordon (American Public Media/WUNC), and Speaking of Faith (APM).

David has twice been awarded grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and shared the Best Documentary: Silver award at the 2004 Third Coast International Audio Festival with Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr. David worked 2000-2002 on the staff of NPR's Performance Today, and has been an independent since 2002. Before breaking into radio, he worked as a reporter for the small but then feisty Chapel Hill News. He lives in Takoma Park, MD.

David's also a violinist. He's played in jazz, honkytonk and Cuban son groups. His new music uses a looping stations to layers Latin rhythms and jazz harmonies. Samples can be heard at:

http://www.reverbnation.com/rhapsodyb