Programs Field Recording + Sound Composition

Arts · Environment · Community

Field Recording + Sound Composition

Using the arts to raise awareness of environmental challenges and equip communities to engage with the sonic dimensions of ecological change.

Art as Environmental Action

AELab's Field Recording + Sound Composition program sits at the intersection of artistic practice and environmental advocacy. The program conducts listening workshops, field recording sessions, and creative placemaking activities in nature preserves, parks, and urban landscapes across the American Southwest.

Participants — from community members with no prior experience to advanced students and professional artists — learn to use field recording equipment, develop listening skills, and create compositions that respond to the sonic character of the environments they document.

Garth Paine teaches the Soundscape Ecology course at ASU as part of this program, providing a rigorous academic foundation for the practical and artistic work.

Commissioned Works. The Listen(n) Project commissioned six international artists to compose multichannel immersive musical works using only sounds in the Listen(n) database. The resulting concert program is available for community presentations.
"Field recording is not just documentation — it is a form of deep attention to the living world."

Program Activities

Education

Soundscape Ecology

A university course taught by Garth Paine covering the science, practice, and art of acoustic ecology — from theoretical foundations to hands-on field recording.

Community

Listening Workshops

Community workshops held in nature preserves and urban environments, teaching participants to attend to and document the sounds of their local ecological community.

Arts

Commissioned Compositions

Multichannel immersive musical works commissioned from international artists, composed exclusively from Listen(n) database recordings — available for community performance.

Technology

Ambisonic Recording

Training in ambisonic (3D spatial audio) field recording techniques, producing immersive sound documents that capture the full spatial character of sonic environments.

Request a Workshop or Concert Presentation

The Listen(n) concert program of commissioned works is available for community presentations. Contact AELab to discuss hosting a workshop or performance at your venue.

Contact AELab