Guided Sound Walks and Field Recording Workshops

We were awarded a grant from O2 Big Think to deliver a field recording / deep listening workshop. These workshops were delivered by Charlie Kew and Andreas Steuck. We had been interested and practising the art of recording open spaces for some time. There are many things we love about this activity. One of those is how immediate the sense of immersion is, when one puts on headphones attached to a mic. So this became the concept behind our project. Take some stressed out students during their final exams, out for a refreshing, deep listening experience. So how did it go?

We provided a couple of handheld mics accompanied by headphones and designed a route the woods by Stanmer Park. Andreas took us through some immersive listening activities, as well as guiding us to best practice with the mics. The mix of excitement and focus is very interesting. At first there were laughs and jokes as we listened to each other through mics. After a short walk, a quiet and heavy focus built up around us. It then was quite common for some of us to veer from the group, to explore something alone that captured our attention. The reliance on words to communicate slowly diffuses. As we became more and more interested in the sound of the environment. One particular feature, was noticing the slowly fading hum of the motorway as we ventured deeper into the woods.

As we returned, so did the hum of traffic and the bubbleness of conversation, jokes and laughter from the participants. But not without a heightened sense of awareness, clarity and peace amongst all of us. Each of us were able to find and take away with us, a quiet moment of stillness. Which made room for more busy-ness in our everyday lives.