Broadcast gymnastics is a typical example of a disciplinary soundscape because it combines music, voice commands, and synchronized movements to directly influence students’ bodies and behaviour. At a fixed time every day, the broadcast plays, and students line up neatly, following the rhythm and commands. The music and voice create a strict time and rhythm structure, making the playground highly ordered and synchronized.
R. Murray Schafer’s soundscape theory (1994) helps to understand its effect. The broadcast fills the whole playground through loudspeakers, loud and unavoidable, creating a clear sense of spatial hierarchy. Students must listen, follow, and move together. The repetition of melodies and commands strengthens collective behaviour, embedding attention, timing, and movement naturally into daily school routines.
Broadcast gymnastics also carries cultural and memory significance. For many Chinese students, it is a shared childhood experience. The familiar music and commands are stored in the body through years of repetition. Even many years later, hearing them can trigger automatic physical responses. This shows that disciplinary sound not only shapes behaviour but also becomes part of collective memory and personal experience.
Even though the movements are highly synchronized, students still retain small moments of autonomy. For example, some movements may be slightly faster or slower, or a soft laugh or breath may appear. These small differences show that individuals still have space within the collective order. The interaction between discipline and minor freedom makes the soundscape not just a tool for control but also a way to observe how bodies and behaviour relate.
In short, the soundscape of broadcast gymnastics combines music, commands, movements, and space to create a continuous and perceptible sense of order. It shapes collective behaviour through sound and leaves traces in the body, helping us directly experience how sound organizes movement and behaviour in everyday school life.
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