« Sounds must be caught in mid air so that they may not fly into deaf people’s ears ». Eugène Ionesco Every day in today’s global world, we can see that modern communication technologies evolve very quickly and we must know how to use them at work and at home. These technologies favour fast and functional exchanges by way of the English language which every body cannot speak fluently, while other more traditional means of communication are neglected. How can we help our students access the globalised digital era while maintaining more traditional means of communication which will facilitate the creation of social bonds ? Words are not the only language of communication between people. Man has always used sounds in order to exchange, to explore and communicate his emotions. It is often said of music that it is a universal language, this is what we intend to ascertain, to put into practice… In our project, we are going to encourage students to collaborate in order to create their own instruments, using not only the new technologies and digital sciences, but also various ancient techniques. We will propose a trip that will make them discover and develop the skills required in the field of physics, electronics and the information and digital technologies ; they will thus use the most state-of-the-art techniques and they will also discover different musical cultures through musical instruments pertaining to various countries. We also want them to (re)discover the sounds produced by the human voice or body. At the end of this voyage in the world of sounds and after pooling mutual works and discoveries, sharing experience and practices, we intend to perform a short concert combining electronic sounds and the human voice. All participants in the project will take part in this concert which will be recorded on film, and made available in the digital form. For this purpose we will create instruments with recycled materials, plants (bamboos) or a 3D photocopier. We will draw plans and carry out a spectrum analysis of the sounds produced in order to calibrate our instruments. The most up-to-date software will be used. The students will have to carry out the arrangements needed in order to play with their instruments a selection of known pieces of music or to compose their own pieces which will incorporate voice and body. In between learning activities, the participating countries -Germany, France, Lithuania and Austria- will have to carry out the intermediary tasks which will enrich the final project. The eTwinning platform will help exchange information in between these learning activiite and upload students’ creations. This will constitute the log-book of the project and showcase the progress of the creations step by step. The platform will also enable teachers to exchange, assess, and update. Teachers will avail themselves of the platform to prepare for their meetings. Moreover, this project will help integrate the students originating from immigrant families or minority groups. Hopefully , this voyage will not be limited to sounds, languages and techniques. It will be for all an opening to communal living , tolerance and solidarity, and to the awareness that communicating means understanding and accepting each other. Our world of sounds will build bridges between the future citizens of the European Union.
Our project has been conceived according to different points: strengthening of the collaboration between our high school and our partner institution, the Goethe-Gymnasium of Emmendingen, the desire to combine our specific but also with complementary skills: computer science, digital sciences for the Coudon High School and singing, music for the Goethe-Gymnasium. Two other schools have been associated, taking into account their specific skills and their complementary contributions. The Klaipeda High School( noise from the port and the city to constitude the sound bank) and the HIgh School sankt Johann im Pongau wich brought his skills in marketing and event organiszation. The feasibility of our project was based on an analysis of the potential of each of the partner institutions. The journey into the world of sounds allowed us as planned to use the various techniques of digital to create musical instruments from PVC pipes, to create flutes from Cannes de Provence, create, record and transform sounds into music. Thanks to the close interaction between computer, digital and artistic creativity, we were able to create the concert that was given in the town hall of EMMENDINGEN( entirely filmed), create a CD containing the different compositions of the students but also the tracks from the concert and create the cover of the CD/DVD box and the small accompanying booklet. The participants were both experts and apprentices, mutual aid and solidarity made it possible to achieve our objectives, all the partner institutions being complementary. The common thread chosen by the pupils for the composition of the concert was Europe, throughout our four countries. The specific skills of each institution wwas essential to the achievement of our objectives and were exploited. Creation of instruments, sounds, recording, mixing: Coudon High School, culture, music and folk instruments, daily noises of the city and the port: Klaipeda, artistic creation, organization of the concert: Emmendingen; creation of the case cover, the booklet and the CD label: Sankt Johann. All students were volunteers and engaged according to their abilities and the team of teachers relied on a solid core of colleagues who had already worked together on previous projects, which facilitated communication. All our results: CD, DVD, box set are fully or partially downloaded on the Erasmus+ results platform, on high school websites. For a question of better visibility of the finished product, we also send the box to the evaluating agency.