What does the right to education sound like?
You are free to respond to the question in any way you choose as long as it is sonic, and results in a recording, or a sound file. This could be a single sound, a recording of a soundscape, a montage of sounds, or a short composition. You may be an experienced musician or completely new to the idea of working with sound, we want to hear from you all! The aim is not that you make a perfect soundwork, but one that represents the right to education for you.
For example, a sound could be the tap, tap, squeak of a teacher writing with a marker on a whiteboard, it could be the recording of a soundscape (soundscape = all the sounds you can hear in a particular place) of a school or playtime. It could be a series of sounds recorded one after the other, or a piece of music that you have composed.
There is no fixed way to do this, you are free to do what works for you. As long as it results in a sound recording of less than two minutes, we don’t mind how you go about it!
1. Thinking
Take a little bit of time to think about what the right to education means for you. Here are some questions to help you think about it, though you may have other ideas:
• What sort of emotions do you feel when you think about education?
• Should it be what education sounds like now? Or should it be what it could be, an ideal?
• Has your idea of education changed as you have got older or had different experiences, if so, which version would you like to focus on?
2. Planning
Thinking about your answers in the first section, this is the stage to think about how those ideas can be translated into sounds. When you are doing this you might think about rhythm, pitch and tone, but alternatively if there is a sound that immediately comes to mind go with that! Here are some questions to help you think about planning your soundwork:
• How would you want to represent your ideas through sound?
• Are there sounds unique to the idea of education?
• Do you want to make the sounds yourself by composing some music or recording your own sounds or do you want to record sounds around you?
• If there are sounds that you would like to record, where can you find them?
3. Recording
Record and make the sounds to be included. Remember that the recording can be a maximum of 2 minutes long (shorter is fine). Draw a timeline and draw or write the sounds on the timeline, to create a ‘picture’ of the sound work you want to create. Use this as a guide to record if you don’t have access to sound editing equipment. If you have access to Audacity or Ableton, or other sound editing software you can use the timeline as a guide to help create your sound work. Alternatively, if it’s a single sound or a soundscape just get out there with your phone and record it.
4. Sharing
As this is a pilot this stage is simple. Just send us your sound via email (zip it up if it’s big). However, we would also like to know a little bit about you and the sound you have made. It will be great to understand where the sounds came from, how they were created and to find out a little about the people involved. Please let us know the following information:
• Name
• Organisation (if appropriate)
• Country
• Age
• Name of soundwork – please make sure that the sound file has the same name as on the description – just so we can connect them if they get separated.
• Description of soundwork – what you described, how you went about it, any key things that you would like us to know.
Maybe copy this list and paste it into your email so you have the questions at hand. Then send the email with the sound file attached to sound@rights-studio.org
5. What’s next
We can’t wait to hear your soundwork. We will listen and incorporate them in our composition at the end of the pilot. Of course, we will stay in touch and you will be able to hear the final work and your role in it. As this is a pilot, we would also like to get some feedback from you about how you found the process. If it’s okay, we will email you to find out your views when we’re a bit further down the line.
If you have any questions please email us at: sound@rights-studio.org
Thank you!