Learning through listening – a sonic journey with students of Culgaith school

Fellfoot voices blog by sound artist Jorge Boehringer

As part of the Fellfoot Forward arts project for 2023, Everything changes, everything stays the same, sound and music are being used as a medium to explore the past, present, and future of the area’s landscapes in workshops that bring together schools and artists.

I recently had the pleasure of developing a short series of sound workshops with artist Jeremy Bradfield for the students at Culgaith C of E Primary School. First off, I have to say that this was an incredible experience for me. We got very positive feedback from both students and teachers. It is often overlooked that for artist-instructors leading workshops has an important personal value as well. I believe that Jeremy would wholeheartedly agree that, in introducing the students to working with sound and exploring their landscape through listening as participants in the soundscape, they taught us as much as we taught them.

We worked with year 3 to 6 students, so a mixed age group which I was pleasantly surprised to find worked well. The students of Culgaith Primary School, with some supportive encouragement from their teacher, worked very well together, sharing materials and helping each other learn to use the equipment.  This energy, enthusiasm and positive openness towards working with sound really helped us get going and made it possible to achieve our ambitious plans over the three day-long sessions we had to work together.

In our first session we introduced several activities that were simply led by the ear. We made sounds during some opening games which soon led us outside to record the sounds things make to then identify them. We then pursued those things that we know by the sounds they make; insects, the wind (in the trees, the grass), water, mud, birds, a water spout, other elemental technology, sheep, one another (footsteps, imitation of natural sounds, extraordinary mischief), our teacher… Meanwhile, the students demonstrated to us, the instructors, how the technology should be used, and we learned as much as they did.

A second session took us to a National Trust site at Acorn Bank. We hadn’t realised that, in anticipation of our visit, the entire volunteer staff had turned out to give us an incredible demonstration of the old mill on the site. This mill, a newly renovated and functioning watermill, was built on the site of a previous mill, which was built on the site of a series of more ancient mills. As the volunteers eased the machinery into operation, the students poised themselves, microphones at the ready.

This example of early industry presented the students with a challenging series of sounds to complement those that they found in the surrounding landscape; hawks, wood pigeons, robins, blackbirds, pebbles in the stream.

We saw first-hand how the water is channelled from the nearby stream into the mill and used to turn a series of wheels that crush the grains. How the grains are sifted, sieved, sorted and, eventually, ground by quern stone (which the students also experimented with) to become flour. We sampled this flour, both in raw form and as cookies.

Our final session brought all this together, with the students exploring ‘extended creative meanings’ from place names chosen from an Ordnance Survey map of the local area. What does ‘Grumply Hill’ suggest to you? What about ‘Ravensblood’? Or  ‘Prickly’?

Working with a version of their previously captured sounds which Jeremy and I had quickly arranged for the occasion, the students responded by crafting short poems that were performed to the mic in the ‘miniature recording studio’ we set up in the school hall. We also recorded an instrumental piece that we worked on several times as an ‘ears/listening warmup activity’.

The result: eight beautiful, evocative, and haunting new sound and text pieces, made by the students in response to the names of some curious places ‘just over the hill’. All in all, this was a great experience. Valuable for the students, not just for the technical instruction, but for how they worked and listened together. We really appreciate them reminding us to be energetic with our listening too, and Jeremy and I are going to miss the early morning drive across those wonderful fells and moors on our way across from Newcastle to Culgaith Primary, with its wonderful staff and students. I hope that I can continue working in Cumbria in both educational and artistic projects.

Everything changes, everything stays the same is a year long arts project for 2023, funded by Arts Council England and Westmorland and Furness Council, bringing together residents, schools, voluntary sector groups, scientists, conservation groups, local councils, and landowners to collaborate with artists and creative practitioners, using sound and music as a medium to explore the landscape. The created work will be performed across the Fellfoot Forward landscape at special events and will also be broadcast through an online radio channel, Fellfoot Radio, to be created by the project team.