The Living Music List #4: On Scoring a Podcast Episode

How I approached a project I had never done before. Then, new music recommendations to kick off the second half of 2024

Just want to see the new music recommendations? Scroll down or click the button below to check out the Living Music List. Otherwise, read on for this week’s reflection and the full list of new additions to the LML summarized.

P.S. You can check out the previous issue of The Living Music List here.

Reflection

Happy Friday and happy Independence Day to my American friends—in this week’s letter, I’ll be discussing my experience making music for a podcast. You can listen to the full July 1 episode of the NuckolBall Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and hear the instrumental music only on Soundcloud.

Hello, friend.

How did the first half of 2024 treat you?

Have you tried anything new? Did you search for new stories within the realms of media you hadn’t prioritized in the past?

For example, maybe, like me, you joined Substack and discovered the growing wealth of writers weaving new ways to define and describe our collective human experience. Maybe, like me, you’ve seen several films in theaters this year, helping to carry the declining box office on your back in exchange for their emotional smörgåsbord of storytelling through sight and sound. Or maybe, like me, you’ve finally opened your listening practice to the massively popular industry of podcasting.

It’s true—I’ve avoided podcasts these last several years while the format has seemingly entered its heyday. It feels like everyone has one (though, obviously, that’s untrue), and the market seems beyond saturated.

It’s clear why, though. Podcasts aren’t exactly new, but they are the current best format for oral storytelling to take place and be distributed to the masses.

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack—these platforms are the modern campfires around which we sit and listen to our fellow tribespeople regale us with spoken tales and critical lessons. We are no longer bound by localized radio waves and Mid-Atlantic accents to hear word of what’s new and interesting, nor boxes of cassette tapes and CDs to store our audiobooks. Chalk up another win for smartphones and the internet.

When you think of podcasts, what do you hear? Is it a couple of dudes in their mid-30s shooting the shit? Is it an actor narrating a work of fiction in parts? Or is it reminiscent of radio, with the host(s) crisply detailing the news or the bullet points of a true crime investigation?

Podcasting is wide open for storytellers who aren’t afraid to use their voice, literally. And like the many genres that music falls into, podcasts take many forms. I’m partial to the pods that remind me of the books-on-tape era of yore—where the narrator retells a written story, fiction or non, and I am transported into that world.

For the rest of this reflection, I’d like to share my experience helping to create a podcast episode of precisely that kind.

“Goodbye, Mr. Jeter”

Use the audio player below to listen to the instrumental music for the “Goodbye, Mr. Jeter” episode of the NuckolBall Podcast. Press play and see where it takes you as you read on.

The NuckolBall Podcast is a series of vignettes centered around family life and baseball. In their recently released July 1 episode, the hosts, Mike and Shanie Nuckols, reminisce about the time when Mike took their son Jack to Derek Jeter’s final Major League Baseball game as a New York Yankee.

Now, if you aren’t a baseball or sports fan, you may already be considering swiping away. Don’t. This story isn’t about baseball, or at least in my view, baseball isn’t the important part of this story (and I don’t think it is for the majority of NuckolBall episodes).

This is a story about a father and a son, and their shared experience of witnessing the end of an era. It’s a father’s adulations about his son. It’s a story of unfathomable love.

And I was lucky enough to have been asked by Mike to make some music for this episode.

Scoring the Story

This was my first legitimate attempt at creating music for some other existing project. In this case, Mike let me loose on a rough, ~10-minute-long VO track he shared with me, avoiding any creative direction—I was free to make it what I felt was right.

And isn’t that a dream scenario for any artist? To be given enough lines that the canvas isn’t blank, but the whole picture is still invisible.

I listened to the story, and then listened again. And again. By the time I was on my fourth run through, I had set up my MIDI keyboard and began to noodle my fingers across its 61 keys, searching for the infant notes that were starting to rattle around my brain.

Originally, the episode began with a joke “sponsored” message inspired by a tavern from the fantastical world of Dungeons & Dragons. So, my warm-up exercise was crafting a 30-second piece within that aesthetic. It was a plinky-plunky sort of melody driven by virtual samples of a hammered dulcimer, a bansuri flute, a medieval recorder and a Japanese koto. This message was later nixed, but it was a fun practice run using unfamiliar instruments in a different style than what I’m used to producing.

Next, I began to craft the background for the main story, underscoring Mike’s endearingly gruff VO.

After multiple listens, I had a feel for his rhythm and the emotional sine wave of the story. I knew that I wanted to convey a tangible sense of nostalgia. I wanted it to feel warm and not entirely clear, like the memory of a late summer evening in the depths of childhood, when the purple sky and a sweating Coke can at a baseball game with your dad made you feel like school would never return and summer reading was next week’s problem.

To this end, the beginning of the piece (starting around 0:45 of the instrumental) utilized soft, warbling synth pads and interpolated the crackling noise of an old vinyl record. When I later went back to re-record the introduction (0:00–0:45), I took cues from this portion and added some mildly melancholic keys over synth strings, keeping everything soft and slightly raspy in an effort to maintain that backward-facing feel.

As Mike began to discuss the trip to the game at Yankees Stadium, he dropped hints about the environments he and Jack were in. I added certain elements to help the listener hear those environments: car noise on the highway as Mike and Jack drove to the train station (1:38), then the noise of a rickety subway car rolling down the tracks as they entered the city (1:48), leading to the unfortunate rain sounds (which started at 1:14) pouring down on the stadium and mixing with the murmur of an antsy crowd of baseball fans (1:53).

All the while, the gentle synth pads beneath the noise carried through the unbreakable awe that the young Jack must have felt within the walls of Yankee Stadium. As Mike started to speak about this sense of awe (2:33), and the enjoyment that he and others around them felt watching Jack experience it live, I pulled the music back (a suggestion later made by Mike himself) and only left a very subtle synth or two creaking in the background behind the noise of the crowd (3:09).

As the rain subsided and the action of the baseball game kicked up, so did the crowd, with the music again taking a backseat (4:29). As Mike described the push and pull of a long baseball game, with the crowd unable to maintain their energy across the middle innings, I brought in a lush synth that drifted back and forth like an ocean wave (4:36).

With the end of the game approaching, and the realization of Derek Jeter’s impending retirement sweeping over the crowd, Mike described “hushed tones” around the stadium, which I illustrated with another deeper toned synth (5:21).

The 9th inning beginning, the Yankees gave up a run and the game was tied. I raised the crowd noise again, layering pieces of the recording that created a clash between cheering and disappointed fans (5:55). At the same time, I began to layer in some dark, rumbling synths, building the emotion and slight sense of dread that it was now anyone’s game.

Finally, as Derek Jeter hit a walk-off double, I dialed up the crowd noise and cheering, while the rumble of the synths showed the shaking stadium and raw emotion of Mike and Jack in that once-in-a-lifetime moment. Mike described his chest feeling like a paper bag being popped (7:10), and cackling at the insanity of it all (7:16).

All that was left was for Mike and Jack to leave the stadium, as the noise of the crowd faded behind them (8:03). They rode the subway back to their car (8:07), then started the long drive home (8:11). I faded the synths out to let Mike’s final, touching words about his friendship with Jack ring true.

While Shanie rolled the credits, I included a short, more upbeat outro including a bass riff, a pulsing synth, and some more pads (8:41).

10 Minutes With the Nuckols Family

In just 10 minutes, this episode of the NuckolBall Podcast gave me many things.

I realized one of my long-term goals of scoring a story (hopefully a film is next), and learning how to design sound for the words and imagery in someone else’s mind, with someone else’s voice.

I also felt a wide spectrum of emotions. I didn’t grow up going to baseball games with my own dad. I did, however, remember what it felt like to be part of something bigger than yourself, and to have moments of deep connection with a parent. I remembered what it was like to experience the larger-than-life joy that sports, and one player, can bring to tens of thousands of fans. I understood the awe Jack felt watching his idol play the game he loves, and the yearning for that warm fuzzy feeling of a formative core memory.

I also recognized the beauty of this podcast, and the fact that Mike and Shanie take time out of their busy lives to remember these stories about their kids as they’re growing older, to keep the memories fresh, and to share them with others just because they are parents who love their kids and baseball.

Some people may only pick up a podcast when they can learn something new about a topic like history or technology. Some may just want to hear different perspectives on current or past events.

But many of us also remember that some stories are best told through our spoken words, because our voices carry the emotion, and the empathy, and the sensation of getting old but still remembering in exquisite detail the way we felt.

Speech is music in its own way, just as much as singing is. A story told to us inherently indicates music, because music indicates emotion, and vice versa.

And as I continue to listen closer to those speaking, I’m realizing that all of our stories hold a musical score that’s just waiting to be composed.

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Music Recommendations

Hello again, friend.

Thank you for reading today’s post. I hope you enjoyed the reflection—I know it was a long one.

Now, let’s get to this week’s lists of new music recommendations. By the way, is anyone else getting a bit tired of all the albums with titles (and even all the track titles) in ALL CAPS? Please stop yelling at me. :(

Happy listening, friend!

The Living Music List—Ambient

Note: All of the below ambient projects are available on Bandcamp except #10, which is on major streaming services.

1. WAVES (Music by Satie) by Bruce Liu (album / classical, ambient piano)

2. Faith by Federica Deiana (EP / ambient piano, drone)

3. Timber Management Volume 1 by Various Artists [compiled by René Dahinden] (compilation / drone, new age)

4. White by Sad Graffiti (album / drone, dark ambient)

5. Cloud Ornament by Robert Rich & Luca Formentini (album / electroacoustic, drone)

6. The Threshold by frrn (album / drone, noise)

7. Somewhere Out There by The ambient drones of Bill Baxter (album / dark ambient, drone)

8. Neurotransmitters-Sphere-Music by Jarl (album / psybient, electronic)

9. The Secret Lives Of Birds by Patricia Wolf (album / electronic, experimental)

10. MAXXXINE (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) by Tyler Bates (album / soundtrack, jazz [note: not all of this is pure ambient, some drums and other acoustic elements throughout])

The Living Music List—All Genres

Note: All of the below projects are available on major streaming services.

1. in the light and shadows by Camylio (album / alt pop)

2. The Eye Witness by Jeff Mills (album / techno)

3. Butu by KOKOKO! (album / electronic)

4. God Said No by Omar Apollo (album / pop)

5. Notes from a Quiet Life by Washed Out (album / alternative)

6. MEGAN by Megan Thee Stallion (album / hip-hop/rap)

7. C,XOXO by Camila Cabello (album / pop)

8. Algorithm by Lucky Daye (album / R&B/soul)

9. Entabeni by Volvodynia (album / death metal/black metal)

10. The Order Of Fear by Orden Ogan (album / metal)

11. Light Shines Through by HNNY (album / electronica [note: some ambient vibes here])

12. The Last One by Headie One (album / hip-hop/rap)

13. WHEN THE MUSIC STOPS by jxdn (album / pop)

14. AIRBORNE by UNA MIA (album / R&B/soul)

15. Anemones by Xylitol (album / electronic)

16. American Hero by Towa Bird (album / alternative)

17. roses are red, tears are blue — A Fountain Baby Extended Play by Amaarae (album / pop)

18. CASABLANCO by Marsha Ambrosius (album / R&B/soul [note: co-produced by Dr. Dre!])

19. Your Own Becoming by Milly (album / alternative)

20. Service Merchandise by Previous Industries (album / hip-hop/rap)

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In the News

Before I go, here are a few things going on in music:

• A new database report shows that 3 streaming service giants occupy 90% of the market share: Spotify (36%), Apple Music (30.7%), and Amazon Music (23.8%).

• Warner Music has warned companies developing artificial intelligence (AI) not to scrape their music for training without permission. The warning letter is a microcosm of this generative AI age in which many artists and rights owners are increasingly worried about misuse of their IP.

• Tom Kiehl, UK Music chief executive, called on Sir Keir Starmer, the new UK Prime Minister, to increase the government’s efforts to create jobs and opportunities within the country’s music industry.

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Thanks again for reading. Until next time.

Your friend,

Melted Form

Remember to listen to the hum, buzz, & hiss of the world around you—there is music to be heard there.

Want to suggest music for me to listen to? Have questions? Leave a comment or email me at meltedform@gmail.com. You can also join my chat on Substack.