The Sounds of Music

Why would it be useful to have children provided with the opportunity to be able to engage creatively with the art of organising sounds? Where might such instruction fit into a school’s curriculum? In an epoch of limited time allocated to music teaching in several nations, why consider introducing the music of sounds beyond the music of notes? The rationale for the first question will form the core of this chapter and its place, not only in a music curriculum, but also in several others will be illustrated. Two of the key points presented will be the raising of aural awareness and the low entry threshold for making music with sounds using known user-friendly forms of technology. The chapter will include the discussion of a modest number of existent initiatives in the area – there have alas been too few – and will focus on the EARS 2 pedagogical project (ElectroAcoustic Resource Site) led by the author which includes an eLearning environment and creative software called Compose with Sounds, primarily intended for the 11-14 year old age group but currently in use within a wider age band.