COMPLETE: Short Nonfiction Collection, Vol. 074 - jo

Solo or group recordings that are finished and fully available for listeners
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JachinandBoaz
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Joined: May 1st, 2020, 4:18 pm

Post by JachinandBoaz »

Hello, this is my first nonfiction recording for librivox. I've done some contributions to the poetry postings. I uploaded the following for this volume.

Title: Letter to Lord Chesterfield
Author: Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Text URL: https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.183232/2015.183232.The-Letters-Of-Samuel-Johnson-Voll-I_djvu.txt
Duration: 3:55
MP3 URL: https://librivox.org/uploads/knotyouraveragejo/snf074_letterchesterfield_dwd_128kb.mp3
Reader’s Name: Daniel Davison
Sue Anderson
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Post by Sue Anderson »

JachinandBoaz wrote: May 7th, 2020, 4:27 pm Hello, this is my first nonfiction recording for librivox. I've done some contributions to the poetry postings. I uploaded the following for this volume.

Title: Letter to Lord Chesterfield
Author: Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Text URL: https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.183232/2015.183232.The-Letters-Of-Samuel-Johnson-Voll-I_djvu.txt
Duration: 3:55
MP3 URL: https://librivox.org/uploads/knotyouraveragejo/snf074_letterchesterfield_dwd_128kb.mp3
Reader’s Name: Daniel Davison
Hello Daniel, Welcome to LibriVox and the the Short Nonfiction Collection. We're pleased to have a letter from Samuel Johnson for volume 074 of the SNF, which you read very well. You have a fine recording voice! :)

The way the SNF Collection works is that I, being the Book Coordinator, check the specifications of your recording, and our dedicated proof listener, Soupy (Craig) will then proof listen your recording for you.

There are a couple of minor things that need to be fixed in your file name and recording. First, the file name should contain the author's name (in this case Johnson), so the file name should look like this when you go to upload it:
snf074_letterchesterfield_johnson_dwd_128kb

I see from reading your posts that Audacity is a new program for you. There is abundant information on using Audacity on the LibriVox wiki:
https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php?title=Main_Page. There is also a very useful open source LibriVox app called Checker, which will check the "vitals" of your recording for you: https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Checker

The Checker app points out that the volume on your recording is lower than it should be to comply with LibriVox's requested 89 dB. Visually, you can see that your volume is low when you look at the Audacity wave form. It should fill the space between -0.5 and +0.5. You can up the over all volume, using "Amplify" under the "Effect" menu. You probably need to amplify by a factor of 6 to reach 89 dB.

Please wait to see if Craig recommends any edits to your recording, and then, please, re-upload your file with the increased volume and the edited file name.

Thank you, again, for your contribution to volume 074! :) Your recording sounded great, and the edits are minor, things we all experienced when we started recording for LibriVox.

Best wishes,
soupy
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Post by soupy »

Thanks Daniel for Johnson's letter of thanks but no thanks to Chesterfield :thumbs:

I noticed that the copyright date on your source is 1952 so I looked around to find other sources and found the letter published in the life of Johnson by Boswell as well as the classics works library.

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8918/pg8918-images.html

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/johnsons/patron.htm

Both these sources date the letter February 7 - your source has February 1755


3:06 which little providence has enabled me to do for myself. - forgot to read little

However, Boswell has it this way
which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.

Classics library has it like this also
which providence has enabled me to do for myself.

Now the original letter in Johnson's own hand has it the way Boswell has it but it just has February 1755.

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/copy-of-the-letter-from-samuel-johnson-to-the-earl-of-chesterfield

So I would suggest we change the link to either Boswell's link or the original - the original doesn't have the address To the Right Honourable The Earl of Chesterfield - so I will make the link to Boswell's which means you can change the date from February 1755 to February 7, 1755.

It looks like it was an important letter.
In Johnson’s era, patronage relied on the unspoken rule that an author would flatter a patron in exchange for sponsorship. By exposing the flaws in this system, Johnson’s letter marks a turning point in the history of patronage. He signals the emergence of a new wave of professional, paid writers who earned their living from the publishing trade, independent of patrons.
Craig

Let me know if you or Sue have other suggestions.
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JachinandBoaz
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Post by JachinandBoaz »

Sue and Craig -

Thank you both for the constructive feedback.

Sue - I downloaded the checker and have been exploring the Audacity help files. One thing I can't find, however—and I was wondering if you could point me to a helpful resource on—is how to insert/replace voice in a flawed section while you have it right in front of you. At the moment I'm having to record corrections at the end of the clip. Then I select it; cut it; navigate to the place in the recording where it belongs; select that section and paste it there. It seems like there should be a quicker, more efficient and more intuitive way of doing that. Apparently the deterioration of my computer savviness has coincided with my acquisition of an AARP membership card.

Craig - Great catch(es)! Thank you for doing that. I'll review both of those links, though I think I'm inclined to the Boswell version. I've been fond of this letter ever since my Latin professor introduced me to it many moons ago. I'll try to get a revised version uploaded within the next day or so.

Again, thank you both! I'm having a blast doing these. :D
Sue Anderson
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Post by Sue Anderson »

Hi Craig and Daniel,

Craig first, I'm going to postpone diving into the specific-source-for-the Johnson-letter question until I've had some more coffee... You and Daniel seem to be handling that issue ok...

Daniel, Well, an AARP card does come in handy to scrape ice off one's windshield in the winter.

Everybody has their own way of making corrections. Craig may do it differently than I do so he may have some suggestions too. I use a "two track" system, one Audacity track on the screen above the other, and cut and paste between the two. I think it's much easier than trying to dig around for corrections from the end of the tape. When I'm recording, and I know that I've made a mistake, I keep repeating the phrase, sentence, etc. until I've got it right, and then edit out the bad takes later. It's the mistakes I didn't catch when I was recording that are the difficult ones---the ones you have to re-record and insert. And it's for these that I use the two-track system.

I just recently described my "system" in a PM to another newbie, for whom I was acting as DPL (dedicated proof listener). I've dug that discussion out of storage, and I'll reprint it for you here, since it even has a link to a picture of my screen setup. Hope this helps:

From my notes to Paul re John Muir's Letters to a Friend:

As to the technical aspects of recording, there are many on LibriVox who are better at recording than I; there are also "techies" who would offer you advice about anything you felt needed improvement if you posted a sample of a recording and ask for advice, but I am no techie! (to put it mildly). There are also many instructional videos available on the Wiki (which I have not watched). You seem to have achieved a good sound with whatever you are doing, and I would say "just keep doing what you are doing."

That said, to the best of my ability I'll address your questions: Distance from mic; you should stay close; in my experience distance will diminish the quality. Noise reduction: more than once is not a good idea.

Mouth noises, etc. I do take out some mouth clicks, swallows, or gasps for air that sound excessive to me when editing. What I do is keep a completely separate track on the screen above the track with the audio. On this second track, I keep a stretch of "clean sound" which I have taken from the clean sound at the end of the recording. Then when I'm editing, and I hear some noise that I wish weren't there, I gauge it's length visually by the little "dots" that make it up; then I select a similar amount of clean sound from the separate track and paste it into the recording.

Two track set-up. a recording track and a track to use for corrections. I took a screen shot of my computer with this 2-track recording set up, which you can sort of see here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/3870349668092932 [LibriVox being stubbornly anti-visual, I keep this odd pinterest site for occasional illustrative purposes!] You create the second track simply by clicking on "new" under file. School of hard knocks led me to this method. The minute I start making corrections on my recording track, I mess things up. I also make sure I have a clean copy of the original before I do any noise cleaning, and all noise cleaning is done on the copy, not the original--in case something goes wrong...

But--- the longer I do recording, the more accepting I have become of the voice I have... As Muir says in his letter of Sept 13th, "a lifetime is so little a time that we die ere we get ready to live."

For the time being... regards,
soupy
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Post by soupy »

Daniel
At the moment I'm having to record corrections at the end of the clip. Then I select it; cut it; navigate to the place in the recording where it belongs; select that section and paste it there.
That's the way I do it. I read once from the text and make as many mistakes as I make and then I correct from that same reading by recording at the end and pasting.

Sue has offered you good advice.

Craig
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JachinandBoaz
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Post by JachinandBoaz »

Sue and Craig -

I uploaded a revised version of the "Letter to Chesterfield" to the shared drive and I have redirected the link to Boswell's "Life of Johnson" on gutenberg.org. I think the technical kinks were worked out. At least it seems to have passed muster through the nifty checker utility. Content wise, the only thing I changed (since it was the Boswell version), was the date at the beginning "February 7, 1755."

Title: Letter to Lord Chesterfield
Author: Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Text URL: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8918/pg8918-images.html
Duration: 3:56
MP3 URL: https://librivox.org/uploads/knotyouraveragejo/snf074_letterchesterfield_johnson_dwd_128kb.mp3
Reader’s Name: Daniel Davison

I also used a secondary track for that. So much easier than the way I was doing things!

Please let me know if I need to further amend the project and re-export it.

Daniel
soupy
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Post by soupy »

Looks and sounds good to me

PLOK

Thanks Daniel

Craig
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JachinandBoaz
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Post by JachinandBoaz »

Sue and Craig -

I have a question: I was thinking of reading an essay by Matthew Arnold entitled "Spinoza and the Bible". I have a clean version in a 1914 Oxford University Press edition in my possession, but the only version that I could find online that had been digitized was one that was tidied up on the Symmachus website, which dovetails with the version I have. (https://symmachus.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/matthew-arnold-spinoza-and-the-bible/) The person who made this site admits that he corrected the raw text lifted from the Internet Archive. The typography of these works seem to get botched up, especially when there are Latin phrases in the middle of the text. Would this link be acceptable to point to for the collection or not? If it can't be done, no worries and I'll look into something else.

Thanks!

Daniel
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Post by soupy »

Essays in Criticism by Matthew Arnold Publication date 1887

https://archive.org/details/essaysincritici04arnogoog/page/n10/mode/2up

Has the essay beginning on page 158. That would be an acceptable source :thumbs:

It is long.

Craig

1889 source too

https://archive.org/details/essaysincritici10arnogoog/page/n324/mode/2up
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Sue Anderson
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Post by Sue Anderson »

JachinandBoaz wrote: May 8th, 2020, 2:03 pm Sue and Craig -

I have a question: I was thinking of reading an essay by Matthew Arnold entitled "Spinoza and the Bible". I have a clean version in a 1914 Oxford University Press edition in my possession, but the only version that I could find online that had been digitized was one that was tidied up on the Symmachus website, which dovetails with the version I have. (https://symmachus.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/matthew-arnold-spinoza-and-the-bible/) The person who made this site admits that he corrected the raw text lifted from the Internet Archive. The typography of these works seem to get botched up, especially when there are Latin phrases in the middle of the text. Would this link be acceptable to point to for the collection or not? If it can't be done, no worries and I'll look into something else.

Thanks!

Daniel
Hi Daniel and Craig,

Thanks, Craig, for that alternate source! :D Your talent for locating sources is always to be relied upon! But... look at the screen shot of pages 332-333 of this 1889 edition!--problems ahead... :(

Let me start from the beginning and address sources for the SNF. As book coordinator of the SNF, I strongly encourage reading only from ORIGINAL SOURCES, NOT reading from Wiki Sources, NOT reading from any organization's web site, nor anybody's blog however accurate it might be. Our SNF metacoordinator, knotyouraveagejo, shares my opinion on this issue.

Anybody who follows this thread can see how badly off Wiki Sources and various organizations' websites, and blogs, etc. can be on text. We only have to look at what went on with the Second Epistle of Clement in this volume of SNF to see that.

So, next, we come to the problem that Symmachus encountered--that there is a Google or Archive.org digitization of a text--but it is unreaable in places, missing pages, etc. etc. What to do then? One word or two unreadable, make an honest guess. A page unreadable or missing and no other original source available, I will reject the submission.

However, it is established Librivox policy that if a reader is in possession of an original public domain book for which no acceptable digitization exists, they can submit a screen shot of the title page of the book and if it meets PD requirements, then the reader can read from their own copy. In that case, obviously, proof listening is done "on faith" that the reader is reading accurately, and "standard" proof listening will have to prevail.

So, we now come to this Mathew Arnold Essay, "Spinoza and the Bible." We have, apparently, at least two digitized versions on archive. org, dating from 1875 and 1889 (i.e. in the Public Domain). Both versions apparently have minor problems--fingers blotting out words in the case of the 1889 edition.

What I would suggest is this: that Daniel upload a screen shot of the 1914 edition of Mathew Arnold to knotyouraveragejo's mailbox as a jpg inside a zip file ( I know this works, although there may be other ways to upload a picture (Soupy ?) ... Upload as snf_arnoldtitlepage_dd) Then, Daniel post that link in the thread here, so I can see the title page. If it's PD, then Daniel can read from his own text. Soupy you can proof listen from the 1889 edition, and when we come to print blocked by fingers, etc., you can just accept that what Daniel is reading is accurate If there are any textural differences between the 1889 and 1914 editions, well, as my father used to say "I'll cross that bridge when we come to it..."

How does that sound?
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Post by knotyouraveragejo »

Here is another option:

Hathi Trust has a scan from Cornell Univ of an 1887 edition that doesn't appear to have the issues mentioned above in the U.Mich scan.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924060445446&view=1up&seq=13

The essay "Spinoza and the Bible" starts here

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924060445446&view=1up&seq=168

As Craig has pointed out, it's long - over 50 pages.
Jo
soupy
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Post by soupy »

Sounds good to me :mrgreen:

Craig
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Sue Anderson
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Post by Sue Anderson »

Many thanks, Jo! :) Maybe, at 50 pages, it could qualify as a solo?
Sue Anderson
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Post by Sue Anderson »

One other consideration--a single contribution to SNF is limited to 74 minutes recording length. Any selection that runs over 74 minutes needs to be divided into sections. I am willing to accept a single recording divided into two sections in any one volume of SNF, but not one divided into more than two sections, given that the volume would tend to become "lopsided." If a selection needed more than 2 sections, it would be welcome in two different volumes of the SNF, but probably it would be better as a solo.
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