I am teaching the course MUS2640 – Sensing Sound and Music again this semester. It is the second time I’ve run the course, and I can build on the experience I gained last year. One of the course’s aims is to encourage students to listen attentively and develop the capacity to discuss what they hear systematically.

Last year, it worked very well to have students record a (any!) soundscape and reflect on the experience. More precisely, they were tasked to (1) listen to a sound(scape), (2) record it with any device available, (3) share it on Freesound, and (4) reflect on the difference between what they heard and the recorded sound. It is a simple task, but it has many layers that can contribute to the learning process.

Chosen Sound(scapes) and Recording Locations

Students explored a wide variety of soundscapes, focusing on both urban and natural environments with an emphasis on everyday sounds. Indoors, they captured domestic ambiences such as the sustained whirr of ventilation units, rhythmic footsteps, metallic key rustling, and the rattling of malfunctioning heaters. Other recordings highlighted subtle household sounds: the hum of a cooking pot, the quiet activity of knitting, squeaking door hinges, the repetitive chopping of vegetables, and the shifting mix of noises as a window was opened or closed—altering the balance of drilling, chewing, talking, barking dogs, and rain.

Outdoor and urban settings offered contrasting sound palettes. Students recorded city ambiences, including cars, metros, trains, and the general bustle of urban life. Natural environments featured the intensity of heavy rainfall, the gentle flow of rivers, and the splash of water against rocks at the beach.

Some students focused on specific object sounds, such as the distinctive click of a bicycle being pushed, the resonant clang of a metal lampshade struck with scissors, the slow click of a window handle, the voice function of an elevator, the shuffling of playing cards, and a single hand clap reverberating in a concrete-walled living room.

Recording Technology and Observations

Students used a variety of recording devices, with most relying on mobile phones and a few using dedicated sound recorders. The class included students from musicology, linguistics, philosophy, media studies, and other fields, resulting in a diverse range of prior experience with sound recording. Many had never recorded audio on their phones before and were surprised by the quality, while others noted poor results—often due to low bitrate settings (some as low as 60 kbps) in their recording apps. In general, mobile phones can produce decent recordings when set to the highest quality, and some even support uncompressed audio, though microphone quality and stereo capability vary between models.

The difference between phones and dedicated recorders was most noticeable in outdoor recordings. Wind interference frequently caused unwanted “popping” sounds on phone microphones, underscoring the advantages of higher-quality microphones and pop filters. Despite these challenges, some students found their phone recordings exceeded expectations. One student noted their phone emphasized lower frequencies, resulting in a “bass-heavy” recording of a botanical garden soundscape.

Reflections on the Experience

The reflection component of the assignment surfaced several recurring and insightful themes:

  • Heightened Sound Awareness: Many students reported a marked shift in their perception of everyday sounds. They became more attuned to noises they would typically ignore, describing the process as becoming more “present” in their environments. The assignment encouraged deeper listening, revealing subtle details and nuances that had previously gone unnoticed. Students remarked on discovering small, unintended sounds in their recordings and described attentive listening as a gradual, stepwise process.
  • Role of the Environment: Students recognized how acoustic environments—like reflective concrete walls, high-ceilinged railway stations, or city architecture—profoundly shape both the listening and recording experience.
  • Influence of Recording Devices: Reflections highlighted how recording devices, especially phone microphones, can color or filter sounds, sometimes failing to capture the full richness or intensity perceived in person.
  • Describing and Classifying Sound: Students started to use terminology introduced in class, such as “sustained whirr,” “rhythmic impulsive thumping,” “iterative noise,” and “clear impulses,” to describe and classify the sounds they encountered.
  • Emotional and Experiential Dimensions: Focused listening and recording were often described as calming, engaging, and enjoyable. Some students found peace in accepting the sounds of their home environment, while others experienced nostalgia or amusement when encountering familiar sounds from childhood.
  • Creative Possibilities: Several students saw potential for their recordings beyond the assignment, imagining their use in music production, as samples, sound effects, or rhythmic elements.
  • Challenges in Sound Description: Some students expressed difficulty in accurately describing sounds, feeling uncertain about the “right way” to do so, especially without prior experience. This underscored the subjective and complex nature of sound description.

Summing up

This is the second time I’ve used this task, and it worked equally well this time as last. The assignment successfully encouraged students to engage with their auditory environments, fostering an enhanced awareness of sound, its nuances, and the factors influencing its perception and recording. It also highlighted the creative potential of everyday sound and some technical challenges associated with recording and sharing audio.

Note on the use of AI: This blog post is based on a summary provided by NotebookLM, tweaking with CoPilot, and grammar control in Grammarly.