Abstract:

In the rapidly evolving landscape of music production and sound arts education, innovative pedagogical approaches are crucial for developing students' perceptual and creative skills. This study explores a novel interdisciplinary method that challenges traditional listening exercises and pushes the boundaries of sound perception and interpretation. By engaging advanced music production students in a sound mapping experience, we investigate how active listening and collaborative reinterpretation can enhance auditory awareness and foster unique perspectives in sound arts education.

This study evaluated an innovative pedagogical approach in sound arts and music production education to enhance students' active listening skills, sound perception, and creativity. The objectives were to foster a deeper awareness of sonic environments, develop creative representation skills for auditory experiences, promote understanding of diverse sonic perspectives, and stimulate creative interpretation and reinterpretation of auditory information.

The methodology involved advanced music production students in their final university semester. Participants were instructed to select a public space meaningful to them and engage in attentive listening for 30-40 minutes. While they listened, they created a "map" or "score" representing their auditory experience with complete creative freedom. The maps were exchanged among students, who were tasked with interpreting and sonically recreating their peers' maps, delivering a 1:30 min audio as the result of the exploration. Using professional equipment, students produced a sound piece based on their interpretation. Then, the group listened to the sonic recreations while looking at the maps, and shared experiences between the map creator and the person who worked on the sonic piece. A qualitative survey was conducted to gather students' perceptions and learnings from the experience.

This methodological approach challenged students to expand their understanding and appreciation of soundscapes while using their advanced technical skills for sound production. Also, the study sought to push the boundaries of listening exercises to include awareness of how soundscapes reflect and shape social environments. By engaging with significant public spaces and sharing interpretations, students explored the cultural, historical, and communal aspects embedded in everyday sonic landscapes, revealing how sound both mirrors and influences social interactions, cultural identities, and collective experiences within shared acoustic environments.

The qualitative analysis of student responses reveals several key outcomes of this interdisciplinary approach. Participants reported enhanced awareness of their sonic environment, improved active listening skills, and a newfound appreciation for creative interpretation in sound representation. The exercise fostered unexpected insights into personal and peer perceptions of soundscapes, highlighting the subjective nature of auditory experiences. Furthermore, students valued the creative challenge of decoding and reinterpreting their peers' sound maps, which expanded their understanding of diverse auditory perspectives. These findings suggest that integrating creative sound mapping and collaborative reinterpretation into sound arts pedagogy can significantly enrich students' perceptual abilities, foster innovative thinking, and deepen their appreciation for the complexity of sonic environments.

Keywords:

Sound, technology, perception, collaborative, sonic space, sound map.