The final Echo Location workshop for Fermynwoods’ Sounding Out project was delivered with Year 2 students from Kettering Science Academy.

Students began with a listening exercise to help start to consider sound and place. Students tried to discover by listening only, the locations and sources of selected sounds, from the local train station to a recording of dawn made for a hospital in Liverpool.

Afterwards students recorded a wide range of sounds from inside the school and around the school grounds, including a rendition of “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” for their school assembly.

Finally students learned how to upload sounds on the map and to use it as an instrument.

As part of Fermynwoods Contemporary Art‘s Sounding Out project, students from Isebrook SEN Cognition and Learning College explored different locations on the map before adding their own sounds from inside their school and around the school grounds.

Interesting recordings included the sounds of the school garden area, creaking doors, and the ambient noises of nearby traffic.

After using the map as an instrument, selecting and playing their sounds in loops, at different speeds and in different directions, students visited nearby Wicksteed Park (one of England’s oldest amusement parks).

Here students recorded a very different array of sounds such as the carousel organ, a long zip slide, children’s laughter and miniature motor cars.

Following on this activity in school, students have created QR codes of recorded sounds, which can be played by other students and visitors to the school using QR code readers in the sounds’ original locations.

Students from Kettering Music & Performing Arts Centre continued to populate the map following a workshop collecting recordings from in and around the centre.

Unlike some other areas of the map, here students made use of the traditional musical sounds created by their peers at the centre. These were added along with distinctive, ambient and accidental sounds also found in this location.

Once uploaded to the map, students then had the opportunity to use the interface as an instrument, looping, highlighting and disguising their vast collection of sounds.

A new Kettering centred version of Kathy Hinde and Ed Holroyd’s Echo Location sound map has been commissioned by Fermynwoods Contemporary Art as part of their Sounding Out project.

Sounding Out is part of The Mighty Creatives Young People’s Locally Based Arts and Culture Programme. For Sounding Out, Fermynwoods are working with students with and without disabilities, who are attending schools in Kettering in order to develop their skills and knowledge of music and sound art.

During Phase 1 of the project students will take part in Echo Location workshops in and around their schools, work with artist David Littler to explore tactile connections between sound and visuals, plus visit sound art and music performances.

Students will explore new sound worlds, new ways of creating and performing music, interact with and direct musicians, whilst gaining experience of developing these skills in an exciting and visually stimulating performance environment.

Phase 2 will see students commission and create a fully accessible, relaxed orchestral event, featuring new music, for members of the public in Kettering

In addition to Kathy Hinde and Ed Holroyd, Fermynwoods Contemporary Art is working alongside Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust, Orchestras Live, and David Littler for this project.