Halloween Sound Effect “Tableaus” using Audacity & free sound samples

We had a Halloween activity day for the whole school. I was in charge of a “music” station. For 5-7 minutes each, groups of 4-6 students would visit me and I had to find something fun, engaging, and QUICK!

We are slightly technology-challenged (as in lack of equipment) at my school, so I’ve seen it as my duty to start introducing a few new things to the students. Here is what I used:

• My personal laptop
• A 27″ external monitor (also could be done with LCD projector, but ours was in use so I made do with the monitor)
• A set of laptop speakers
• “Audacity” – a free audio recording program (get it here)
• A collection of free “halloween” sound samples that I downloaded onto my computer  – i.e. wind, rain, footsteps, thunder, screams, ghost sounds, howls, etc) (get them here)

I had the students sitting on mats around the monitor. Since we only had 5 minutes to complete the activity, I had prepared cards in advance with each sound effect written on them. I had 3 different types of footsteps, so they went on one colour card, and were each numbered, “F1″, “F2″, and “F3″. Those went into one pile. Then, on another colour card, I numbered my scream sound effects, “S1″, “S2″, etc. I did this with each type of sound effect I had downloaded specifically for this project.

I had each student in the group pick one sound effect, and that was the one I would use in their “tableau” (I should also mention that I had opened each of the sound effects that could potentially be used in one window so that as each student chose their sound effect for their group, I just located it in the first window, and then copied and pasted into “their” window.

Some sound effects we had lasting for the entire tableau  (about 15 seconds) – i.e. wind, rain, etc.

Other sound effects were used more sparingly – i.e. a scream, thunder crashing. In these cases, I would ask the students where they would like that particular effect located – at the beginning, middle, or end.

We ended up with some pretty cool sound effect scenes! And it actually worked for 5 minutes. If I had more time with the students, I would have them manipulating the sound samples themselves, adding effects, moving them around, etc. Now that they all have been introduced to the program and have seen how it works, I may be able to do this in a lab setting later on.

Here is one example of a grade 6 group’s finished product. I think they did a great job!