Fellfoot voices – strengthening our social connections

Fellfoot voices blog by sound artist Jeremy Bradfield and Calum Howard

Hi, I’m Jeremy, and I’m Calum, and we’re both composers, sound designers and facilitators based in Newcastle upon Tyne. You’re about to listen to a collaboration between ourselves and 4Eden, a Penrith-based charity who work with adults with learning disabilities and/or neurodiversity. The aim of the project was to use group song-writing as a way of strengthening our social connections, collaborating, engaging with the natural world, and reflecting on the outdoor landscape, exploring the various stories that we might uncover from the sounds, creatures and objects that exist there.

We began the session by playing some familiar autumnal and Halloween tunes as a group, which were seasonally appropriate at the time. We then played with all the fascinating musical objects and instruments that Jeremy had wheeled down in a trolley. This included tuned and un-tuned percussion, glockenspiels, gamelan bars, hand bells, shakers, you name it, it was in the trolley. We also played with electronic instruments like drum pads, keyboards, synthesisers, and samplers, improvisation and controlling musical dynamics.

Next, we introduced the group to our big box of zoom sound recorders, which we were going to be using on our soundwalk in the woods. We showed the group how to operate the devices and made sure everyone was comfortable using them. Some of the participants had some great reactions to hearing themselves amplified through headphones.

We then braved the wet and windy November weather to take a trip outdoors, so we could capture the sounds of the forest and find inspiration in the surrounding landscape. These soundscapes and individual verbal reflections were recorded by 4Eden participants on their individual field recorders. Listening back to the recordings gave us some surprising insights into how the participants reacted to the sights and sounds of the woods, often singing into the microphones and having conversations with each other in between recording sounds.

Once we returned to the warm and dry indoors, we made some drum beats by creating rhythms from the syllables of different animals. We then wrote a melody together by rolling a 12-sided dice, which we used to choose from the 12 notes in a chromatic octave. We put five notes together to create our own signature melody. Finally, we had a really fruitful session writing chords to flesh out the beginnings of our song. We also wrote lots of lyrics based on animals and their habitats inspired by what we’d seen, heard, and imagined on our walk in the woods. We had lots of fun coming up with ideas of how we could tell the stories of the various creatures in the woods. Some were more outlandish than others, as you’ll hear.

A few weeks later, after a few rehearsals and final tweaks to the song, the whole group performed a gig to friends and family at St. Andrew’s parish rooms in Penrith. We finished the performance with a rendition of our original song, which is called ‘The Mystery’.

This was such a rewarding project to be part of, and it was fantastic to work with 4Eden in exploring the great Cumbrian outdoors, creating a brilliant song, and having lots of fun along the way. Thanks for listening.