The voice session
60 min · 60 minutes planned
Words on paper keep the story; a recording keeps the person. Participants learn to make a good, simple voice recording — quiet room, close phone, no restarts — and interview each other in pairs, leaving with a real recording each.
Any group. Works best where a few quiet corners exist for recording — a hallway, an unused room, spread-out tables. Participants need phones with a voice memo app; bring one shared recorder for those without.
By the end of the hour
- Every participant records a 2–3 minute voice recording of a real story, and is recorded telling one.
- The group can apply the five rules of simple recording without help.
- Every participant practices the interviewer's core skill: ask one question, then wait.
The session, minute by minute
Welcome and one recording, played
After the norms, play a short sample recording — 60 seconds of an ordinary person telling an ordinary story (with the recorded person's consent, or record your own the night before). Play it and ask what the recording carries that a transcript wouldn't: the accent, the pauses, the laugh mid-sentence.
Why voice
Brief and honest: the voice is the thing families lose first and miss most. Many people keep voicemails for years just to hear a hello. A story in someone's own voice — with their timing, their laugh — is a different order of keepsake from the same words typed. This session exists because of that.
The five rules of simple recording
Teach exactly five, demonstrated live: (1) quiet room beats good equipment — turn off the TV, close the door; (2) phone a hand's width from the mouth, on the table, then ignored; (3) airplane mode so a call doesn't end the take; (4) start by saying the date and who's speaking; (5) never restart for mistakes — the stumbles and ums are the voice, keep going. Have the group say rule five back to you; it's the one everyone breaks.
Pair interviews, recorded
Pairs spread out to quiet spots. Each person interviews the other: one question from the printed cards, 2–3 minutes of answer, recorded on the teller's own phone so they keep it. Then swap. Teach the interviewer's discipline before they scatter: ask the question, then be quiet. Silence after a question is where the real answer lives — count to five before rescuing it.
Listen back
Pairs listen to a stretch of each recording together — headphones or held close in a quiet corner. Ask afterward: "What's in the recording that writing would have lost?" Someone always winces at their own voice; normalize it — everyone hates their recorded voice, and no family in history has ever agreed. To the family, it's just their voice.
Close: recording an elder at home
Send them off with the home version: same five rules, kitchen table, one question, cup of tea, phone down and ignored. Best first question for an elder: "Tell me about the house you grew up in." Concrete, warm, and it opens fifty doors. Preview session four: the question banks in earnest.
Materials
- Phones with a voice memo app (one shared recorder or tablet as backup)
- Printed one-question cards — cut from the question banks at /resources/questions
- Headphones or earbuds for listening back, if available
- Access to quiet corners: hallway, side room, or well-spaced tables
- Tissues within reach
The gentle moments
What to expect in the tender minutes of this session, and how to meet them. Read this part twice.
Hearing one's own recorded voice is genuinely uncomfortable for many people. Name it before listening back — "everyone dislikes their own recording; your family won't" — so nobody's flinch becomes shame.
Someone may have a recording of a voice that's now gone — a saved voicemail, an old video — and want to play it for the group. Make room if they offer; don't rush it, and don't fill the silence after. This is the session doing exactly what it's for.
A participant may freeze when the recorder starts — recording makes some people feel tested. Offer the pressure valves: their partner can ask the question conversationally, or they can record alone in the hallway, or they can write today and record another day. Passing is always fine.
Next: Session 4: The table of questions · or back to the full curriculum. Questions or training conversations: [email protected].