{"id":457,"date":"2023-12-15T20:21:51","date_gmt":"2023-12-16T01:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wamfall23\/?p=457"},"modified":"2023-12-15T20:21:52","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T01:21:52","slug":"what-is-noise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wamfall23\/2023\/12\/15\/what-is-noise\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Noise?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hint: Music Helps to Know the Difference<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Ryan Zambrano<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some people wake to the noise of birds chirping with leaves rustling. While getting ready for their day, we hear the sound of the shower head. During breakfast, the popping sound of the toaster goes off. Driving to work comes with the car engine revving, the scraping of tires on the asphalt, and the honking in heavy traffic contributing to the soundscape of the morning commute’. Unfortunately, others start their day with harmful noises, such as those of war. Fear strikes at the sound of an explosion or shots popping in the distance. Cries of the wounded begging for help. We live in a world of noise, beauty, annoyance, and distress. For centuries, music has been inspired by this world of sound. By taking what seems to be just<\/em> noises and systematically organizing them. Some musical works may be aesthetically pleasing, while other pieces are not. As music seeks to mimic or transform noise, we have come to know noise\u2014and the world\u2014 in a more profound sense.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Italian composer Luigi Russolo (1885-1947)was an early champion of noise-music whose works mixed different sounds made by special devices or instruments. In a 1913 letter titled The Art of Noise, <\/em>Russolo writes to a fellow musician, Balilla Pratella, of the need to revolutionize music through “noise-sound”\u2014which “paralleled by the increasing proliferation of machinery sharing in human labor.” Russolo recognized that this new music style reflected how modern society was changed by modernity. Noise-Music is a particular example of how music mimics the noise, but this can also be applied to other forms of music. Later in the letter, Rusollo notes that this is why we receive “infinitely more pleasure imaging combinations of the sounds.” We hear noise daily; it is inescapable, but music brings awareness to sound itself. When a person listens to music, it should be a pleasurable experience, an experience made from a combination of noises. People come to know and appreciate noise more through the music. Music allows people to feel specific emotions or even convey certain ideas. This enables people to realize what real effect noise has on themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Luigi Russolo (1885 – 1947) the futurist artist with his assistant Piatti and the noise machine invented by him for futurist ‘symphonies’, one of which was performed at the London Coliseum in June 1914. He was also a painter. (Photo by Hulton Archive\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are many examples of how music attempts to engage with the noises of our world. American composer John Cage (1912-1992) became a innovator by opening music toward noise in unprecedented\u2014even radical\u2014 ways. In 1959, he performed his work\u00a0 Water Walk, <\/em>which was made up of objects around an average person’s house, for example, radios, a toaster, and a bathtub. Using these items, he would make noises systematically, telling how long and when to make each sound. This is what noise-music is. Music assembles the noises we hear in our everyday lives, which, by extension, reflects on those lives. Nearly none of our daily activities occur without some kind of noise (even sleep). These noises shape us as people. Noise impacts the way we think and do. Noise is part of our existence, and for Cage, this existence was existentially musical.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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