Sound Activities 
There are lots of ways to experience the sounds around us and to make listening fun. 
Here are a few activities that can be done on their own or combined together. These activities are designed to activate hearing and increase engagement with the environment through attentive listening. These activities can be done individually or as part of a group and range from simple 5 minute exercises to more involved sound projects. 

Start with yourself 
This is a fun way of introducing attentive listening and can be done for just a couple of minutes. Be still and quiet and listen out for the sounds your own body is making. What can you hear? Which is the quietest sound of your body? Which is the loudest? 
Begin to move slowly, how do the sounds change? What can you hear now that you couldn’t before? Listen to the sound of your footsteps changing every time you hit a different surface. As you walk, can you move without making a sound? 

Sound hunt 
A collection of sounds are written out on paper and put in a bag, everyone chooses one or several and then has to listen out for their sound throughout the visit. For example try to find a low-pitched rumble, a high pitched clang, and a swoosh. This is one way to begin to collect the sounds and their locations to describe the soundscape of an area. 

Go on a Sound walk 
This involves walking a route where the main sense being used is sound. There are many ways to do this. The purpose is to enable a person to discover their environment through focused attention on a specific sense. If it is a group, it could be done as a 
sound hunt and the whole group could assemble at the end to discuss verbally what they discovered or to illustrate the soundscape on a map. The sound walk could be done in stages, with the whole group stopping at points along the way. In this case there needs to be a way for the group to know when to stop. Individuals could take turn to signal to the group in turn when they have heard a sound they want to bring everyone’s attention to. 

Record and illustrate a soundscape 
Make a map of the area you are visiting draw one or use a real map or print one off from google. If you are doing this as a group exercise then make it as big as you can. Use this map to record the sounds that were heard throughout the visit. What kinds of rhythms does the sound contain, what kinds of pitches, how many continuous sounds. Try to describe the sound instead of, or as well as the thing that made the sound for example grunt rather than pig. Try mapping the soundscape at different times of the day or in different weather conditions. This can lead to rich discussions on how and why the 
soundscape changes. What kind of atmosphere do the sounds create? Do you hear any sounds which do not seem to belong here? 

Design your ideal soundscape 
Pick out the sounds you like to hear the most and create the ideal soundscape you’d 
like to spend time in. How do you feel listening to sounds? Do some sounds make you 
feel irritated, calm, soothed or excited? 

Keeping a sound journal 
Choose something in nature that you can hear for example, the wind, water, birds. For a whole month keep an ear out for this sound. Listen for how the sound changes. Wonder why. Find new ways to describe what you are hearing. Mark your sounds on a map. Try drawing the shape and movement of the sounds. Make audio recordings. How can you capture your sound maker’ in a photo or on film? 
An example of this is to befriend the rain. Go out and listen to as many sounds created by rain as possible. Listen for low-pitched and high-pitched ones, for those which 
continually change their pitch and also their loudness. Rain falling on the dry ground, rain falling on glass, on tin, rain running off the roof. What kinds of structures produce what kinds of sounds when touched by rain? What effects do the various kinds of sounds have on you? 
Unique sounds Echoes are bouncing sounds. Find all the echoes in your environment and examine where they bounce off. Which ones are most interesting and why? 
Imitate the sounds of nature. Simply do that. Try and mimic the different sounds you can hear. In a group can you make music using these sounds, making beats and rhythms? This activity sheet was developed and produced by Sensory Trust www.sensorytrust.org.uk