Mysterious sounds in the Barceloneta neighborhood …
Hello everyone!
These are busy sonic days in the Barceloneta neighborhood!
Last Wednesday we started our session by listening to the composition you made with our sounds: it sounded awesome … and a bit scary!
We all agreed that we really liked the way you composed our sounds. Many felt as if they were listening to the soundrack of a scary movie!
So we imagined the story: a dark scenario, danger getting closer… and a wicked witch! We could hear the frightening steps of the witch chasing a child in the middle of a forest and then a mysterious rain of stones …
On thursday we got acquainted with the recorders and went out to practice with the sounds of our neighborhood, la Barceloneta. We started by walking, listening and recording sonic snaps through Andrea Doria Street, which connects our school to the marketplace.
It is a very nice and lively neigborhood, so we found lots and lots of sounds! Steps, works in progress, cars, pets, birds, sounds from the shops and then the wind and the greater sonic space of the market square. We felt like recording everything!
Some of us went inside the market and others went through the narrow lanes of the barrio in order to catch more snaps and practice recording technique.
After school we took the recorders home and kept recording all through the weekend, adding to our neighborhood repertoire some sounds of our daily life. We recorded fridges, books, a cashier and many more soundsnaps. Do you like them?
We are still collecting more to be ready for the postcards!!!
It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s a Super Sonic Snap!
Hey ho everyone,
Friday, 3th session: We where all very curious to hear what the soundscapes from the other countries would sound like. What great fun it was to let those sounds get into our ears and trigger the most crazy stories and situations! Again we noticed the students from Barcelona have this great feeling for rhythm and structure in their composition. Someone noticed it sounded like the constant back and forth movement of a hand saw cutting a small tree. Yes indeed, a small tree, not a big one! And at a sudden moment someone was hitting a cooking pot with a spoon. Must be the wife of the woodman calling for diner!
In the soundscape from Lamaçaes we even discovered a sound for which we couldn’t find the right word at first. It sounded familiar and far away at the same time. So we had to dig deep into our memories to find the right image belonging to that sound. Finally the word we where looking for was ‘pendulum’. We realized no one actually uses this word anymore because there aren’t so many old clocks nowadays. So the sound of something old became present again. That was an interesting experience.
And then it was time for the Sonic Snaps. At first we where all so excited about getting our own recorder and headphone that most recordings where full of enthusiastic laughter and shoutings. Whoops, no voices kids! Stay focused and listen closely. It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s a Super Sonic Snap!
Glasses for the ears… Listening with all our body around Lamaçaes.
Can you put glasses on your ears? Not like you do normally, but like trying to look with your ears? Are there things that don´t sound? Colors, air, light? Is there something you can´t describe with sound? Sound is in everything. Can you hear on the same manner as you are looking? From beneath, from above, from far, from close? Can you even go further an can you hear smells, flavors, touches? Maybe to feel, to smell, to taste can bring you close enough to things so you can hear them?
This is what we experimented a whole session around the school.
Making recordings means to walk slow, to be silent, to be patient and to use all your senses. It is trying to hear with your whole body, not only your ears.
We tried all to make a recording of three minutes. That only three minutes can last so long, nobody expected. This is called to perceive.
Five groups went on an exploration with a recorder as glasses, each following their own path and trying to see things they never saw before.
Snap! Sounds from Palau Solità i Plegamans (Barcelona)
Look at them, with their recorders and headphones, running around, asking people to perform actions so they can record them. They are like us, but smaller! ;P
So we dedicated a full session for participants to learn how the recorders work and practice their new acquired knowledge around the school. This was a preparation for the task of taking the recorders home, and go on recording sounds from their daily life.
And they have collected quite some interesting sounds indeed. Below you can hear a few of them, and don’t forget to visit our Freesound SonicSnaps pack for the rest of them: http://www.freesound.org/people/thecityrings/packs/10902/
Oh! we did not remove , from the sounds, the voices of the participants when they announce what they are going to record. Of course we will not use those voices during the Sonic Postcard composition, but we found it could be interesting for you to hear some tiny Spanish and Catalan voices at work.
Enjoy!
Sonic Snaps from Rennes in the snow !
Hello,
Friday, we first listened to the Berliner soundscapes, and we are delighted to hear that German are made from our mysounds ! We tried to recognize all the sounds that we recorded.
Then we went into introducing the recorders once again, and we separated the classe in 7 groups to record sounds in the school (classroom, corridors, playground…). The playground was snow, we were able to record the sound of footsteps in the snow and snowball fights! We took benefit before it disappears. Today, we have no snow in Rennes unlike Paris! What luck !
We had instructions to record the sounds:
- Record environnemental sounds
- Record a moving object with the recorder in a fixed position
- Record a stationary object with the recorder motion
- Record a close sound (“zoom in” on a sound)
- Record a far away sound, distant
Here is a selection of audio recordings made at school by each group:
When we finihed the session, we got the recorders at home. We gave the recorders to the leaders of each group because we have only 13 recorder and we are 30 students in this class !
Here is a selection of audio recordings made at home by each group:
You can hear the others sonicsnaps recorded by each group on Freesound !
Today, we listened to some recordings at home, we recognized the sounds of a centrifuge, a plastic ball, a hammer … and even the subway!
We were separated into groups and we started our audio editing on Audacity, from the sounds made at home and in school. Friday, you can listen to our audio postcards, we look forward to hearing yours !
See you soon !
An earful of IDES ( Paris)
We had a great afternoon on Friday. The class separated into two groups, one remained mostly outdoors, whilst the others went inside. We went over how to use the recorder again before reflectiong on what sounds are particular to everyday life at IDES, and perhaps hard to recognise if you don’t know them, such as the ‘sonic footballs’ or the Perkins Brailler. You can hear the recordings below. At the end we all met inside for a nice cup of tea and recorded the kettle boiling. Some recordings didn’t work so we revised how to used the recorder again, that is part of the experience. Tomorrow, if all goes well and school is not cancelled because of the snow, we shall meet again, listen to the recordings made at home over the weekend, and finish our postcards. Phew…
Sonic Snaps from Essen
Hey,
what a day, first we listened to the soundscapes from can cadellas. We tried to recognize all the sounds that we recorded. How colourful they were put together. really a good job! Then we went into introducing the recorders once again. It took us a while, because we had very different once. Since we hadn’t very much time on the first obejct recordings, we now took the time and discovered other ways to make sound.
Then we went out and hunted for more sounds.
And of course the snow was one of our favorites.
When we finished we got the recorders at home. And we are so exited of what will come out of that.
Here are a little selection of the best of:
Found wondering the building at BMS, Berlin
Hello,
For Sonic snaps students explored the school build for sounds with the recorder in hands.
I was unable to follow them with a camera for taking photos.
Here are some sounds they found …
Sonic S(ch)na(p)ps at minus 6 degrees in Ghent
Bonjour and hello!
The 3rd and last session of this week already!
The first thing we did today was reading and translating the text our Parisian friends wrote. They recognized the saucepan lids and the metal tray! How wonderful! And indeed, we had one, even two sounds that sounded like an egg timer. We listened to some of our sounds again, closed our eyes and tried to think of them as sounds made by kitchen utensils. And it worked!
The soundscapes the pupils from the IDES school made were beautifully crafted miniatures. All of the sudden we heard machines come to life, we saw a man chopping wood in the forest (ironically, that was a sound made with a book), bees buzzing and lots more. Thanks to all of you guys and girls for this beautiful compositions! We had no idea that our simple sounds could be turned into an actual story. Could we use our objects to make a soundtrack to a real movie?
We had less than an hour left to learn how to work with the recorders. Next to the technical stuff, we also learned about the difference between a coffeemaker recorded really close in a quiet room and a coffeemaker recorded from far away in a busy cafe. We were maybe a little bit too excited about hunting for our own sounds that we didn’t really got the basics right. So it took a quite a bit of trail and error before we got something decent. We did some tests in the classroom and then went outside for a while to hunt on the playground. You can have a listen to a selection of errorfree sonic snaps underneath the pictures.
Hear you next week!
Sound around
Hello again :)
One girl at our class, named Mebilin, really liked the recorder drawing posted by Rennes school and draw her own :)
Last friday we had an introduction to sound recording, and a sound hunting session around the school. We emphasized listening before recording, and not being shy at recording for a long time. We also talked about the position of the microphones in relation to what is being recorded, for it is not the same to record the water emerging from the tap, than hitting the sink, and we wanted them to notice these differences and take decisions about them.
This sound recording practice was a small rehearsal for when, after school, the class took the recorders home in order to record sounds that belong to the environments they live in. Here are some of those sounds for you to listen to… enjoy
Today we had another session in which we took quite some time to see what French and Belgian schools have been doing, in particular your sounds and compositions. Students where stimulated by the comments received on their composition, for its creativity and imagination; and so we have been preparing some comments to send you back, you will receive them soon!
We have also started selecting and cleaning the sounds recorded at home, for our final Sonic Postcard composition. Which we will finish next monday. It is a bit later than expected, but we hope there will be a way for the composition to reach the students at French and Belgian schools
Great work you all!
