Project Overview
Awardee: Alfred Cramer, Associate Professor of Music
Title: The Claremont Soundmap Project
Goal: The Claremont Soundmap is a web-based map that documents soundscapes and acoustic spaces in and around the Claremont Colleges. The goal of this POM-TF project is to update and modernize, the process and web presence for Soundmap.
Project Description
The Claremont Soundmap has been a component of MUS 091 since 2013. Students learn about film, music, early recording devices, architectural and urban spaces, and other sites of sound. In addition to scholarly reading, students gain hands-on experience with various historical technologies related to sound, such as the stethoscope, shorthand writing, the phonograph, and radio.
Students upload short recordings of soundscapes (such as the sounds of dining halls, athletic events, “natural” sounds in the less developed parts of campus, and so on) and of balloon pops that reveal the acoustic aspects of campus architecture. They upload these recordings, post short essays about them, and do additional work to link them to the map.
Project Outcomes
For this iteration of the project, we would like to update and modernize the process and web presence for Soundmap and implement new features suggested by the students.