3842

GMT26110.1177/1048371312453842General Music TodayJaworski

Soundwalks, Community, and the

Secondary General Classroom

General Music Today

26(1) 3437
2012 National Association for
Music Education
DOI: 10.1177/1048371312453842
http://gmt.sagepub.com

Nick Jaworski

Abstract
This column presents an outline for the secondary general classroom. The project, called a soundwalk, requires
students to use music, sounds, and technology to create immersive, cinematic audio tours of their school and community.
The author argues that the soundwalk is a perfect opportunity for students within secondary general music courses to
be creative in new ways and to share their work with peers, parents, and other community members. The process for
creating a soundwalk is outlined and a resources section includes links to examples and further reading.
Keywords
creativity, composition, secondary general music, music education, technology

Imagine it is the end of the school year. You are teaching

a middle school or high school general music class, and
your students have spent the past few weeks working diligently on their final projectsplanning, revising, and
finalizing. When it is time to grade their projects, instead
of plunking down behind your desk for hours, you download a series of audio files to your iPod, put on your headphones, and start walking. As you listen to the files, you
meet a series of unique characterseach with its own
story to telland your all-too-familiar school is transformed into a mystical castle, a top-secret lair, and an
insane asylum.
This is precisely how I have finished my semesters for
the past several years. Working with both high school and
college students, we have used our community as a blank
canvas onto which we paint entirely new landscapes.
Needless to say, the experience is engrossing, exhausting,
invigorating, and very rewarding. This final project,
called a soundwalk, is an excellent way to use a wide
variety of technology without requiring the latest and
greatest to be successful. Experience has shown this
project is beneficial for my students, and I hope you take
a moment to consider how you could implement this in
your own school.

What Is a Soundwalk?
In short, a soundwalk is a fancy audio tour. When an
artist creates a soundwalk, he or she provides instructions
that direct the listener where and when to walk. What
separates the soundwalk from an audio tour is the attention paid to the immersive experiencethe walk is usually

part of a larger narrative structure with an engaging

character leading the way. A soundwalk is successful
when the artist is able to create a hyperreal, immersive
experience that allows the listener to explore a familiar
world in new ways. By having your students create their
own soundwalks, you are providing them with opportunities to (a) explore their school and community and
(b) engage in a unique creative process.
The idea sprang from an experience I had more than a
decade ago with a work created by artist Janet Cardiff and
the term soundwalk comes from the art collective known
as the Soundwalk Collective, based in New York City.

Why a Soundwalk?
As a secondary general music teacher, finding opportunities to share your students creations with the public
can be challenging. Ensemble teachers do not share this
problem. In addition to the traditional concerts, large
ensembles have a wide variety of parades, musicals, and
trips to highlight students talents. The soundwalk provides students with a meaningful project that can be
shared with peers, parents, and the community. You can
participate in your schools art showcase, or you can create a website that would allow people to download and
undertake the walks whenever it is most convenient.
For many of your students, creating a soundwalk
may require more planning and revising than they are
Corresponding Author:
Nick Jaworski
Email: nicholasjaworski@gmail.com

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Jaworski
accustomed to undertaking. To create an experience for
the listener that is immersive and gratifying, the artists
have to experience an iterative process of exploration,
creation, testing, and problem solving. It is clear that
the soundwalk forces students to create in new ways
keeping one eye on the finer details of the micro level
while keeping the other eye on their vision of the entire
project on the macro level.

Creating a Soundwalk
There is no correct way to create a soundwalk
an individual will have an approach that accords with
his or her own creative process. With this in mind, however, I will outline one approach that has proven to be
successful with my students. If you are interested in this
particular approach, I would recommend that you
download and read the PDF file I have created for a
previous article on soundwalks. The link can be found
in the Resources section at the end of this article.

Brainstorm Character, Plot, and Genre

Ideas Before Location and Route
Although this might seem counterintuitive, I have found
that students who decide on a location before considering
a narrative often end up creating walks that rely too much
on their own experiences with the space. This can confuse the listener.

Explore Your Surroundings

After brainstorming a few story and character ideas, have
your students explore their surroundings. Students should
be reminded that they must use locations that are accessible. This means they cannot go into classrooms, bathrooms, or any space in which one would not reasonably
expect to have access at most times.

Decide on a Route and Document It

Have your students document their route in a way that
will help them in the future. Oftentimes, it can be useful
to take pictures of important landmarks or take a video
of your entire walk. While completing this step, it is
important to look for visual landmarks that can be referenced during the soundwalk. The landmarks will be used
as points of interest to help guide the listener between
Points A and B.

Time the Walk and Write the Directions

Some students take videos of the walk and then create
their soundwalk audio file on top of that (with GarageBand,

you can watch the video while creating sounds). Over the
past couple of years, however, I have found that simply
timing how long it takes to get from Point A to Point B is
the most useful. This means that your students might
write down, 12 seconds between doorway and end of
hallway; 8 seconds from end of hallway to water fountain. By keeping track of the distances, it is much easier
to add or subtract time later in the process. Students who
rely on a video recording often feel constrained to the
route and ideas they initially brainstormed.

Test the Directions

Have your students record an audio track that properly
spaces out the directions that they have written. Then,
have another student test out the audio track and provide
specific feedback on moments that were unclear. The
directions should be written so that the listener is aware
of the next step before they arrive at their destination. For
example, if your student wants the listener to turn right at
the end of the hallway, shortly after they initially enter
the hallway they should say something like, Look down
the hallway. You are going to head straight down the
hallway and then turn right. By writing directions like
this, you ensure the listener is never lost.

Record Your Audio With Character and Plot

Once the timing and directions have been tested and any
confusing moments have been corrected, your students
can record their final narrations. In my personal experience in creating soundwalks, I found it useful to record
my narration while watching the timer within the recording software. This allows me to understand how my narration fits the flow of the walk. Your students can take
multiple takes of their narration and edit them together.

Add Sounds and Music

The inclusion of sounds and music is what turns a simple
audio tour into a truly immersive experience. Hopefully,
you have guided your students through this process with
this idea in mind. Listening to and participating in a wellconstructed soundwalk feels similar to being thrown into
the middle of a movie. Students should explore the full
sonic landscape, panning things to the left and right ear
as appropriate. Additionally, because students have a
tendency to have the volume of their sounds at a level
that covers their narration, they will need to be reminded
that hearing the directions and character is of the utmost
importance.
Unless a very good reason exists not to include them,
I believe that the sound of footsteps is an important
component of the soundwalk. First and foremost, they

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General Music Today 26(1)

confirm to the listener that they should be walking or

stopping at any given moment. Second, if your students
want to, for example, change the hallway into a swamp,
the sound of feet walking in shallow water would really
help to complete the illusion. Although students can
download footsteps online, creating the sounds themselves is often the best approach.

Test and Revise (Repeat as Needed)

This step cannot be emphasized enough. The soundwalks
need to be tested multiple times by people who do not
know the route beforehand. The testers need to take diligent notes and provide as much feedback as possible.
Ideally, every time a change is made, the entire walk
should be retested.

What Experience Has Taught Me

A few potential and consistent pitfalls have arisen over
the years. I will share them with you in the hope that
you can steer your students away from them.

No Elevators
Although it might seem obvious, some students need to be
reminded of this. If you use an elevator, there is no way to
ensure the timing will work out correctly every time. If
the student has made it to the testing phase and not figured
this out yet, then they are probably not testing their soundwalk properly.

As Much as Possible, Avoid Cross Streets

Depending on where you create your soundwalks, this
may or may not be an issue. However, take the timing
issues of an elevator and combine it with large vehicles,
and you should see how complicated crossing the street
might be. That said, sometimes a soundwalk story
requires a street be crossed. If this is the case, then two
things must happen. First, instruct the listener to cross
the street carefully, making sure they look in all possible
directions. Words like carefully and watch and listen
for vehicles are a necessity. Remember, the listener is
wearing headphones and is immersed in a world that the
students have created. Second, allow plenty of extra
time for the listener to cross the street. Tell them to cross
at their earliest convenience and then wait on the other
side. While the listener is crossing the street, tell them
more of the story that you have created. Once a sufficient amount of time has passed, then the listener can be

directed to their next destination. Another option would

be to have the listener pause the audio until they have
crossed the street.

Use Only Areas With Public Access

Often, students will want to go into a favorite teachers
classroom. Obviously, you cannot have students creating
projects that could potentially interrupt someone elses
class. With this in mind, remind students to stick to common areas that will not be disruptive. While your students are planning their soundwalk, at every location,
instruct them to ask themselves, Will there ever be an
occasion when the listener would not have access to this
location? If the answer is yes, then choose another
location.
As intimated above, creating a soundwalk is composed of numerous small components. I recommend
using groups of two to three students and creating several
small, intermediate checkpoints throughout the process.
The final grade is based on the groups ability to meet all
of the deadlines, the quality of their final project, and the
teachers ability to successfully navigate the soundwalk
from beginning to end.
Every semester, the quality of the soundwalks
increases. Although this is somewhat related to my comfort level in teaching the project, I believe that the
increase in quality has more to do with the fact that my
current students have had the opportunity to experience
high-quality soundwalks from previous students. These
experiences have pushed my students to create the
soundwalk format even further than I could have imaginedplaying with notions of timelines and self, all
while expanding the role of soundtrack (music) in their
finished product. If you are teaching this project in a
new space, creating an example that your students can
walk will be of immense value. Additionally, you can
show them the YouTube video listed in the Resources
at the end of this article so that they understand the wide
variety of approaches that people take when creating
their soundwalks.
If this seems a little daunting, I can assure you that the
final products are definitely worth it. Also, once you get
the ball rolling and students are working on their soundwalks, you have plenty of time to give each group the
individual attention they need to be successful. A combination of traditional creative thinking and our notion of
21st-century skills, the soundwalk project is a great way
to encompass a variety of technical skills into your classroom while pushing your students to think in new and
creative ways.

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Jaworski
Acknowledgments

Resources
For videos of student examples and a detailed fivepage PDF file with instructions, please read the
philosophical article, Soundwalks: Mapping Our
Schools and Community Through Sound. It can
be found at http://leadingnotes.org/2012/02/06/
jaworski-3/.
For professional examples of soundwalks, visit
Janet Cardiffs website at http://www.cardiffmiller.
com/artworks/walks or the Soundwalk Collectives
website at http://www.soundwalks.com.
Authors Note
1. Portions of this article have been taken from another article
by the author, Soundwalks: Mapping Our Schools and
Community Through Sound, which can be accessed at
http://leadingnotes.org/2012/02/06/jaworski-3/.

Special thanks to Channing Paluck, Matthew D. Thibeault,

and all my students who have worked to create such amazing
work.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Bio
Nick Jaworski is a music education writer and advocate. He is
the Co-founder and Co-editor of the online music education
publication, Leading Notes.

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