Create a nature soundscape

Here is a wonderfully accessible activity to get students composing through a kind of ‘planned improvisation’. It provides an opportunity to explore program music (music that conveys a narrative or depicts a scene) as they create and perform a soundscape inspired by nature imagery.

Choose an image as the stimulus for the soundscape and come up with a scene or short story describing what’s happening in the image. 

As a class, individually or in small groups, create sound effects, melodies and rhythmic patterns to tell the story of the image - for example, flowing water, birds in trees or splashing water on rocks. Encourage students to create and experiment with available instruments and other found sound sources such as dry leaves, pencils in a tin or chair legs. Students could also use the homemade rainsticks that they have created (see the video ‘Make your own rainstick’). Vocal sounds, body percussion and movement/actions can also be included. Give consideration to the musical elements - dynamics, timbre, form, rhythm, pitch and texture - and provide students with the opportunity to perform and even record their piece. Extend this activity by asking students to draw a graphic notation score of their soundscape. Have fun!

Music Outcomes

F - 2

• Develop aural skills by exploring and imitating sounds, pitch and rhythm patterns using voice, movement and body percussion ACAMUM080

• Create compositions and perform music to communicate ideas to an audience ACAMUM082

3 - 4

• Develop aural skills by exploring, imitating and recognising elements of music including dynamics, pitch and rhythm patterns ACAMUM084

• Create, perform and record compositions by selecting and organising sounds, silence, tempo and volume ACAMUM086

5 - 6

• Explore dynamics and expression, using aural skills to identify and perform rhythm and pitch patterns ACAMUM088

• Rehearse and perform music including music they have composed by improvising, sourcing and arranging ideas and making decisions to engage an audience ACAMUM090

7 - 8

• Experiment with texture and timbre in sound sources using aural skills ACAMUM092

• Develop musical ideas, such as mood, by improvising, combining and manipulating the elements of music ACAMUM093

• Structure compositions by combining and manipulating the elements of music using notation ACAMUM095

• Perform and present a range of music, using techniques and expression appropriate to style ACAMUM096 

Links to other learning areas

Visual Arts - explore artistic and inspiring images of nature or other environments as the stimulus for composition, or have students create their own artwork or photography to use. 

Media Arts - Students could take their own photographic images to use as the basis for their composition; create a visual slideshow of images to accompany their soundscape; or create an entire digital project including a recording of their soundscape accompanied by footage of them performing it and the image/s used as the inspiration. 

Geography - explore different natural and/or built environments and features of them alongside this music composition activity

English - have students create an accompanying story or narrative to go with the image and soundscape they are working with. The story could be told and shared verbally, in a written form, drawn/illustrated or through poster/cartoon/graphic form. 

Want more?

This is an example of the teaching resources you will receive when booking Musica Viva In Schools program, Rhythm Works.

Find out more about Musica Viva In Schools.