Listening Journal - www.npr.org

Story Corps – “Witnessing the End of a Family Tradition”



“Witnessing the End of a Family Tradition” is a narration by a man called Nicholas Petron. This audio piece is produced for Morning Edition by Vanara Taing. The senior producer for StoryCorps is Michael Garofalo. The whole piece, including the introduction is 3:49 minutes.
In this short audio production, Petron talks about his grandfather who came to the United States from Italy as a young man, to try to make it in New York City. He built a family, and a tradition of Sunday meals, around the apartment building he worked in. Then everything changed as they had to move out of the building, because the city condemned the buildings in the area they lived in order to build some new apartments, through his small simple story, Petron underlines the destruction of a family along with the destruction of this building.
I found this feature to be really gripping, since the narrator is a very good story teller with a very expressive voice. He has a very warm and husky voice, which makes you imagine a friendly and bubbly person, and this compelled me to keep listening out with my undivided attention. Petron changes the tone of his voice when he’s trying to impersonate his grandfather as he tries to imitate the way he talks. By using this Italian accent that his grandfather used to talk in, it becomes easier for the listener to become immersed in the story and really pictures the whole scenario. In addition, Petron changes the tone and pitch of his voice whenever he reaches a climax point in his story, and this really captured the whole mood of this past experience and conveyed it to the listener.

Some guitar music was used in the introduction, and the announcer voice was very clear and real, as if it is sincere, and this really captures the essence of this show which is about personal stories and experiences. So, anything dramatic in the introduction would have been really unsuitable for the whole mood of the show.
This is a great feature, the narrator talked in a very natural and laidback way as he paused and breathed at his ease. All of these factors made me imagine that this man is sitting in front of me and talking personally to me. Natural sound was not used at all, but this is comprehendible since this is a very personal audio piece, so any distraction would have really distracted the listener and interrupted this whole nostalgic mood.