Unplugged activities

As a first approach to a class of students who are new to the sonification process, and also to digital tools, it is important to introduce some games and activities based on personal human-to-human communication. This will help break the ice within a group of students for them to understand the fundamental concepts of the sonification workflow, and create a positive and relaxed atmosphere that will help in the following steps. It also allows us to explain and apply the core concepts of a sonification system (it must be composed of one input data, one output sound, and a relation (protocol/mapping) between them). We can use the clapping as an output sound. Its rhythm can easily be modulated. Real instruments would be welcome.

Example 1: sonifying a person's position in a trajectory

A person positions herself in the space before the class, between two points A and B. The class starts clapping similarly to the car parking system, with clapping frequency proportional to the position of the person between the two points.

This is a good moment to introduce students to differnt types of variables:

Binary variables: These are the simplest variables that basically give an ON/OFF information.

Example: In a scenario where someone is in front of a crowd, people clap to indicate that the person is 'on' or present. Conversely, if someone is not on stage, they are not clapping.

Single variable with a range: it represents a quantity with values from a minimum to a maximum.

Example: sonify the position of a student moving along a line, between points A and B.

1. Divide the class into two groups: (1) “active sound generators” and (2) “listeners”
2. The students of group 2 look at the moving student and clap “more or less” (let them decide what that means) depending on the proximity of the student to point A or point B,
3. The students of group (2) evaluate the result of clapping without visual contact of the moving student.

The purpose is to make the students think and discuss about all the details that a sonification system has to take into account.

The experiment can be developed. For example:

1. A student from group 2 can reproduce the movement of the moving student according to the clapping coming from group 1 (thus evaluating the sonification information).
2. His/her classmates can try to help him/her, through verbal contact, to refine the position using only their ears.
3. The teacher can asks the class to freeze at a particular moment ask the two groups to evaluate their positions.
4. Groups’ role interchanges.