Unit: Experimenting with sound

Part A: Music using environmental sounds

Lesson outcomes

Background information: Times Square Times Ten ^1.

This lesson is based on a three-minute excerpt from Times Square Times Ten, composed by Jon Appleton. The nine minute long work is a soundscape of a large city. The excerpt, provided below, features three soundscapes which the composer recorded as he moved through Times Square, New York. It contains sounds that are heard in most large cities in the world today. Sounds from the street (people and vehicles), a church, a merry-go-round, as well as the subway.

Once the composer collected a bank of sounds he re-mixed and manipulated the sounds electronically in the studio to make the sounds into music. Web sites for further information about Jon Appleton and Times Square Times Ten include:

ElectroCD.com [Accessed June 2003]
Dartmouth College EA music [Accessed June 2003]
CDemusic [Accessed June 2003]

Times Square Times Ten is from the CD, Contes de la mémoire (1996) [audio recording] Diffusion iMedia UPC 7-71028-96312-6. It can be purchased through the Internet at Amazon CD [Accessed June, 2003] for US$16.98, which is approximately AUS$30, postage & packaging extra. Search for the CD, Contes de la mèmoire, under "popular music".

The required excerpt for this lesson is provided, with permission. It is a MP3 file. Click on the image below to download the excerpt to hard drive disc. (To save the sound file use the following guide. The guide is designed for Internet Explorer and Netscape for both platforms, PC (Using the Windows operating systems) and Macintosh (using the OX operating systems).
PC: Internet Explorer, Netscape
Macintosh: Internet Explorer, Netscape

Revise the methods of vibration and the types of environmental sounds. As a follow-up to composing the classroom sounds pieces, listen to Times Square Times Ten. Before playing the piece, explain that it is by a professional composer and made up entirely of environmental sounds.

Distribute Student handout 5: Organising sounds: listening piece. Complete the details at the top of the handout. Work through the handout as a whole class, providing support for student responses through discussion and listening experiences.

Question 1: Identifying the sections

Listen to the complete excerpt and ask students to identify the sounds they hear and to describe how the piece is different from their own. Listen to the excerpt to determine the number of sections in the music.

There are three sections: traffic sounds, merry-go-round combined bell sounds and subway sounds.

Questions 2–13: Detailed listening to Times Square Times Ten

Listen to the first section a few times and identify the sounds heard. Discuss answers to the questions as each section of the music is played.

Music as organised sound

Consider the way the composer has organised the recorded sound. Discuss the difference between a recording of random sounds and sounds which have been recorded and then arranged into a pattern.
If four minutes of sounds were recorded in a local shopping area, would that be music?
How could the sounds be made into a piece of music? Work towards a definition of music as organised sound.

Questions 14–17: The structure

Explain that Times Square is a very busy area in New York, and the composer, Appleton, has collected sounds from different areas in and around the Square to use in his composition. What areas do you think he might have visited? What do you think the title means? (The times ten probably refers to the fact that Appleton has re-recorded and re-mixed some of these sounds multiple times in his studio, particularly the car horn sounds which get higher and faster and morph into the bell and merry-go-round sounds of the second section).

What is the structure of the piece?
Write a brief summary of these discussion points on the worksheet.

Additional listening works utilising environmental sounds

Listen to works which use a combination of instrumental and non-instrumental sounds including:

• Leroy Anderson (1990) Leroy Anderson and his Orchestra, 'The Typewriter' MCA Classics USA. [Accessed June, 2003]
• Pink Floyd (1973) Dark Side of the Moon, 'Money' EMI Records Ltd., England [Accessed June, 2003]
• Christine Anu (1995) Stylin' up, 'My Island Home' Mushroom Records International, Australia [Accessed June, 2003]

Listen to works which use conventional instruments to depict aspects of the environment including:

• The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams (a bird in flight)
• Little Train of the Caipiras by Villa-Lobos (train)
• Pacific 231 by Honegger (train)
• The Flight of the Bumble Bee by Rimsky-Korsakov
• The Wasps Overture by Vaughan Williams (insects)
• ‘Morning’ from Peer Gynt by Grieg (a sunrise).

Resources

Recording of Jon Appleton’s Times Square Times Ten
Student handout 5: Organising sounds: listening piece

Sound file: Times Square Times Ten

1. Jon Appleton (ASCAP), 1969 / YMX MéDIA (SOCAN). 1996. (p) Diffussion 1 MéDIA / electrocd.com. Released on the CD Contes de la mémoire, emprintes DIGTALes, IMED 9735, Montreal. www.empreintesDIGITALes.com.

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