Keeping our sound heritage alive

How listening walks and sound foraging workshops are keeping the UK’s sound heritage alive for people along the South Coast.

University of Brighton PhD student Bethan Prosser has been employed on an internship with Brighton and Hove Music for Connection (BHMC) to work on the Heritage Lottery programme Unlocking our Sound Heritage (UOSH).

Across the UK there is a plethora of archived recordings, but as time passes and technology changes, many of these recordings are deteriorating or are difficult to listen to because the right equipment is no longer available.

UOSH has been working on preserving sound recordings through digitisation, making them more accessible through categorisation and raising awareness among the public.

As part of the Sounds to Keep project, based at The Keep in Brighton, Bethan has been involved in raising community awareness of sound archives by encouraging local residents to explore the soundscapes of the area, as well as the archives themselves.

This has included arranging listening walks, sound foraging workshops and online workshops. In response to the pandemic, Bethan has been involved in developing a new digital tool called RiTA (Remix the Archive). This online instrument creates sound palettes made up of sampled sounds, including from the archive, and allows people to make music real-time together online. The partnership has been working with disabled musicians to test out RiTA’s potential uses.

The activities have enabled the organisers to gain new knowledge, skills and understanding about how sound activities can engage the community and improve well-being. BHMC has also been commissioned to run a series of listening walks and music-making workshops by Stanmer Park Restoration Project.

“This partnership has allowed me to creatively explore and reflect on listening, sound and our relationship to place. I have also gained an understanding about how PhD students can be involved in community-university partnerships and how academic knowledge on sound and sound methods can be of use to the wider community.”

Bethan Prosser

PhD student, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Brighton