From Silence to Scream: The Sound Theme

 

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).

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3agcq7fSGC8

They can watch the video to discover its history.

Hope it works for your classes.