Soundscape Compositions for Art Classrooms

Abstract

Soundscape Composition for Art Classrooms Ehsan AkbariThis thesis explores ways in which the process of listening, recording, and editing everyday soundscapes can be incorporated in the art classroom. For this study, I designed and carried out two series of educational workshops; firstly, with a group of students at an all-girls high school in Montreal; and secondly, with a group of art and music teachers from QAIS (Quebec Association of Independent Schools). The data generated from these workshops has been used to develop adaptable educational interventions for teaching this process for Art Education. The data also indicates that this creative practice has a number of salient features for learning and art education.For one, listening deeply to familiar spaces such as a school or classroom can shift and expand our conscious awareness of these surroundings. Furthermore, using technological devices to listen, record, and edit sound can allow students to experience quotidian environments in a different way. This can deepen students' engagement with common environments by asking them to notice and creatively explore the sounds that define their daily experiences. This artistic and educational approach is grounded in a theoretical understanding of consciousness as a unity that integrates images, smells, textures, thoughts, feelings and memories to experience the world. Thus, the thesis calls for an approach to Art Education that is open to sensory multiplicity in exploring everyday experiences. Sound is a crucial component of such experiences; and as such, it warrants study in art classrooms.

Music Education for Surviving and Thriving: Cultivating Children’s Wonder, Senses, Emotional Wellbeing, and Wild Nature as a Means to Discover and Fulfill Their Life’s Purpose

“…In the 1970s, concurrent with the rise of the environmental movement, Schafer (1977) invited musicians, educators, and environmentalists to attend to ambient soundscapes as he saw the encroachment of human-made sound as a neglected topic. Many educators have applied Schafer's ideas in music settings such as informal music learning (Heckel, 2017), free improvisation (Huovinen and Kuusinen, 2006), elementary school (Ward, 2009), secondary school (Imada, 2019), undergraduate music history (Black and Bohlman, 2017;Galloway, 2017), music composition (Friesen, 2012), as well as interdisciplinary settings (Younker and Bracken, 2015;Akbari, 2016).…”