SYNCHRONIZED LISTENING
CURRICULUM FOR CLASSROOMS AND COMMUNITY GROUPS
for ARTBUILT
Concept: Lisa Schonberg + Erica van Loon
Curriculum: Lisa Schonberg
Field Recordists: Erica van Loon, Jay Rodriguez, Santiago Diaz Escamilla, Lisa Schonberg
Mixer design: Ulf Bilting and Max Stewart Steele
PROJECT BACKGROUND
With the onset of Covid and stay-at-home orders, we turned to listening to the soundscapes around us. We found that this ritual, or practice, of listening-in-place – at our homes – brought us relaxation, routine, and balance in a time of upheaval and unknown. It also helped us to re-acquaint ourselves with our surroundings. Our human neighbors and their activities. Our non-human neighbors and theirs. The human machinery nearby. And the geologic elements – the water bodies, wind, rain, that we may have before taken for granted. We got to know all of this, and more, in great detail. And by repeating these recording rituals, we came to notice changes in our environments over time – throughout the course of a day, a week, a month, and as months passed by.
What began as Lisa's solo listening practice evolved into a twice-daily practice with Erica in Amsterdam, at each of our sunrises. For this realization of the project, we carried out a group ritual across three continents and four time zones. We all listened and recorded the soundscape at or nearby our homes at the same time. These synchronized listening sessions happened at each of our sunrises and sunsets. We recorded at our 4 respective sunrises on July 26-27, 2021, and at each of our sunsets on Aug 2-3. We took written notes during our sessions about what we saw, heard, and felt, and how the experience affected us. And we photographed our surroundings to document where we had recorded.
We recorded at sunrise and sunset because these are good markers of time across geographies, and because the most varied and rich soundscape tends to happen during these times. Some non-human species only call during sunset and/or sunrise. This is called “crepuscular” behavior.
Recording in synch together – even at sometimes odd hours of the night – gave us a sense of togetherness and connection that we had been sorely missing as the pandemic lingered on. We are artists, and we are used to traveling and collaborating throughout our countries and the world. This project brought a sense of that connection back to us, with a new level of intimacy based in intention and dedication.
The following lesson plans are based on our recording and listening practice, and they are based around the resulting ideas, questions, recordings and documentation from this project. The following lesson plans are based on our recording and listening practice. Lessons 1, 4, are web-based and require access to the audio mixers found at http://www.lisaschonberg.com/sunrises and http://www.lisaschonberg.com/sunsets. Lesson 2 does not require internet access. Lesson 3 requires a phone or video chat platform.
**THE MIXERS DO NOT WORK ON PHONES**
download full curriculum here
THE MIXERS
These mixers each have 4 audio channels that can be played and listened to simultaneously. Each mixer has the recordings from 1 synchronized listening session, with 1 channel for each city. So – there are 4 mixers for sunsets, and 4 for sunrises. The slider on each channel controls the volume of that city’s recording – so you can create and change the mix you are hearing! Headphones are highly recommended so that you can hear details better. The four channels are panned – this just means they are given a specific location in the stereo field, so they are sitting in a specific location relative to the right or left of your field of hearing. For example, Amsterdam is panned all the way to the left, and Portland is panned all the way to the right. Gowanus is middle-left, and Bogotá is panned middle right.
LESSON 1: International Soundscapes : Speculative Listening
1. Choose a city to focus on, from either Amsterdam, Bogota, Gowanus, or Portland. Perhaps you will pick one of these cities because you have been curious about it in the past, or are already interested in it. If you are not familiar with your chosen city, look it up on the internet to see what that city is like.
2. What would you imagine that you would hear in your chosen city at sunrise? Describe it in as much detail as you can. Use your imagination and get as creative as you like.
3. What would you imagine that you would hear in your chosen city at sunset? Describe it in as much detail as you can. Use your imagination and get as creative as you like.
4. Listen to the sunrise recording from your chosen city at www.lisaschonberg.com/sunrises. What do you hear? How is it similar to what you imagined? How is it different? What stood out to you most?
5. How does your city’s sunrise compare to the other recordings in it’s sunrise mixer?
6. Listen to the sunset recording from your chosen city at www.lisaschonberg.com/sunsets. What do you hear? How is it similar to what you imagined? How is it different? What stood out to you most?
7. How does your city’s sunrise compare to the other recordings in it’s sunset mixer?
8. How are your city’s sunrise and sunset different from each other? How are they similar?
LESSON 2: SPECULATIVE LISTENING AT HOME
PART I
1. What do you think it will sound like outside/around your house at sunrise tomorrow? Describe what you imagine you would hear if you listened at sunrise tomorrow. This can be as imagined or realistic as you would like.
2. Find your official sunrise time here: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/ Make sure you look up tomorrow’s date (or whatever the date is that you’ll be doing this exercise!).
3. Set your alarm for 15 minutes before sunrise. Find a comfortable and relaxing place to sit outside. Sit and listen from sunrise for ten minutes. Do not use your phone or any social media while listening. If you want to post on social media about your experience, do that afterwards.
4. Optional recording steps: (a) Set your phone or a recording device at least a few feet away from you. Use the voice memo/recorder app on your phone to record your listening session or (b) use a handheld field recorder, and listen through headphones (with internal or external microphone). Do not hold the recorder.
5. Take notes during/after your listening session (If you are recording, you’ll get the sound of pen/pencil on paper, which i love, but you do you).
6. What did you hear? How is it similar or different from what you imagined in step 1?
7. Do steps #1-6 again for your sunset. Look up your sunset time at https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/ .
PART II
Now that you have investigated your sunrise and sunset, let’s envision your home soundscape of the future. We are going to consider what you heard in your listening session, and then imagine a speculative soundscape.
1. List five sound objects you heard in Lesson 2.
a. What does each of these sound objects symbolize to you?
b. How does each of these sound objects make you feel?
c. Which of these sound objects would you like to hear more of?
d. Which sound objects would you rather here less of, or not at all?
2. Spend some time thinking of the soundscape you would like to envision for your neighborhood. What would you like to hear in your neighborhood in ten years from now?
3. If you could design your neighborhood’s soundscape of the future, what would you want to hear? Name five sound objects you’d want to hear, and what they symbolize/represent for you. These can include sounds that are already present in your neighborhood.
4. Can you make these sounds with your body, voice, and found objects? Try and re-create elements / sound objects from your speculative soundscape.
OPTIONAL: record your re-created sounds of your speculative soundscape and share with your class.
LESSON 3: SYNCHRONIZED LISTENING at SUNRISE
1. Pair with 1 student in the class (your teacher will assign pairs)
2. Look up what time sunrise is each morning this week at www.timeanddate.com/sun/
3. Pick one sunrise that you will listen to together with your classmate.
4. Pick a location where you will sit and listen. Choose someplace where you will not be distracted. You will each listen separately, at/near your own homes.
5. Optional --- record your listening session using a smartphone, cassette recorder, field recorder, or other device. If you are recording with a field recorder, listen through headphones during the session.
6. Watch the clock, start your session on the first minute of sunrise, and listen for ten full minutes straight.
7. After your session write down notes about what you heard. Describe what you heard in 1-2 paragraphs.
8. Call your classmate or meet on videochat immediately after you’ve made your notes. Talk about your experience and answer these questions together.
a. Describe the weather during your session.
b. Did you learn something new about your neighborhood?
c. Did you hear anything that you have never noticed before?
d. Did you hear any animals? What species/kinds?
e. Did you hear the wind? What was it sounding through?
f. How do you think the sunrise soundscape will be different during summer? Fall? Winter? Spring?
g. What sounds were most interesting to you?
h. What other sounds did you hear that you haven’t mentioned yet?
i. Would you enjoy doing this practice again in the future? How did it make you feel?
j. How do you think the sounds in your neighborhood may have changed during the different stages of the pandemic?
k. Did you both hear any similar sounds at your respective listening locations?
l. What was different about your listening experiences?
m. How far away do you live from each other?
n. Do you each live near any geographic or built features (waterways, traffic routes, industry, commerce, etc) that are related to differences in your respective soundscapes?
o. How did it feel to be listening at the very same time as each other?
LESSON 4: SYNCHRONIZED SOUND MIXING
1. Go to the website www.lisaschonberg.com/sunrises or www.lisaschonberg.com/sunsets
2. Pick a sound mixer. There are 8 mixers to choose from. There is a mixer for the sunrise of each of the 4 cities, and mixers for the sunsets at each of the four cities. The sounds in each mixer were recorded at the same time during a synchronized listening session between recordists in the 4 cities.
3. Play with your chosen mixer. Try different combinations of the 4 soundscapes.
4. Write down an observation about each city’s soundscape recording.
5. Listen to two of the soundscapes simultaneously. How do they compare
6. Now listen to a different pairing. How do these compare?
7. Repeat this with a third pairing.
8. Name an example of biophony in one of the recordings.
9. Name an example of geophony in one of the recordings.
10. Name an example of anthrophony in one of the recordings.
11. Find one relationship between two elements that you can hear in one recording – this can include built, animal, plant, human, or non-biological (wind, rain, etc) elements.
Describe how you can hear this relationship.
12. Is the relationship you described present in any of the other cities in the mixer? Why or why not?