We will record 5-minute video “snappers” during the language revitalization through music event. We will record a maximum of 8 snapper videos during the event.

Each video should be a maximum of 5 minutes, and it should present a case study, tool, or research insight that will have practical value for language activists in any language community. It should focus on music in some way.

We will make these videos available on the Language in Lyrics project site for anyone to access and use. Your video can be about a specific language, but it should present information that could be adapted to other contexts.

For example, together with my colleagues in the Language in Lyrics project, we recently piloted a “transcription ceilidh.” We needed to get songs transcribed and, knowing how challenging song transcriptions are, we decided to crowd-source the transcriptions. We decided to use the ceilidh as a culturally appropriate framework. We invited a group of fluent Gaelic learners to gather together for a few hours over food and tea, working in small groups to transcribe songs. The ceilidh format and small group approach allowed the work to be done in a social context. Different people were able to hear different things and had different sets of skills and knowledge about songs on which to draw to help transcribe challenging lyrics. The participants learned from each other, learned new song repertoire, and improved their Gaelic language skills while helping us to get needed transcriptions done. To me, this is a good candidate for a snapper video because it’s focused, practical, and deals with language learning driven through music/song. This activity could be easily adapted by other language communities.

You can see sample “snappers” that we created for the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention in 2015 here. For a very different example, consider these Digital Humanities videos. They are a bit longer than ours will be, but they are still reasonably short, focused, and practical in orientation. They also integrate powerpoint slides as visual aids.

The full-time technician from the Centre for Cape Breton Studies’ Digitization Lab will be on hand on Thursday, Oct 10, to record you speaking about your project. We will set up half hour recording times.

If you are interested in making a snapper video, please do the following:

  • Submit a 250-word proposal by Sept 30 at the latest (sooner would be helpful!). Your proposal should summarize the content of your video and explain its relevance to language revitalization through music. We will advise you as soon as possible if we can allocate a video snapper to you.
  • Prepare a rough script for your video. You do not have to read your script when being video recorded. In fact, we encourage you not to. However, it can be difficult to convey all that you want and need to convey in 5 minutes. Also, video recording is less forgiving than natural speech and live lectures, so it’s helpful if you have a clear sense of what you want to say and how you want to say it before you start recording.
  • Consider possible visual – and even audio — aids. We will do our best to make a dynamic video of you, but a “talking head” will be much more engaging if it’s interspersed with other AV materials. You could, for example, include photographs, powerpoint slides, or video footage.

We look forward to receiving your ideas!