"Horizon Wimba Voice Board" and Parallel Performances for Presentations

        Printed and manuscript texts use virgules (/) or, later, quotation marks ("") to indicate shifts in voice, changing the text's source from the narrator to another character, for instance.  Without the full range of modern punctuation, like question marks and exclamation points, indications of how the text should sound only can be derived from the author's verbal cues.  For instance, "Miranda said snakes" communicates a far more ambiguous message than the modern fully-pointed text like "Miranda suddenly shouted, 'Snakes'!." Compare a Medieval text which tells you that a detective told a suspect "You're good.  You're very good," with a fully dramatized Humphrey Bogart reading the script which says "'You're good.  You're very good,' [repeated, mockingly]."  Without those aural/oral cues, texts sound "flat" or "uninteresting" because we cannot perceive irony, ambiguity, paradox, understatement ("litotes"), or humor, precisely the techniques that the New Critics taught us were poets' favorite means of packing complex meaning into great literature.  After the spread of texts produced by moveable type printing (c. 1450-1600), the multiplication of readers of all levels of ability and texts of many new types caused printers to increase the frequency of "pointing" (punctuation) in the text, and to standardize the use of others (e.g., ; : "" etc.).     Modern musical notation after roughly 1700 was far more heavily "pointed" for performance, and now it often indicates the performance of a passage's speed (tempo) and intended emotional effects with a range of words above the staff bearing the musical notes, like "andante maestoso" for "at a walking pace, majestically," or "allegro agitato" for "quickly and restlessly."  Medieval music manuscripts, like medieval spoken-word texts, carry no such interpretive guides--singers/readers were expected to bring the performance alive by their own interpretive insights. 

        Living poets could provide exemplary interpretive strategies for their audiences.  During Chaucer's lifetime, for example, people who heard him perform the Canterbury Tales "live" would have experienced a number of the tales' potential performance styles, much like a famous popular music performer might elect to transform an old hit by playing it "up-tempo" to draw out a work's capacity for excitement or amusement, or using acoustic instruments in place of electric, perhaps to give the work a more "earnest" or "spare" sound.  Chaucer's narrator, "Chaucer-the-Pilgrim," is especially vulnerable to such performance "tweaks," but every one of his other pilgrim-narrators can be performed in a variety of ways.  These parallel passage performances will be experiments in "performing Middle English," but because they will be pre-recorded, you will have the chance to practice and re-record them until you get your best alternate versions of the Middle English, with a written explanation of what the two (or more) versions can show us about what the text might mean.

        For each of your in-class Middle English presentations, you must pick at least one passage, usually the shorter the better, in which you can see such an opportunity for us to hear the text in at least two ways.  Then use the program called "Horizon Wimba" to record your performance of the same passage in ways which dramatize the differences you believe possible.  Horizon Wimba is located on the course's BlackBoard site.  Either buy your own microphone/headphone headset that you can use with your own computer ($5 to $20 online for IBM-compatible computers) or use the microphones connected to the laboratory computers.  You also can go to CTLT to use their specialized recording room, but plan ahead for that option.  CTLT also can help you get used to using the Horizon Wimba software interface, but you should be able to make your own test recordings within the first five minutes or so of logging into the system.  Users of Apple computers should make sure to use Apple-compatible microphones like the Logitech Premium 350.  Using cheaper IBM-compatible microphones can result in severe reductions in sound quality because of conflicts with the Horizon Wimba recording software.

        To start the program, go to the course BlackBoard web site, log in, and click on the "Communication" button on the left menu.  Select "Voice Boards" from the Communication menu, and pick the "English 240 Presentation Voice Board."  There you will see two demonstration performances from Chaucer's balade, "Gentilesse" (RC 654) with a sample explanation of their interpretive significance.  I will use to demonstrate the system in class on the first seminar meeting.  Highlighting one performance and scrolling down will let you see the "Play" button along with an explanation of what the performer was trying to achieve.  After playing each one, we can discuss what aspects of the performance were intended to transmit the speaker's emotional register to the audience, and how successful it was, as well as how it might be improved or performed in other ways. 

        To record your own performances, first insert the microphone and headphone plugs on your headset into the appropriate receivers on your computer (or use one of the lab computers, or use CTLT's sound recording unit).  Then click the "New" button, which will open a window called "Compose."  The program automatically will identify you as the author of the performance from your logon information.  Title the performance in the "Subject" line with the tale and line numbers plus some tag identifying the performance effect you are striving for.  Type a brief explanation into the text box below.  To begin recording, click on black dot in the left circle on the controls above the scroll bar that tracks the recording.  Wait about one second ("one-mississippi" but silently!) before you start speaking.  When you are done, click on the square in the far right circle, which is the "stop button."  To play it back, click the "play button" to the right of the record-dot button.  If you like it, click on the "Send" arrow (to the upper right of the text box) to send it to the Wimba server.  If you want to rerecord, just click on the record button again and click "Yes" in the dialog box that asks you if you want to record over the previous recording.  Once you have hit "Send," you would be ready to press "New" again to start the second performance of the same passage.  Remember to give it a "Subject" distinguishing it from the other one, and a brief explanation in the text box telling us what you are trying to achieve.  Then, follow the recording instructions as before.  Once you have pressed "Send," both recordings will be available in BlackBoard.  If you want to save them to your computer or email them, you can use the "Export" button to send "Zipped" files in a number of formats to yourself or others.  That can make them available for PowerPoint slides, if that is your preferred presentation aid.  Remember that "MP3" format files are forbidden on the Meyerhoff and Magellan servers, so ".WAV" format would be preferable for installation as part of a presentation web page.

        I will give your presentation credit simply for a good-faith attempt to do it when I evaluate the tale presentation, but you will not be penalized if things go wrong, only for neglecting to attempt it.  If you do an exceptionally good job, I will give you extra credit on your course participation grade, and of course, it might easily lead you to topics for the short or long papers.  Those papers can include links to sound files as part of their primary source documentation, and if you will send the papers to me as attached Word files, I can open and read them online so that I can activate the sound files directly, without having to type them into a browser.