Final Lesson Plan: Sound Piece

Lesson Plan: Sound Piece
  1^st-3^rd Grade
Duration: 1 class period (45 minutes)

Big Idea

When sound takes over vision, what sound can you make? What do you see in the sounds?

Overview

Inspired by artist Benoît Maubrey’s sound art pieces, the students will make up their own character by sound.  The students will listen to various sounds, and they will record their story on the transparency film.  In the end, the class will share their stories on the projector.  

 

Objective	Assessment
Students will employ the knowledge of Principles of Design. Students will envision character and space through sound. Students will practice story plotting and problem solving. Students will connect their work with contemporary artist Benoît Maubrey.	Students will illustrate their story using the idea of lines, shapes, and space. Students will perform/illustrate their character and plot according to the sound. Students will compose their story along with the variations of sounds. Students will have an idea of how artist Benoît Maubrey uses sound as his art tool.

 

Challenge to Pose

Today, we are going on a fieldtrip.  We are going on a trip with our EARS!  Before our ears head out the door, I’m going to give you a little exercise of how we might start our adventure.  First we need to be absolutely quiet and to listen: listen carefully, and imagine.  I will need one volunteer.  When you hear the noise think about what character would you be (It can be something that does not exist)? What are you doing that causes the sound? Play sound and have three students perform their characters.

Great performances!  So, next, after you have an idea of your own character you can think about what is happening in your story.  Think about where you are. Forest? Space?  Park?  Imaginary place? You may think about drawing your background so that people will know where you are in relation to the middle and foreground. It doesn’t really matter where you start, but put your ideas down.  If you want to add characters like animals and trees, keep in mind that when things are closer to you, they seem to be bigger; when they are farther they seem to be smaller.  Lines can be thicker when they are closer, narrower when they are farther.

 

We are using transparency film. You can hold them up and look.  At the end of the class we are going to use a projector to project your story on the wall.  You can tell us your story.  What are you? What happened?  Who was there?  Were there any challenges?
You can test draw something on a draft paper if you are not confident starting off with transparency film, because we can’t erase marks.  Also be careful with your palms when you draw, because the colors will smear if you place your hands on it before it dries.

Quick demo of teacher’s version, keep it simple….

Procedure

1. The students will listen to a short demonstration before their sound trip (See Challenge to Pose) 10 min
2. They listen to the sound and determine the plot of their story. They will also work on foreground, middle ground, and background of the setting. 20 min
3. Present it on a projector and see what happened in their story. 15 min
4. Wrap up. 10 min

 

Materials

Transparency film

Markers

Draft paper

Pencil

Wrap up

We heard lots of adventurous stories from your sound journey.  There are many artists who use sound to create art.  For example Benoît Maubrey made a performance piece by wearing an instrument that he made which looks like and sounded like a peacock.  The instrument made him look like a big white peacock, and in indoors he used it as a projection screen. He projects colorful videos on his instrument/costume.

 

Audio Peacock

 

Outdoors peacock
Watch video: http://www.benoitmaubrey.com/?p=718

Indoor Peacock with projection of patterns on it.
Watch Video:http://www.benoitmaubrey.com/?p=702

Key terms

Transparency film, transparent, strokes, see through, color, shapes, space, foreground, middle ground, background

 

Related MA Standards

Methods, Materials, and Techniques: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4

Elements and Principles of Design: 2.1, 2.2, 2.4, 2.6

Observation, Abstraction, Invention, and Expression: 3.2, 3.3

Drafting, Revising and Exhibiting: 4.1, 4.3

Critical Response: 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4

 

 

Related Artist

Main inspiration:

Benoît Maubrey

http://www.benoitmaubrey.com/

Other related sources:

Edouropoulou

Walking through the streets of Manhattan, a city rich in sounds that one can choose to block out and treat like background noise or manipulate. It is a sequence of my daily, urban steps.

http://soundcloud.com/edouropoulou/city-steps-1/s-WSYcm

Hidekazu Minami
We do not as a society pay attention to ambient sounds. We are much more focused on the visual over the auditory. Infrasonic Soundscape is an online interactive artwork mapping New York City its sounds. It is created as a place where visitors can listen to the hidden sounds to reveal the importance of the city’s soundscape that we normally do not pay attention to.

http://www.soundtoys.net/toys/infrasonic-soundscape

Matías Montarcé

Installation consists of shell, mp4, and speaker (original duration: 8´05″). The sounds that form this installation are Tibetan chants and sea waves, when amplified by the loudspeaker introduced into the shell, produce a very particular surround sound inviting us to a deeper thought.

eva sjuve

audioTagger was started in January 2006, as a way to explore ubiquitous computing for audio applications in public space.

http://www.moolab.net/mobile/audioTagger.shtml