Originally emerging from specialist research-led educational work with children in care, the HomeSounds project now engages individuals, groups, organizations and institutions of all kinds in Active Environmental Listening.
Previous collaborators have included the National Trust, RSPB, BREAK Children Charity, Norwich Science Festival, Mancroft Advice Project, Norfolk Wildlife Trust, Norfolk County Council, Sidestradn Hall Special School, Clover Childcare, Norwich International Youth Project, Wheatfen Nature Reserve, University of East Anglia, UK Research and Innovation, Excelsior Trust, English Heritage, Broadland and North Norfolk Youth Advisory Boards, City Academy Norwich, City of Norwich School, Locus Sonus, Nurture UK, Norfolk Coast AONB and many others.
Developing our ability to listen, both to the world around us and each other, offers countless potential benefits. These benefits have been well known to humans for millennia and are now increasingly well-supported by modern objective evidence. The HomeSounds project highlights three primary categories of these potential benefits;
Creativity - Active Environmental Listening can be a profoundly inspiring experience. Taking time to listen, perhaps walk, think, feel, and activate your senses offers the opportunity to draw from an often too easily overlooked well-spring of inspiration.
Education - Active Environmental Listening offers an innovative and exciting way to learn. The range of subjects, and the depth of material that can be explored through listening is unending. Common areas of study that can be explored include; Acoustics, Geography, Biology, Physics, Ecology, Acoustic Ecology, Audio Technology, Music, Art, Drama, Maths, amongst many others.
Health and Wellbeing - Our acoustic habitats have a profound influence over our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. Heart-rate, concentration, emotional regulation, behavior, communication, cognition are just some of the areas directly influenced, both positively and negatively, by environmental sound.