Sound Hunt
Close your eyes right now and try to listen to the sounds around you. Can you identify what you hear? Can you hear more than two sounds?
Sound is all around us, all the time. Even when you think you are sitting in silence, you might be able to hear yourself breathing, or electricity buzzing or a gentle breeze?
Open a window, can you hear outdoor sounds as well. Can you identify them?
In the extract below you will hear 20 sounds from both indoors and outdoors. See how many sounds you can recognise.
Think of all the different sounds around you and sounds you have heard in the last week and try to think of words that describe them:
Crunchy, dinging, funny, horrible, scratchy, ringing…
Can you think of at least three more describing words?
Once you have a list of about 10 describing words you are ready to go on your sound hunt.
Try to search your home now and find 10 objects that you could use to make the sounds on your sound list. You might have to ask an adult at home if this is alright.
Top Tip – the kitchen is a great place to find sound-making objects – but make sure you ask first!
Now you have your sound objects put them on the table or the floor around you. There are quite a few games you could try now you have your ‘sounds’
- Try grouping your objects by sound. For example, you might have a ‘dull’ sounding group or a ‘ringing’ group. You might have objects made of wood, metal, cloth that will make very different sounds. You might group your objects into those you hit and those you shake to make a sound.
- If you have another person with you, you could play ‘Find the noise’. One person closes their eyes whilst the other person plays one of the instruments. The person with their eyes closed then must find the object that was played and make the same sound. To make it harder try three objects at a time one after the other.
- Now you have got very used to the different sounds you have collected, you could start to make up a piece of music using your instruments. Try to make a pattern of three or more different sounds and then repeat them. If you have someone with you they could make their own pattern as well. Experiment with playing your patterns one after the other or together. What works best?
- Can you write your pieces of music down? How could you do this? There are many different ways. You could draw pictures of the sounds or the objects. You might want to choose one object like a saucepan and think of different sounds you can make with it by using your hand or a spoon or putting spoons inside the pan and shaking. Can you make up some symbols or signs to represent the sounds you have made?
- Look at the grid below. What do you think all the different lines and dots mean? Can you make up a sound to go with each symbol? You can do anything you want and then perform the grid. If you have someone with you, they could play the grid starting on a different line.
- In the grid below you can make write down your own piece by using words, pictures of symbols.
