SOUND TALES

Enrico Bindocci – Santa Croce school, Maria Montessori Children’s House
Sound tales project.

The “sound tales” project aims to introduce the child to an active listening practice, in which he is the main actor of the soundtrack, according to the Montessori idea of ​​a free and conscious choice.

The children were involved in fixing different sound ideas, which the story proposed in the form of narrative images, through the use of a simple digital recorder (zoom) and, subsequently, of the music editing program “Audacity”, in order to create a “database” ready to be used.

The files included sounds, animal noises, song fragments, and small rhythmic sections of solo or consort instruments (idiophones).

Several sound versions have been created for each narrative image, so as to be able to provide different ways of producing sounds of the text, both the more concrete (a blow of a hammer…) and the more abstract ones (a happy surprise…).

Finally the children made a choice, according to what they considered most pertinent, always giving reasons for their choice.

The final result was an audio tale, in which the text, the original music written for the occasion and the sound commentary of the children were mixed together, in order to expand the imagination and the emotional awareness.