Through listening the project connects schools from three very different places in Europe: The quiet and cold in Scandinavia, the Mediterranean heat in Italy and the busy metropolis in Northern Germany. All these places have specific sounds – the silence of the sea scape, lively socializing and busy activities. Nevertheless, the apparent differences of sounds, tones and noises people surround and produce themselves might be similar. Students and teachers will search for common and separative sounds of the different cultures. Sound recordings from all three places and also recorded speech melodies will enable the students to create an interactive map of sounds (vgl. https://aporee.org/maps/) and will provide the material which will be needed to develop a European sound performance. The main focus for the stage production will be different noises and sounds. The aesthetic education will benefit through a sensitization of the listening environment, in contrast to cognitive and individual orientated learning at school. The Erasmus+ participant will open himself or herself up to the world and let new perceptions in! At the three schools the students, who are aged between 13 and 17 years and belong to a school of general education, will found an Erasmus school club for the next 22 months. With the help of recording engineers, musicians and dramaturges the world of sounds will be brought together and a European tapestry of sounds will be created. The first half of the project will focus on reception, analysis and mapping of the noises and sounds to conceive the acoustic listening environment. After an introductory workshop dealing with technical equipment, the participants will make recordings in order to catch their environment acoustically. These documents will be used to detect similarities and differences at the first international meeting. The encounter brings the groups together and makes the similarities and differences audible. In the second phase of the project the listening experience will be extended and commented and will be made accessible to all the groups with the help of podcasts. The production of podcasts will be the focus in this phase. For the production of podcasts a cooperation partner from "independent radio stations“ (e.g. Tide in Hamburg) will be included. The analysis of audio material will be based on musicological methods (aural training). The focus of the second international meeting with all the group members will deal with the acquisition and composition of sounds. How can sounds be produced? Which instruments do we need? The participants will create instruments and will learn how to use their own body to produce sounds in a body percussion workshop. At the third and for now last meeting there will be a final show. Supported by dramaturges, stage and visual designers, a European sound performance will be installed and brought on stage as part of a European festival. The combination of music and theatre underlines the importance of aesthetic education which allows unity and differences to exist next to each other. The analysis of listening habits and the sensitization that there are constant listening sceneries leads to awareness of oneself and others. This is one key element of intercultural and European education. That is why the project encourages a joint Europe in which everybody has his own voice and sound. The European spirit will not be taught but experienced! It will also be audible within further school developments. On a long-term basis the aesthetic and European education should be incorporated permanently in school, which could mean that e.g. study trips in secondary school could include projects with intercultural encounters. The successful implementing of this European project could be a foundation for this development.
During our Erasmus + project “the sound of the others” we learned what other cultures sound like and how we can open ourselves up to them through sensory and aesthetic intake. Every international meeting had the sound of the other at its core and started with getting to know each other and the soundscape surrounding us. We recorded sounds locally but also on trips and excursions, we categorized them and listened for our favorites. At the end of each week, the students held performances on stage which were prepared beforehand in workshops on the basics of performance, sounds and percussions as well as body language (gestures). To conclude the project we put a final sound performance on stage in which each country was represented in sounds and performance. At the beginning of the project in the preparation phase, students between the ages of 13 to 17 who were enrolled in the secondary level were selected at each partner school and an Erasmus club was formed. Musicians and sound engineers trained the recording of sounds with the groups and a collection of sounds was started. This way, the awareness of sounds and their surroundings was raised and reflected upon. The first journey led a delegation of German and Italian students to snowy Finland, which offered completely new sounds to us: car tires with spikes, pedestrian crossings emanating a “tick, tock”, ice hockey. We recorded in busy Helsinki and quiet Kangassala. There, we mainly collected sounds of nature: crackling of the fire, the hissing of water on hot stones in the sauna, tramping through snow. In a one-day work shop given by a sound artist, we took a sound walk and realized how many different sounds were surrounding us and how much variation there is. On the last day, our students met in multinational teams and after an introduction to composing, presence on stage and body language, experimented with their sound objects and favorite sounds. In the end they showed a performance made of tones, sounds and action. The second international meeting in Bracciano, Italy brought us a warm, Mediterranean climate with very different soundscapes: waves and boats, screaming parrots in pine trees, sirens and busy traffic mixed with conversations in Rome. Now very familiar with recording techniques, we focused more on body and expression in our workshops. The participants learned how to use their body as an instrument (body percussions), how we communicate differently in every culture with gestures and facial expressions, how to convincingly perform on stage. At the end of the week, three presentations of 10 minutes length performed by international teams lay the groundwork for the final performance in Hamburg. Hamburg awaited us for our third meeting, where we first took a city tour in the dark. Led by blind people we could imagine our surroundings just by listening and touching: cobble stones, a rocking boat in the harbor, nightlife on the Reeperbahn. This experience deepened our awareness and perception of sounds. Afterwards, the students were eager to experience Hamburg with all senses. After the collection of sounds in Hamburg, three drama teachers and a music teacher supported the students in intense rehearsal, experiments and the creation of a European sound performance which represented each country. After the successful performance, a celebration concluded our project and we had to say goodbye to new international partners and friends. In our project, the interplay of music and theatre highlighted the importance of education in aesthetic subjects, in which unity and difference can stand next to each other. Habits of listening were being questioned; a sensitization was reached of being permanently surrounded by sounds, more awareness of the self and the other was raised – all important elements in the international, European, intercultural context. Following this logic, our project helped form an understanding of a common Europe in which every voice has a say – and a sound. The European idea was not taught in this project, it was lived and shall continue being promoted in our schools. The cooperation and partnership of our schools will continue and hopefully, many more Erasmus projects.