Detect and record a sound with python

You could try something like this:

based on this question/answer

# this is the threshold that determines whether or not sound is detected
THRESHOLD = 0

#open your audio stream    

# wait until the sound data breaks some level threshold
while True:
    data = stream.read(chunk)
    # check level against threshold, you'll have to write getLevel()
    if getLevel(data) > THRESHOLD:
        break

# record for however long you want
# close the stream

You’ll probably want to play with your chunk size and threshold values until you get the desired behavior.

Edit:

You can use the built-in audioop package to find the root-mean-square (rms) of a sample, which is generally how you would get the level.

import audioop
import pyaudio

chunk = 1024

p = pyaudio.PyAudio()

stream = p.open(format=pyaudio.paInt16,
                channels=1,
                rate=44100,
                input=True,
                frames_per_buffer=chunk)

data = stream.read(chunk)

rms = audioop.rms(data, 2)  #width=2 for format=paInt16