NPR Analysis

I didn’t know that this kind of website exists. You can see the transcripts as you listen to the radio and even download stories into your mp3 player! Wow that’s impressive! I choose a story “Charles Strouse’s Big Scores, From ‘Annie’ To ‘Birdie’” from Fresh Air. Although I didn’t know much about this famous music composer and the musicals he worked on, it was still interesting to hear how this talented guy, Charles, worked on pop music, having his background as a serious musician, of classic music. And I also enjoyed some pieces of music from the musicals played during the interview. Playing these songs during the interview would make audiences who knows about this old musical remind the old days, and it would be also entertaining for the audiences who are not familiar with musicals.

Ok, back to the assignment.

Obviously the host, Terry Gross has watched the original musical “Annie,” and I bet she was a big fan of this play since she told Charles that she remembered words to songs when she listened to the songs of this play for the first time in a long at the beginning of the interview. She was not only naturally prepared to this interview, she also had some insights about his music and the musical. As she did, showing one’s interest to an interviewee is a good way to start off an interview. Since she actually saw the play at that time and was really familiar with it, Charles must have thought that she was not a rough- and-ready interviewer.

Reading a transcript briefly, I noticed that Terry really didn’t speak much. She just let Charles talk and talk, and picked up some interesting episodes and asked more details about them. I think that’s her strategy to make this interview more interesting. Rather than just keep asking a set of questions, hearing more about what he says made it more interesting.

Even though some of his answers were little off track, she took advantage of it and formulated new questions promptly. For example, she asked him how his classic music teacher responded when he worked on pop music for the musical. After he answered this question, he suddenly started telling his episode that that he has made some songs for his family and his ex-girlfriend. Then Terry asked him to play one of the songs he played for her (his ex-girlfriend). Charles hesitated to do it so but he eventually enjoyed performing it, and he even told Terry that it was the most interesting interview he has ever had! That must be the greatest compliment for an interviewer.

Overall, I enjoyed this story as the listener and I could tell Terry and Charles were having fun as well. And I now understood how important it is to “shut up” as an interviewer.