Scottish Canals is partnering with artist, architect, and musician Andrew J. Brooks to explore the sounds of the Falkirk and it’s canals. This exciting research will blend ecology, culture, story telling and community, creating a soundmap of the canal’s natural and human life.
Get Involved
Andrew invites you to help co-create this soundmap, capturing the unique acoustics of the canal environment. Volunteers will work together to collect and interpret the sounds of the canal—an exploration of the living history and biodiversity along the waterway.
No experience necessary – all are welcome to contribute to this artistic story telling, community and ecological project!
Below are links to the pariticipation form if you’d like to be invovled along with information sheet to give more information about the project and what we have planned.
Below are consent form examples for information only - you will fill in the forms with Andrew in person.
Would you like to be kept informed about the canal listening project?
This is just the beginning! Sign up to the mailing list to be kept informed about the project and be invited to participate. All data will be kept in accordance with GDPR regulations:
Exhibited films: dAWNING & tUNNEL
In early July 2026 two films made by Andrew were exhited projected at the Falkirk Wheel, giving a space to stop and listen to some of the collected sounds of the canals around Falkirk. You can watch these two films below:
Dawning: This dawn chorus audio and film recording was made on 13 April 2026 between 5:25am and 8:01am. It was recorded on the Union Canal in Falkirk, at the site of the now-buried lock stairway that once linked the Union Canal with the Forth and Clyde Canal before its closure in 1933.
The accompanying captions are drawn from notes recorded during the session. They trace the thoughts, observations, and experiences that emerged over the course of this durational act of listening and sitting by the canal—from everyday details to moments of reflection and poetic drift that arise through attentive noticing.
Tunnel: It takes approximately ten minutes to walk the length of the tunnel on the Union Canal at Falkirk High—depending on how often you stop to listen.
This film and audio is layered over a mobile phone recording made while walking through the tunnel on 20 November 2025. On 9 January 2026, I returned with a 3D laser scanner, an ambisonic microphone, a contact microphone, and a pair of hydrophones to capture the tunnel's many sonic layers: thundering water, drips on the balustrade, the natural resonance of stone and water, and the hidden conversations that emerge within shifting patterns of sound.
No audio effects have been added. The piece is constructed solely through fades between recordings made with the different microphones, presenting the tunnel as it was heard through each listening technology.
About Andrew
Andrew J. Brooks is an artist, architect, musician, and researcher whose work blends art, architecture, sound, and community. With a passion for acoustic ecology, Andrew is embarking on a new PhD at Queen’s University Belfast, researching the rich sounds of Scotland’s Forth and Clyde Canal.
Andrew’s project, titled “Presentation of Acoustic Ecology through Community Co-Produced Sound Mapping”, will explore the ways sound can tell the stories of both human and non-human life along the canal.