The City Rings

Sonic Snaps from Ghent

Third session at Mobi and Wispelberg school in Ghent.
Today we focussed on listening and recording.
In pairs we went for a “soundwalk “ in and round the school.
First we started with listening only : the fact that you can hear your environment amplified and in so much detail is really intense and overwhelming . Never noticed before that our school & the city made so much sound !
The recorder seems to be both a microscope and a telescope :
we could hear very close sounds in detail, but we could also hear many distant, unrecognizable sounds.
We did a small repetition of the technical part of the recording process ( monitoring, checking input volumes,
checking for unwanted disturbing sounds etc,….. )
We found out that a microphone is an instrument in a way : by choosing position, by moving the mic, by hiding in f.e a tube, we can change and colour the sound .
After some recording exercices we went back to the class and listened closely to (y)our sounds. We listened to & discussed the UK/Spain sounds, and afterwards everyone came up with a list of sounds they definitely wanted to find and record properly for our Sonic Postcards .
See some pictures and listen to some of our SonicSnaps here :