What does the Chinatown North neighborhood sound like? Like this

What are the sounds that make up a neighborhood?

This was the question that drove musician and artist Rachel Ishikawa to explore the Chinatown North community in Philly through everyday sounds: an air conditioner running in the background, boxes and carts being moved or a mom cooking dinner.

The resulting experimental project from Ishikawa, as part of her artist residency at Asian Arts Initiative’s (AAI) Social Practice Lab, was Chinatown Beats, an online collection of various sounds gathered by middle school students based in the Chinatown North community who are taking part in AAI’s Youth Arts Workshop.

But rather than taking the sounds and creating a music beat of her own (something she does often with her version of electronic music), Ishikawa decided to create an online audio sequencer with the sounds so you can create your own kind of beat. It’s an example of how AAI is engaging the public with cultural assets as part of its “cultural plan,” as explained by AAI’s neighborhood project manager Dave Kyu.

Think you have the chops to make a masterpiece? You can submit a piece before Oct. 7 for a competition Ishikawa and AAI is holding and you may be able to win your own audio field recorder starter kit.

For Ishikawa, she knew she wanted to use sound in some way for her project but instead of the midi and synth sounds she’s familiar with, she decided to go toward a more organic route by handing out audio recorders to the student volunteers so they could record their lives for three days. Most of her residency involved volunteering in the Youth Arts Workshop and working on music, audio and storytelling projects with the youth.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BY__dXegixz/?taken-by=asian.arts.initiative

What she ended up with was hours of field recording tape that she sifted through to find “dynamic sounds,” in addition to sounds that AAI staff and artists thought defined up the Chinatown North neighborhood.

“I love the imperfect, earnest quality of field recordings,” Ishikawa wrote us. “I think you can gain a broader different perspective by listening and recording the sounds of your environment. I definitely feel more connected to Chinatown North, and I hope others who use the Chinatown Beats audio sequencer can explore the neighborhood as well.”