For my second project, we were asked to create 8 sound effects, using a combination of samples, which I recorded on my iPhone 7, and also sounds created on the website bfxr.net. For all of my projects as I learn to become an art educator, I like to get my children involved as much as possible. They are 7 and 4, so their tastes and sense of humor are of the potty variety. Although these particular sounds and subsequent "instrument" I created (see it here) are not necessarily school appropriate, I did find the creation of sound effects to be highly educational. We were faced with the challenge of trying to recreate a particular sound without actually using the sound itself (in one case we did). We had to implement some creativity in order to get a variety of different noises, which had that distinguishable quality of the fart noise.
In a classroom, I would love to create a project that involved creating sounds that are either original noises or mimic existing sounds without actually using the sound itself. This presents both a challenge to creativity and an attention to nuance and detail. It also teaches students that we can use our sense of hearing to evoke feeling or emotion, such as humor.
Using bfxr.net was very simple and straightforward. It provided a variety of controls to change the qualities of the sounds, and was easy enough for me to figure out immediately, without having any prior sound creation experience. I think this would be a valuable tool to use in the classroom when creating sound effects, and would augment or even modify the way sounds are captured as samples. It gives a nice introduction to the history of video game sound in particular, while teaching about the variety of ways sound can be made and recorded. Samples are also a great way to augment sound making. As demonstrated with my "Fart Sounds" below, you can use a variety of items and materials to create sounds that don't necessarily represent what they actually are. This project was a lot of fun for me, and for my kids as well!