Folklore Podcast Production Tips

Podcast Ideas

  • Legends
    • contemporary
    • supernatural
    • religious
    • character
    • etiological (origin stories)
    • fortunes won/lost
  • Jokes (gender, numskull, coed)
  • Tall tales
  • Courtship stories
  • Personal experience narratives
  • Folksongs
  • Riddles
  • Proverbs
  • Folk rhymes
  • Chants (sport)
  • Curses (faux curse words)
  • Taunts
  • Tongue-twisters
  • Popular beliefs
  • Remedies/Cures
  • Ways of predicting events or outcomes (sex of baby)
  • Good luck/bad luck charms
  • Games
  • Pranks
  • Initiations
  • Traditional pastimes
  • Festivals
  • Customary celebrations
  • Rites of passage: birth, maturation, marriage, death

Scripting Your Podcast

Before you begin to collect examples of folklore for your podcast, you will need to create a script. For example, let's say you wanted to produce a podcast on the True Aggie tradition at Utah State University. To do so you would need to write a script for your podcast that includes:

  • Brief information on yourself
  • Information on college initiation
  • Context for True Aggie initiation/event
  • An interview with one or two people about their experience becoming a True Aggie
  • Conclude your podcast with commentary and/or analysis about the tradition at USU: function(s) it serves, changes that have occurred over time (why) and components that have stayed constant (why)

Recording & Editing Your Podcast

If you are a pro at recording .wav files and producing sound in programs like GarageBand or Audacity, this will be a breeze for you. If you haven’t done something like this before and are interested in learning, there are great tutorials on line. As well, you can download Audacity (it is a free open source program).

Audacity download
Audacity tutorial
Podcast tutorial
GarageBand

We would like all the podcasts to sound similar, so please use the following links to access our introduction, closing and music. To download the files below, right click on the hyperlink and choose save link as.

Podcast introduction template 
Podcast closing template
Podcast background music

Recording Options in the Library

Merrill-Cazier Library has recording equipment and several recording spaces for students to use. See more information about media and recording technology in the library.