Imagine life without a
single sound – an empty soundscape – no biophony or anthropophony. Living in an
age where many are trying hard to cope with noise pollution, perhaps it is
difficult to picture this anechoic environment though we came very close to it
during the pandemic lockdowns.
There is a wealth of
information about sounds which might excite the imagination of the students. By
way of introduction and in order to stimulate a discussion, I like to play the
sound of the sea waves lapping gently against the shore; it is a soothing one
with a universal appeal. And then one can perhaps share the video and ask how
the image enhances the effect of the sound.
Here is a video I have
made myself:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PWAcrT4jIs9Fl5ushZHsFulP0ssM1pdv/view?usp=sharing
One can look at sounds
and silence in many different ways using a different approach depending on the
level of the students. At a basic level, I start with a well-known poem by Roger
McGough: The Sound Collector.
A
stranger called this morning
Dressed all in black and grey
Put every sound into a bag
And carried them away
The
whistling of the kettle
The turning of the lock
The purring of the kitten
The ticking of the clock
The
popping of the toaster
The crunching of the flakes
When you spread the marmalade
The scraping noise it makes
The
hissing of the frying pan
The ticking of the grill
The bubbling of the bathtub
As it starts to fill
The
drumming of the raindrops
On the windowpane
When you do the washing-up
The gurgle of the drain
The
crying of the baby
The squeaking of the chair
The swishing of the curtain
The creaking of the stair
A
stranger called this morning
He didn't leave his name
Left us only silence
Life will never be the same
A challenging way of
introducing the poem is to play all the familiar sounds that the collector
removes from the house one by one and ask the students to name each sound or,
failing that, to describe the action taking place that creates this particular
sound. There is an excellent powerpoint slideshow at the following site that
will help.
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/sound-collector-roger-mcgough-interactive-poem-6325258
The students take up the
challenge of hearing and guessing, which means there is a good deal of language
production before the poem is presented. They quite enjoy having their guesses
confirmed or even proved wrong. The same method can be used later to check that
they have memorised the words for the sounds. I find this a very practical and
interesting way of teaching this kind of language, which is hard to teach to advanced
students simply because they are too old to join in the fun. Following that,
the students can discuss their feelings about a house bare of sounds or they
could write a few sentences about how to bring back the sounds. Any original
ideas are welcome!
Moving up levels, we can upgrade the content. Sounds that can be pleasant in normal circumstances can become a threat to our sanity. According to Barney Thompson (The Tines 23 October 2009) a song like I love you by Barney the Dinosaur could drive people to confess anything if played loudly and often enough. Advanced students could be given the article, which focuses on sound as a means of torture for home reading.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13Kc5Vct-fHXAmF6irwKHN1zLUByja-o2/view?usp=sharing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK3C9IytrLI
The students could be
assigned a variety of tasks including collecting sounds from nature or from
their environment or they could be asked to create a scale of a specific sound
from the most pleasurable to the most annoying – for example their pet cat’s purrs all the way down to snarls. For the
artistically minded, a challenging task would be to consider situations that
could have triggered the famous Scream (Edvard Munch)
 |
| The Scream by Edvard Munch |
More motivated students could embark on collecting information about the very first sounds of music or the first musical instruments. To motivate them, show them this image of the oldest musical instrument in the world (60,000 years).
They can watch the video
to discover its history.
Hope it works for your
classes.
