Power of Play Together · family day at Young V&A, 7 November 2026
Sounds of parks and play, free to use, for instruments that children play by touching objects they make. For the Institute of Imagination team and the Young V&A Play Champions: listen, and like the ones you would use. The team chooses from the most liked.
Some notes say where a sound would be cut down before it goes on the instruments.
Needed only for liking. This browser remembers it.
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People
Laughter, giggles and playgrounds full of children.
Play
Swings, slides, gates, balls, skipping, sand, bells and the ice cream van.
Nature
Park birds, ducks, pigeons, dogs and cats.
Nature
Bees, grasshoppers and a summer meadow.
Nature
Wind in the leaves, creaking trees, puddles, footsteps and wind chimes.
The city
Park and drinking fountains, and the crossing beeps.
Play
Cricket, football, whistles and cheers.
Music
Gentle notes from one five-note scale (C, D, E, G and A), so they always sound good together and with everything else.
The first cards are made by the page itself: each plays an example of how it could sound on the instruments, and the letters play one note at a time. The rest are recordings of real instruments.
Background
Long, soft held notes that could sit under everything else. Sounds in the same musical key as these play well with them.
Background
Whole London parks, recorded as they are.
Data as sound
Real figures about play in the UK, turned into sound: each value becomes a note, higher or lower with the number, played in order.
Everyone's choices
Every sound with at least one like, most liked first.
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Sounds from Freesound are under CC0 and sounds from Pixabay under the Pixabay licence: both free to use, with no credit needed. The four Pixabay sounds play on Pixabay’s own site.
Institute of Imagination · Registered Charity No. 1109276
