Before reading anything else, before reading any further, or clicking on a link, give this a listen. Just hit play and listen. And don’t dig in too deep. Hold off on listening for tone, or for dynamics, for narrative or processing. In essence, hold off on any of the kind of interpretive listening that this site is about on a daily basis. Instead, just listen and just focus on one task. The task is to try to identify the sound:
When you’ve got a solid guess, head over to the link below, where a consensus has built regarding its identification. The track is by Scanner, whose work deserves the sort of listening admonished against above. This track isn’t Scanner exploring sound. It is Scanner assisting others in exploring sound. It’s part of a broader project, which he explained when he posted the audio:
“Minute of Listening is a creative learning project through which Sound and Music hopes to enable every child in the country to gain access to a huge diversity of music and sound and, for sixty seconds each day, to focus on the richness and enjoyment of the act of listening. Children from the ages of 3 to 11 will be participating with their class teachers, testing a variety of approaches to engaging with Minute of Listening and exploring the act of listening.”
The project began on January 4 of this year and runs through March 30. Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/scanner. More on Scanner (aka Robin Rimbaud) at scannerdot.com. More on the project at soundandmusic.org:
And, yes, the image up top is of Scanner at age 6.