Minute of Listening

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.  

Listening, and the way we experience sound, has a huge impact on our lives. Yet in a predominantly visual culture time is rarely dedicated – particularly in schools – to exploring our aural experiences and developing our ability to listen in a concentrated or imaginative way. This project aims to highlight the importance of listening and create a structured, daily activity that allows teachers the time and the means for their class to explore a wide variety of listening experiences.

Minute of Listening uses a custom-built piece of software to deliver one minute of music or sound to school classrooms each day. The project introduces children and teachers to a wide variety of recordings across many genres and from all kinds of sources. They might include variations on a single note played on a bow chime; a field recording in a busy market place; a dramatic orchestral piece; an eerie recording made from Foley sounds or lively African drumming. 

Each day, teachers and their classes are encouraged to follow the Minute of Listening with a short conversation as a class, beginning with the simple question: When you listened, what did you hear?

Minute of Listening provides a stimulus for imaginative class discussion, reflection and opinion forming, encouraging children to verbally explore what they hear, and supporting speaking and listening agendas. The project also presents an opportunity for children to let their imaginations run wild, and we welcome the idea that there is no right or wrong response when talking subjectively about their individual impressions of what they heard.

The sounds that are used in the project are accompanied by additional supporting resources and material for teachers to use with their classes in a variety of different ways. Sound and Music are also excited to be working with the Pitt Rivers Museum and the British Library Sound Archive’s Wildlife Sounds to create two special collections of recordings and resources that will be available to schools from February half term.

Minute of Listening hopes to demonstrate how daily listening activities can be used to introduce a culture of curious, engaged and reflective listening in the classroom. It also aims to explore how music and sound can be used as a stimulus for analytical thinking, imaginative enquiry and conceptual exploration.

With this in mind, the project is being piloted from 4th January to 30th March 2012, in seventy primary schools around the UK in the regions of Cornwall, Oxfordshire, Norfolk and London. 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 pilot will be followed with a period of evaluation and development by Sound and Music, with a view to making the project available to other schools around the country from 2013.

This short film was made during a small project trial in early 2011

If you would like to know more about Minute of Listening, please contact Natasha Chubbuck, Learning Producer, by emailing natasha.chubbuck@soundandmusic.org or calling 020 7759 1800