Blog

Posted on

Episode 11: Jim Benuska on Funeral Home practice and celebrations of life during the pandemic

Over the past week, the obituary pages of area newspapers have become a haunting litany of “memorial service to be held at a later date,” “no services,” and “services canceled due to COVID-19.” To be sure, this is our new normal, but for funeral directors dealing with the day-to-day business of life and death, the coronavirus and social distancing era has changed the way they help people grieve, and how funeral homes host celebrations of life. 

Posted on

Episode 10: Allison Nichols on COVID-19 and Hospital Emergency Room Social Work

The lack of widespread screening means the coronavirus may well be present in countless hospital wards without anyone realizing it. Accordingly, many emergency-room workers are now behaving as if they’re already infected and separating from their families. One ER doctor said he has been sleeping in the guest bedroom for weeks. Other doctors have sent their families off to stay at second homes. 

The majority of workers who keep America’s hospitals running don’t have the salary to afford extra bedrooms, much less extra properties. For technicians, respiratory therapists, social workers, chaplains, first responders, cleaning staff, and many others, doing their job is an act of moral complexity. Without enough PPE, they’re putting their own health at risk every time they report for duty, as well as that of their families. With that we say, thank you for your service!

Posted on

Episode 8: Cassandra Brown On COVID-19, Faith and Self-Care

Cassandra is the co-founder of On Purpose Consulting Group; a nonprofit designed to help women live their lives on purpose, for purpose, and with purpose.  She focuses on leadership strategy, coaching, content, and community. For over 12 years, she has also been working as a nurse. Serving in different fields including; oncology, ER, and Home Care.  Cassandra is passionate about helping those who help others to understand the cost of caring and how to effectively combat fatigue. 

Posted on

Episode 7: Victoria Storm on the transformative nature of Music Therapy

Storm has a unique background that includes 25+ years of bringing music to persons in need through her work in a community music school, special education classrooms, physical and mental health hospitals, hospice and elder care facilities.  Her Master of Music and Bachelor of Music degrees in Music Therapy are from Western Michigan University.  She is a regular speaker on the topic of music therapy in university classrooms, regional, and national conferences.

Posted on

Episode 6: Erik Cremeans On Being a Hospice Chaplain

In today’s episode, our hosts Joe Newton and Saul Ebema sit down to talk with Erik Cremeans. Erik shares his journey from childhood and the lessons he has learned along the way that influence his work as a professional hospice chaplain. 

Chaplain Erik is also a theologian, a thinker and a short story writer. He looks at himself as a curator of people’s stories and in his writings, he captures the beauty within those bedside narratives. Here is a piece he wrote for; https://hospicechaplaincy.com/2020/02/16/stone-the-crow-a-chaplains-reflection-on-death-and-dying/

Posted on

Art by Mike Shragal!

Artist Mike Shragal stopped by Audiohive Podcasting to experiment with some live streaming. Mike is thinking about utilizing Audiohive’s services to produce drawing tutorials for his youtube channel. 

We weren’t focused on the audio tonight so much as figuring out how all the video parts would work. We were able to use the LonelyScreen AirPlay Receiver app on the studio’s windows PC to mirror Mike’s Ipad Pro into OBS Studio. It worked really well! 

Make sure to check out Mike’s youtube channel and catch the pilot of his original animated series! 

https://twitter.com/meeksthemighty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRASAUriUOI&t=52s https://www.instagram.com/artbymikeshragal/ https://www.instagram.com/meeksthemightycartoon/ https://www.storefrontier.com/meeksthemighty

 

Posted on

Episode 5: One on one with Rev. Dr. Terri Daniel

Terri conducts workshops throughout the U.S. to help the dying and the bereaved find healing through meditative, ritual and therapeutic processes that focus on inner transformation rather than external events. 

Her work is acclaimed by physicians, hospice workers, grief counselors, clergy and the bereaved for its pinpoint clarity on the process of dying and grieving, and its heartfelt depiction of consciousness beyond the physical body. 

She is also an author who has written a number of books including;

1.     GRIEF AND GOD: When Religion Does More Harm Than Healing (2019)

2.     ​TURNING THE CORNER ON GRIEF STREET: 
 Loss and Bereavement  as a Journey of Awakening (2014)

3.     EMBRACING DEATH: A New Look at Grief, Gratitude and God (2010)

4.     A SWAN IN HEAVEN: Conversations  Between Two Worlds (2007)

Posted on

Let me introduce myself!

Last week I featured a short interview with Saul and Joe, who are currently recording their Hospice Chaplaincy podcast at Audiohive Podcasting. This week, I’m going to answer the same questions, and offer a little insight to what goes in to taking a podcast from start to finish.

 

  • What made you decide to start a podcast studio?
    I’ve been playing and recording music for 20 years, and have worked in music retail for 14. Over the last couple years I’ve noticed a growing interest in podcast recording. One thing most of the interested parties have in common is this: Zero audio recording experience. One of the biggest hurdles people face in podcasting is the technical aspect. I’ve had customer after customer basically throw away money on recording equipment they couldn’t use. Many of them who were able to figure out the basics and do some recording realized they weren’t getting the sound they had hoped for. This stemmed from a few factors, such as a limited budget for good microphones, or a general lack of mixing knowledge after the recording was complete. I knew I could help, and decided to open Audiohive Podcasting!

 

  • Has anything been more challenging than you expected?
    The editing! You might not realize it, but there’s a lot of editing happening in most of the podcasts you listen to. I’ve spent hours editing my customers podcasts. What am I editing out? Coughing, sneezing, clearing throats, mis-spoken words are common. I’ve also had requests to make the podcast “snappier,” which involves going in and shortening silences between words, questions, and responses. This requires a good ear for timing and cadence to keep speech patterns sounding natural while still speeding the conversation up a bit. I can judge if I did a good job at this if I can’t tell where the edits are when I play it back, even though I’m the one that edited it!

 

  • Has anything been easier than you expected?
    Handling revision requests for my clients has been a breeze, thanks in part to FilePass. FilePass is a revision collection platform that makes it easy for me to upload my client’s podcast for them to review, and put in time-stamped revision requests. I can then easily see exactly where they want an edit to happen and what they’d like me to do. Once I finish a revision, I check it off the list. When I’ve completed all the requests, I re-upload the edited version. Once the client is happy with the finished podcast, they are able to pay for the work and download the file.

 

  • If you could go back and re-record your first podcast, what would you do differently? 
    I’d spend more time getting the introduction, break, and ending voice overs recorded well, and mixed in with the music right away. I realized I was wasting a lot of time inserting vocal tracks, lining up the music, creating the fade in/out on every podcast I edited. I had a “duh” moment and now create mixdowns of those elements before doing anything else so they’re quick and easy to insert into each episode of the podcast. I’d also really pay more attention to how guests are situated around the microphones. I think due to my background with musicians I can take for granted people knowing good microphone technique. Often I find that isn’t the case, and rather than try to get a client to position themselves around the mic better, I try to position the mic around the client better!

 

  • Do you have any advice for someone thinking about starting their own podcast?
    My advice is the same as Saul and Joe’s, just go for it! I make it super easy for you to come in, sit down, and start talking. Have some notes and maybe bring a friend and see what comes out! I can guarantee that it’ll at least sound good.

 

  • What do you think of your overall experience with Audiohive Podcasting so far?
    It’s been a great learning experience. I’ve spent a lot of time recording and mixing music, but there’s a special set of skills and tools for dialogue mixing and editing that I haven’t used as much. It’s really interesting finding things that my recording software can do that I just never needed to use before.

 

I am super grateful for the opportunity to record your podcast! I’ll continue to do my best to make recording easy for anyone aspiring to start their own personal journey into podcasting.