Thursday, April 26, 2012

Linguistics Students Record Ambient Sound


Professors Walt Wolfram, Robin Dodsworth, Jeff Mielke, and a host of outstanding graduate students in NC State's Linguistics Program gathered yesterday in Raleigh's PostPro Recording Studio to record ambient noise for the crowd that will fill Paul's Churchyard and respond to Ben Crystal's delivery of Donne's Gunpowder Day Sermon from 1622.

The group used David Crystal's early modern London pronunciation script to record the response "And with thy Spirit" to Ben's "The Lord be with you."

They also recorded the Lord's Prayer, following along with Ben's rendition, and a resounding "Amen" to conclude the sermon.

Finally, they recorded "walla," ambient crowd sounds of indistinguishable syllables to represent crowd response to Ben's/Donne's preaching.

Students participating in this recording included Arika Dean, Jason McLarty, Hayley Heaton, Charles Farrington, Channing Johnson,  Michael Fox, Jon Forrest, Katey McDonald, Caroline Myrick, Christi Schwaller, and Liang Zhang (who took the photo, above).

I am deeply grateful to all these folks for their enthusiastic participation. 

 We are getting close to having all the pieces in place so that Ben Markham and his colleagues at Acentech can work their acoustic magic.

Wall Delivers Paper at Anglican Studies Conference

I delivered a paper entitled "The Early Modern Sermon as a Collaborative Experience: The Case of John Donne at Paul's Cross," at the annual meeting of the New England Anglican Studies Conference, held at Harvard Divinity School on April 20-21, 2012.

This paper was, of course, based on what I have learned about early modern preaching while working on the Virtual Paul's Cross Project.