The scene and the problem:
We are doing last-minute prep for our talent show. Grace is doing some stage practicing with a group of her students, and she tells me, "I really need a fart sound for this play."
The play she's doing, the "Farting Lady," is a Korean classic tale adapted to grade-school EF, with songs, too. I may have mentioned it before on this blog – it's a perennial favorite of Korean students, because they know the story already, and because elementary children have fundamentally scatalogical senses of humor.
I can't use my laptop, because it's been repurposed as the main computer for all the projections, sound and powerpoint slides for the show.
The solution:
So I take my little USB memory stick and I go to one of the computers in the computer lab. I go to google, and I type in "free download fart sounds." I have a plethora of choices. First choice, try out some sounds, and download a half dozen.
I save them onto my USB, and return to the seminar room where Grace is practicing. I hand her the USB. "The internet is a great thing," I say.
"It is," she agrees, as she tries out the files, to the entertained giggles of 15 or so elementary kids.
[daily log: walking, 7km]
Sure, the internet is an amazingly useful resource, but what about making fart sounds the old fashioned way, with one’s hands and/or lips? As a conductor of live musicians, I’m perhaps uncommonly wary of using pre-recorded sound when a live alternative is available. But then, perhaps it would be difficult to retain control over a classroom full of elementary students making fart sounds.
Just kidding, mostly!