Insect asides

A couple of insect related items caught my ear recently, courtesy of BBC radio.  The first concerned bees and one Huw Evans, an electronic engineer turned bee-keeper.  He has been recording the sound inside his hives and analysing it in an attempt to predict swarming.  He can also monitor the health of his bees in a non-invasive manner.  Looking inside the hives to check on the bees just upsets them, unsurprisingly, and has a negative effect on honey yield.  The full article, with audio clip, is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16114890

The piece of news was the recreation of the sound made by crickets 165 million years ago in the Jurassic period.  The radio piece gave us a few chirps but the on-line article at http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16878292 is silent.   The researchers recreated the sound by examining a fossilised cricket. What is particularly interesting is that they believe they can use the sounds to make further assumptions about the other sounds in the forest.  This is because the insects would have to make their sound cut through the rest of the jungle noise to reach their prospective mate.

Automata

I have always been fascinated by automata - toys that move when a handle is cranked or a lever pressed. So when the opportunity came up to help children create an installation for their primary school I jumped at the chance. However, the first hurdle was convincing the interview panel that I was the most suitable applicant. To this end I constructed a machine with a strong musical element.

After some experiment I came up with a construction that, on turning the handle, plays the first two bars of Good King Wenceslas while a Christmas Tree goes up and down. (The interview was in December.) It was an object in need of refinement but held together on the journey to Bedford and performed on the day.


I immersed myself in the project for the next few months, experimenting with designs I hoped would be accessible to 8 and 9 year olds. It was to culminate in a big festival in the school's extensive grounds and Year 4 were to present the installation at this event. The theme was 'White British Culture' and the point we were making was that much of what we think of as quintessentially British, from Fish and Chips to Chicken Vindaloo, would have been unrecognisable to the subjects of King Henry VIII.

To illustrate this we made a large globe set on a turntable, showing where tea, sugar, pizza ingredients etc come from. (This became a very foody take on British culture.)







We built a boat, the centrepiece of the installation, showing how we brought so many British characteristics from overseas. The waves go up and down and sea-life appears and disappears. The sound of the waves was sacrificed to time constraints but I was rather pleased with the ship's bell.

Finally all this wonderful imported food appears at a banquet featuring HM the Queen, William and Kate Windsor, Rod Stewart, Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole, Mr Bean and an unnamed ancient Roman.





The heads of some of these characters moved from side to side while the mouths of others opened and shut, all with levers or cams. (Cheryl was mouthy, Simon big on the negatives while her majesty appeared less than pleased with the company she was keeping. Mechanisms were mounted in carpet tube - very strong but also rather tight on space. The heads were originally to be made of (nice and light) expanded polystyrene but, one of many compromises, ended up being papier mache.

I was lucky to have the assistance of visual artist Abi Spendlove for part of the project. (The Christmas tree had exhausted my repertoire.) Sadly she was elsewhere when the boat was drawn. What should have been an 18th century galleon looks more like a cross channel ferry as a result.

Twang on a can

Here, as unwisely promised yesterday, is a clip of me twanging the ring-pull of an aluminium fizzy drink can whilst simultaneously filling it with water. What do you think happens to the pitch of the note?

My own, subjective and non-scientific, opinion is that the pitch stays the same. The note seems to get higher because the upper harmonic partials are increasingly favoured as the can fills. If I were to blow the can like a flute then I would hear the air inside vibrating. Less volume of air, as the water replaces it, means a gradual rise in pitch. When I twang the can it is the can I hear resonating. The water dampens (no pun intended - 'deadens' might be a better word) the sound of the lower partials.

Today I went for a long walk by the sea so no sonic experiments. But tomorrow I shall continue to explore the seasonal debris and make some more rubbish instruments. If you would like to join in then hang on to all sizes of bottles, both glass and plastic, tin cans of various types, wrapping paper and anything else you think might produce a noise.

These instruments are rubbish

Before you consign the debris from your seasonal festivities to landfill and the recycling banks why not have some fun with it first? That is certainly my own intention and I'm starting with some fizzy drinks cans. I had a grand plan which I'll reveal tomorrow but on the way I noticed a thing or two. You may know that all plastic bottles of the same size play the same note if blown like a flute. Well aluminium cans are the same although it is not nearly as easy to produce a sound in this way. However, when you twang the ring-pull (which remains attached to the modern can after opening) the pitch varies betrween cans. Of the five cans I tried the pitch varied between G and Bb. These cans were all the same brand from the same multipack. Although the cans all contain the same volume of air there must be other variations in their construction.

The next thing I did was to twang the ring-pull as I gradually filled a can with water. It requires a steady hand. (Using a funnel has a deadening effect.) Why not try this now? I'll post a movie of my own experiment tomorrow. Before you begin, though, what do think will happen to the sound as you pour in the water? Does experience tally with your prediction?

Experimenting with sound

I occasionally buy a copy of New Scientist if I am on holiday or about to get on a train. It’s written in terms simple enough for a layman like myself to understand and there’s usually some article or other about sound. I took one to Cambridge the other day (where it felt like a comic) and was disappointed to find almost nothing about sound save for one brief item.

I assume you are familiar with Pavlov’s famous experiment with dogs. He rang the bell, the dogs came and he fed them. He did this for a number of days and then rang the bell and, when they came, he didn’t feed them although they salivated expectantly. The dogs had been conditioned by the bell. Any caveman who ever befriended a dog could have predicted that result.

Pointless or not, Pavlov’s work should have made the following research, reported in New Scientist, November 21st, unnecessary. In the 1970s a psychologist from the University of Pennsylvania played two different sounds to 1,800 three year olds on the island of Mauritius. One of the sounds was always followed by a loud, frightening noise. The noise had such an effect on the children that, on hearing the sound that preceded it, the children would sweat with apprehension. Somehow (and we’re asked to take this as a given) the researcher measured the amount each child sweated every time they heard the warning sound.

Fast forward thirty years or so and we find that perhaps there was a point to the experiment after all. It transpires that of the children involved in the experiment 137 went on to gain criminal records. All of these children sweated significantly less than others of similar race and gender. So we have a link between an early fearlessness in the face of loud noises and criminal behaviour. Of course the report begs so many questions. What did other fearlessly sweat-free three year olds go on to become? Astronauts? Heavy Metal musicians? And were there no three year olds back home in Philadelphia? Were their parents more expensive to buy off or was Mauritius simply a pleasant place to go for a working holiday?

Before you rush to try any of this at home, just remember that that was the 1970s. Try something similar today and it may be the last time you are allowed to work with children (or animals). Content yourself with watching today’s shop assistants, force fed the saccharin Christmas hits of yesteryear on a continuous loop, turn into tomorrow’s homicidal maniacs.

The buzz on the street

'Cars hiss by my window' sang Jim Morrison. It occurred to me yesterday that it must have been raining when he wrote that. It has been a very dry August in my neck of the woods so when it rained I noticed the difference in the traffic noise drifting across the gardens from the main road. The dry whoosh to which I had become used had taken on a wetter note: this hiss alluded to in the song. I may have been slow getting there - it's forty years since The Doors released LA Woman - but I was pleased with my realisation.

A friend and I were discussing the sound of wind in beech trees recently. They have thin, flexible leaves with an emphasis on quantity rather than size. Morrison compared his cars to 'the waves down on the beach'. Beech leaves have a similar quality to waves over sand but drier, if that makes any sense. It occurred to me that before the massive deforestation that has accompanied agriculture and industry mankind would have been very attuned to what we now consider subtleties. A forest is, to use a phrase coined by David Toop, an ocean of sound constantly providing information for all who can read it.

I used to consider the sound of traffic as merely noise; the audible equivalent of the electromagnetic fog that some believe has contributed to the decline of bees. Whilst I would still prefer it gone it is part of the environmental soundscape and I have to make the best of it. Knowing it's been raining , even before I open my eyes in the morning, is a start. What use I can make of knowing there's a boy racer working off his testosterone or that the police are going somewhere in a hurry I'm really not sure.

Sauna acoustics

I have mentioned a rather special building in the past. It is a sauna constructed primarily in plywood in the shape of an icosahedron. I have spent many happy hours in there over the years and have heard speech, laughter, chant and song within its walls (sides?). On my last visit I was treated to some very atmospheric didgeridoo playing late one night around the full moon. This prompted me to try out the acoustic with my clarinet.

I visited in the morning, when it was cool, and set up my recorder. I then began noodling on a folky theme in (concert) D dorian which allows me to drop down to what is, for me as a Bb clarinetist, known as bottom E. A few snaps, some fun in Windows Movie Maker and result awaits below.

From the point of view of the musician I found the acoustic supportive while playing but with a very rapid decay of any reverberations. Parallel surfaces are avoided when building recording studios as they prevent standing waves from making echoes, all of which are added later to give the required sound characteristics. Although the plywood that makes up the sauna is reflective, very little of the surface area is parallel to any other side of the structure. So, unlike most indoor spaces, it has no sympathetic resonances reinforcing the volume of certain notes. Most producers and recording engineers would agree that a sympathetic natural reverb like this is preferable to one applied solely after the event. And the vibe in a studio is unlikely ever to match this sauna. I could have added a flattering 'atmosphere' but prefer it like this.

May's free game

Just a reminder that every month I post a (free) music or sound related game to play with other people. You can find it on my playwithsound.com website. This month it's a game called Hide and Listen and its purpose, besides fun, is to develop aural perception. An unexpected insight I've gained from playing this with groups of ten-year-olds recently is the extent of the gender divide at that age. Boys quickly indentified their male friends but were flummoxed when they had to distinguish between the voices of the girls. And vice versa. The only exceptions were when kids with very distinctive accents or adults took part.

Rare occasions when a male voice was mistaken for a female caused great hilarity. The rounds where funny voices were allowed were also popular and gave the foreign children more of a chance. Adults, however, never stand any chance in kids' games - at least not the adults I've played with.

More Disappearing Sounds

I went to Wells-next-the-Sea for a few days and enjoyed the change in the soundscape, especially the relative absence of cars and the fuller, louder dawn chorus. I stayed in an old cottage with a mix of features. The modern outside bathroom, which must have superseded the privy which still sits at the bottom of the garden, is now a utility room having been replaced, in its turn, by facilities in the house. It still boasts a fabulous high-level cistern, however, and it occurred to me how seldom I come across these once-familiar objects. Like members of endangered plant and animal species certain sounds become increasingly rare until they finally disappear. Is the high level flush heading for extinction?

I love this sound that once I took for granted. The metallic creaking of the chain and clank of the mechanism. The silent moment of energy, unleashed but without realisation. And finally the joyous rush of water down the pipe and into the bowl. When the spectacle is over there is the steady re-filling of the tank before the return to silence as the cistern waits patiently, like a spider on a web, for the next event.

Resistant materials

This area of study, which didn't exist when I was at school, is concerned with wood, plastic, metal, glass etc. This has nothing to do with electrical resistance. They are resistant in the way that water isn't and the primary concern is with their strength, durability and suitability to different applications.

The easiest way of exploring these in relation to sound is to put examples into containers, themselves made of different materials, and shake them about. Is the sound of ten glass marbles being shaken in a glass jar different from the sound made by the same marbles being shaken in a tin can or plastic box? What if we shake some wooden beads in the same jar, can and box? What does this say about the density, resonance and other qualities of the materials involved? From this experience can we make predictions about the sound of other combinations of materials acting on each other? If you wear a blindfold can you tell what materials are involved in an experiment by the sound alone?

And finally, can you think of any reluctant KS3 children who might find this aspect of resistant materials sufficiently diverting to interest them in other areas of the topic?

Sensitivity

I have been involved in a couple of projects recently where the ability of children to listen has been an issue of growing concern within the school, not just with respect to music but right across the board. Both the schools are located in suburban areas where traffic noise is a constant. And there is anecdotal evidence that, for many pupils, little conversation takes place within the home but that they are filled with the noise of competing music, television and computer games. The verbal interaction is sparse and perfunctory.

I don't find this difficult to believe. My own children will happily spend hours at a stretch at the computer if allowed.

Recently I have been looking for a new house. When traffic noise is clearly audible the vendor always assures me that 'I really don't hear it anymore'. Are they telling me the truth? Well, sadly, yes they probably are. I've grumbled about my neighbour's fountain before. What I don't like about it is that I can no longer tell, just by listening, whether it's raining or not, whether it's windy outside or whether the birds have woken up. It blocks out these sounds and if I block out his fountain I block out all the other sounds with it. If you live in an environment where you have to block out traffic or the sounds of TVs, computers and stereos you're blocking out so much else as well. You must lose, through lack of use, the ability to distinguish sounds from noise. Is it then a surprise if you have problems listening?

Knock knock

When you were young did you ever ring doorbells just for a laugh? I confess I didn't. I was almost certainly too scared but, in my defence, I must point out that front paths are much longer in the suburbs where I lived than they are in town and city centres where terraced streets are the norm. If you did, did all the bells sound the same? Doorbells have certainly gone through changes in style over the years from manually pulled or cranked to electronic novelty ringtones. My own front door has a knocker instead of a bell. Both door and knocker are identical to those belonging to the flat upstairs. The doors are right next to each other and, even after ten years, I am occasionally confused.

Today I saw a beautiful old knocker, featuring a Madonna and child (presumably), on a door to a tiny cottage which now forms part of the Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich. I found myself wondering if the tykes of yesteryear took any pleasure in the range of sounds produced by their mischief as they ran from door to door. The lack of either standardisation or mass-production must have made for a greater number of variables – type and thickness of wood, weight and material of the knocker, size of door, dimensions of chamber within etc. I would even venture that the variety was broader in its extent than any number of digitally stored chimes. I mean we're hardly talking high fidelity sound reproduction unless you are a real enthusiast (and I've yet to meet one). So if anyone fancies sponsoring the sampling, photographing and cataloguing of the world's door knockers I would be very interested to know. I think it would generate all sorts of fascinating insights and social commentary. Does anyone else share this interest? Does this qualify as disappearing sound or will door knockers stage a come-back? Do you have a sound interest of your own?

The wind changes

Spring is about here in Norfolk and the soundscape in which I live is about to change. Already my neighbour, who thoughtfully placed a water feature outside by bedroom window two years ago or more, has activated his fountain. Maybe it's a matter of taste, or perhaps I'm just a Philistine, but one man's bucolic fantasy is another man's plumbing nightmare. To be fair, it doesn't really bother me in the day but at night it's like staying in a cheap hotel and getting the room next to the toilet.


And last weekend I heard my first electric lawnmower of the year. In case you have ever wondered, 'Flymo' has nothing to do with hovering, or flight of any kind, unless you include those nasty winged insects with the annoying buzz. Peaceful Sunday afternoons in the garden? Don't get your hopes up.

Seriously though, and human noise aside, the sound of the wind is about to change here in England. It is made by the action of air on solid matter and for some months now this matter has mostly consisted of denuded trees and man-made structures. In a week or two, depending on the weather, millions of new leaves will be added to the mix. Softer, warmer, richer? Less lonesome? I'm not even going to try to describe it. Much better just to keep my ears attuned and enjoy the transition.

Disappearing Sounds

I have the supreme good fortune to live on a street on which people's cars, for the most part, are purely functional rather than an outward display of financial success, machismo or whatever. As a person whose favoured means of transport are feet and a bicycle I tend to view cars as an irritation rather than objects of desire. I find it especially easy to hate those enormous 4x4s that some wag dubbed the Chelsea tractor because of their utter unsuitability to the urban environment for all but the occupants of said behemoth. They are to the aspirational middle classes what oversized dogs are to council tenants

What on earth has this to do with music? Bear with me – I'm coming to that. But first I must tell you of my 'road to Damascus' change of heart. It came to me in a flash as I cycled past a typical example on my way to town and suddenly my heart softened. I now believe we should all learn to appreciate these monsters of the highway; not for the danger they present to other road users, nor for the emissions they generate and certainly not for the ease with which they plough up grass verges (perhaps in unconscious longing for their spiritual home). No, we should cherish them for the sound they make. Their particular vibration is unique to our age. Unlike that of the humble blackbird or the galloping horse it was unknown a century ago and, I confidently predict, will not be heard a hundred years hence. Only now, in the long history of the planet, can you hear this sound, live and for free, any day of the week on any street in the land. Get it while you can, even if you can't bring yourself to mourn its inevitable passing.

Easi-Speak

I am starting work on two projects in different primary schools later this month. In both cases the schools are interested in encouraging the exploration of soundscapes. Although their approaches differ, each school has recently invested in a number small microphones that contain a 128MB memory. Called Easi-Speaks http://www.tts-group.co.uk/Product.aspx?cref=TTSPR1081690, they look and feel like toys which is great because they are lightweight, robust and not in the least intimidating. Being unfamiliar with them I borrowed an Easi-Speak and took it on a trip to Amsterdam last weekend.

I have a Zoom H4 that I use for location recording because it is very portable and records high quality wav files. It has phantom power for external mics as well as a stereo pair of high quality built-in mics. It runs on a pair of AA batteries, records in a variety of formats and has virtually limitless memory, especially if I take along a spare flash card. It will fit in any large pocket.

The Easi-Speak records mp3 files at 128kbps or wav files at64kbps, neither of which makes for hi-fidelity but which makes its memory go much further. To charge its integral battery it requires a dedicated charger or else a computer that will charge it via its USB port. This can be a problem in the field, as I discovered when I accidentally left it switched on, although not recording, and the battery went flat. I don't know how easy it would be to incorporate an automatic switch off if it has been idle for any length of time. I can see this being a problem for children on field trips. The good news is that files already recorded into the memory are not lost.

The microphone doubles as a loudspeaker and there is a headphone socket so it is possible to play back files although, without any kind of display, playback is best done via a computer when back at base.

One feature I am very pleased to find omitted is 'automatic level control'. When ghetto blasters came fitted with a microphone – useful for recording band rehearsals onto cassette back in the eighties – they automatically adjusted the volume level to prevent overloading the medium. A crude form of compression, in fact. In a nutshell it makes the loud sounds quieter and the quiet sounds louder, including all the background noise you would rather do without. On my test-run I recorded myself approaching a barrel organ, passing by and walking on. If I play the sound back now and close my eyes I can see it all vividly as the music fades in and out again. With automatic level control the volume would have remained fairly constant with background noise and hiss morphing into music and back to noise again.

The downside is that it is possible to overload the microphone by holding it too close to the mouth when singing or speaking, but good microphone technique is a useful skill that is easily acquired. Given the choice I would always opt for the ability to control levels myself, even if the odd take is ruined by overloading the mic.

So, all in all, a fabulous piece of kit for the money – a mere £29.99 from the manufacturers (less if you buy five at a time). Just as for some trips you just want to take along a little point-and-shoot camera rather than a bulky SLR, so this is tiny enough to carry on the off chance of coming across something interesting. I want one! And I'm looking forward to learning a few tricks from the kids when we take them with us on field trips.

Ant music

Well, not really, but did anyone else hear the article on BBC Radio 4 yesterday about naturalists who had managed to insert microphones and a tiny speaker into an ants' nest? Apparently it has been known for some time that these insects make sounds when they are under threat and of course any disturbance of their nest will be seen as hostile. On this occasion the researchers succeeded in recording sounds of 'happy' ants. Different ants make different sounds, depending on their function in the colony, in order to communicate with their fellows. The sounds were played back to them and their behaviour observed.

This was all done in order to learn how some insects manage to live as aliens inside ant colonies by tricking their hosts into believing they are neither aggressors nor food. I have searched the BBC for more about this and drawn a blank. I must assume I have received a lesson in the importance of attentive listening but it is something I will try to follow up.

The sounds of the thaw

I realise that for many this may be a little premature or even irrelevant. If so then bear with me because this post is really about ephemeral sounds. This morning, walking with my daughter to school, I heard sounds that only happen when snow is melting. The sounds of slush: feet in slush, wheels of bicycles and cars in slush. There's a wet but slightly crunchy quality to that.

The sounds of water dripping without it raining at the same time. Water dripping or running onto surfaces and objects. These sounds are audible with a clarity that doesn't exist if they are accompanied by the patter of rain. My favourite was water dripping from gutters two stories up onto the new blue wheelie bins we have in this part of town for our recyclable waste. They must have been emptied very recently and had a hollow, tubby sound to them that only they could make.

So what could have been a pretty miserable journey, with my inadequate shoes letting in water (to remind me to polish them), became something in which I could take pleasure. Enough, at least, to take my mind of the coldness of my feet. And the moral in case you haven't already guessed? Enjoy the sounds around you, especially those you don't hear often. Listen hard enough and there's nearly always something to reward you.

Touchy feely

Some years ago I was involved in developing a project in a 'culturally deprived' rural area. The object was to provide an opportunity to explore the relationship between sound and movement. It was to be implemented by a group of local musicians and dance teachers.

One thing we were keen to do was free participants from their preconceptions about dance and music. On a movement level this meant exploring responses to sound other than the usual disco clichés. On a sound level we wanted participants, mostly with very limited previous exposure to music-making, to feel they could create a valid soundscape. There was no point giving them instruments like violins, flutes or guitars. These come with large amounts of cultural baggage about how, and how not, to play them; about the sort of sounds they should make. They are intimidating and can stifle creativity. Instead it was decided that we would present them with instruments that would allow for genuine exploration. Odd instruments from around the world that participants were unlikely to have seen played before; that had no obvious right or wrong way of playing; that may even inspire dance and movement just by their appearance and tactile qualities. And, most importantly, provide a level playing field for all.

It fell to me to choose the instruments. This all happened just before the turn of the millennium and the dissemination of information was not what it is now. However, a catalogue duly arrived from Knock On Wood in Harrogate http://www.knockonwood.co.uk/ full of exciting looking items from all corners of the globe. Our budget was tight but we managed to procure an enormous ocean drum, a kokiriko, a couple of tongue drums and one or two other things the names of which I've forgotten. Perhaps the biggest hit was the Indonesian angklung (pictured) which took ages to set up but was so different from anything anyone had seen before that it was always worth it. Also popular were the mbira (East African thumb pianos), large and small, that I tuned to a Japanese scale, one an octave higher than the other. A cursory glance at Knock On Wood's online catalogue shows that, while not everything we bought is currently available, there is plenty of new stock to browse.

The workshops were, in my opinion, a great success and justified their funding. Of course it's hard to be objective about these things (and there were fewer self-assessment forms to fill in then). What pleased me most about the project was that it encouraged a sonic exploration of objects, from violins to milk bottles, objectively and without prejudice or fear. This is an approach that a classical education encourages all too rarely. My book, Adventures in Sound, contains a number of games devised with just this purpose in mind and December's free game, Copycat, at playwithsound.com is an example.

Junk Shop - a game for Christmas and beyond

Can we truly hear something unless we start from a point of silence? Is it necessary to clear the mind of all the expectations we place on sound, and in this case sound organised into music, to respond honestly? To listen without leaping to a judgement?

I wrote last time (http://playwithsound.blogspot.com/2008/12/learning-to-listen.html) about the challenges of developing listening skills in children. The fact is that children have fewer pre-conceptions with regard to sound. The older we get, the more we take for granted. A child, on hearing a familiar sound, is far more likely to look for the source of the sound than an adult. They are open-minded (or naïve) enough to make a visual check that the sound corresponds with what they assume to be the cause. An adult will tend to assume that if they hear a familiar sound then it has a familiar source. And no criticism is intended. If we didn't then our concentration spans would shrink to zero.

What is interesting about this, however, is that it means that children are more open to the possibility of the sounds they hear emanating from someone or something other than the people and things generating them. Of course we are all open to this possibility. If we weren't then sound effects in the cinema, known as foley, would be rendered ineffective. The sound of a stick of celery being broken takes on a whole new meaning when laid alongside a movie of someone getting their arm fractured. Working backwards, some imaginative soul must at some time have snapped a stick of celery and thought 'this sounds just like a bone being broken'.

So here's a game, an experiment really, to play with children or adults. Let's call it Junk Shop as a working title. I'm sure you can adapt it for use at Christmas dinner.

Age group: children, teenagers and adults.
Duration: 20 minutes upwards,including discussion
Aims: to develop listening and concentration skills; to encourage the group to think imaginatively about sound.

You will need:

• A screen – nothing elaborate. A pile of books on the front of a desk will suffice.
• A selection of articles such as paper, scissors, woodworking tools, bottles – plastic and glass, thick cellophane, cutlery, a pair of leather gloves, bubblewrap, a 12" (30cm) ruler, a plastic box full of metal bottle tops, an aluminium drink can etc, etc. Basically anything you can get a noise from. The toys in those Christmas crackers have to be good for something.
  
• Two sheets of lined paper, one with the lines numbered.
• An able, literate and inventive volunteer to make the sounds.

The volunteer hides behind the screen with the assembled 'noise generators' and the numbered sheet. Everyone else sits where they can't see the volunteer and the stuff. It might be good to have them sitting with their back to the screen. The volunteer makes a sound, using the items in front of them, and writes down what they did to create it against number one on their piece of paper.

Now everyone else tries to guess how the sound was made. Record all the suggestions against the number one on your piece of paper. Teenagers and adults will find it easy to guess many, if not most, of the sounds. Here the game is to think of as many plausible causes of the sound as you can before identifying the true source. Encourage outrageous flights of fancy. Once you have exhausted the first sound the volunteer makes another. Keep the sounds coming. Don’t let your group get bored. When you feel you've had enough, have the volunteer step out and tell you whether the guesses were right or wrong. Have them demonstrate some of the more interesting sounds in front of the other players. Now everyone can have a go at making the same sounds; and new ones too.

I'd love to know how this went for you. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention it, there are more games, like and unlike this one, in my book Adventures in Sound available from Amazon.