Last month, hcmf// presented an experimental writing workshop as part of this year’s Huddersfield Literature Festival. The workshop, titled Listen//Write, engaged adult participants of all skill and experience levels to interpret environmental sound as written word.
The two-hour workshop was led by Marsden-based artist and musician Chris Ruffoni and took place at Heritage Quay. Participants were given a brief introduction to ideas around deep listening practices as pioneered by Pauline Oliveros, and were given time to spend listening following some brief warm-up movement and stretching. After intervals of listening, participants wrote down descriptive words reflecting the sounds around them. The session also involved plenty of discussion among the participants themselves, as they sought to describe potential sounds prompted by each other’s illustrations of environments.
With the timely arrival of springtime sun, the outdoors beckoned. Led by Chris, the group headed outside for an interval of listening by the canal, putting pen to paper every time a new sound occurred and interpreting it as text. On their return to Heritage Quay, participants were presented with a selection of instruments to practice with and explore. To close out the workshop, the group produced their own soundscape. A recording of this can be listened to below:
“Listening to our sonic surroundings is a powerful way to find moments of connection and calm,” Chris said of the workshop. Listen//Write intended to tap into mindfulness and sound-making as ways to reveal our own capacities to listen, experimenting with creative activities to inspire words drawn from sound. Chris noted that it was a pleasure to encourage participants to do ‘free writing’, a practice that is perhaps too often neglected.
Participants enjoyed the workshop, describing the experience as fun and praising it as extremely calming and relaxing, as well as prompting them to think about writing in a different way.
“It was good to use words in relation to sound rather than thinking too much about precision of language as I do when I am writing poetry,” one participant observed. “Good to play around with instruments which I haven’t done since school and will hope to do so more now.”
