Minute of Listening

Minute of Listening is a project initiated by Sound and Music. Everyday a group of school children closes their eyes and listens to one minute of sound/music, and afterward there are some questions to be answered about what they just heard. 

While Jamie Oliver’s food education (“what vegetable is this?”) is a bit more urgent for the health of many school kids, it would be great plan to also incorporate sound and listening education (“what sound is this?”) into the standard curriculum at primary schools, thus making them aware of the sounds around us and their effect on our ‘sound health’. I also think it is very healthy for children to just sit, relax and focus for a minute every morning. 

Via Mark IJzerman

Sound Waves and their Sources

For six years now I have been teaching a beginner’s lesson with as main question “what is sound?”. It covers the vibration of air molecules, amplitude, pitch, timbre, overtones, all the things you have to know before you want to start working with sound on a more serious level.

It is fun to see how many decades ago the same lesson was thought in this video. The video covers exactly the same topics, be it in a compressed format, while it takes me and hour and a half to tell the whole story. This will be a fun addition to my words.

Although the YouTube title says the video was created in 1933, I assume that should be 1950, looking at the Roman number MCML - correct me if I am wrong. Looking at the video and the animations used, that seems like a more plausible date. And to eager students visiting my blog: this is what we will be talking about! 

Found on Nick Seaver’s Noise For Airports

Original Sound Track

Original Sound Track is a simple but wonderful concept by Ricardo Seola: a combination of a wooden toy train and a music box. The metal keys on the train are plucked by the pins on the track. 

The tracks can be put together in different ways, creating different arrangements of the same song. This will teach children about music and composition. The idea is to have more songs available so combining them would also be possible. 

I think it is a great idea to combine toys with music in an original and educative way (not that plastic crap with noisy sound chips inside). For this train the question is: will it work? 

(via Joachim Baan)