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I'm curious what people think about the use of noise in music. Here's a video I made all about the various ways musicians use noise, and the sliding scales of what society considers to be noise. I think there's actually a lot more noise in music than people realise, and our definitions of it are changing all the time. What do you think? Thanks for any responses. David
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02-27-2018 11:10 AM
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Thats an interesting topic. It raises the question what do you call "noise"? For example I call the techno, rave, and modern counterparts of these "musics" noise.
Funny that most of these guys call musicians themselves, while they do not even know what notes are in a c triad (respect to the exceptions). For me, this kinda "music" pollutes my environment, I might call this soulles cyclical noise, also. So this way for me this whole "musical branch" is noise. This is my 2 cents, there are people who like this, and I wont apologize for this because I dont.
On the other hand, I have been in a guitar workshop few years ago, while the performer was playing, the bell of a church in the neighborhood began to ring. The guy was surprised first, and started reacting to this, he formed his improvisation to get in harmony with the bell. The audience was gave him tons of applause after that. So we can use unexpected sound in a musical way, but we must have the tools to build it into our music/improvisation.
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Noise is the audio equivalent of weeds. Weeds are unwanted plants, and the same plant can be a weed or a crop depending on where it is.
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Noise? Make a joyful noise. Is noise supposed to be bad and sound horrible? Isn't noise just sound? I think I'm missing the whole point of this post. Noise...use it or lose it.
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Noise can be useful. We use 'white noise' machine in the bedroom at night, because it gets quite and the neighbours upstairs don't have carpet and make a lot of noise walking with their shoes on a squeaking floor. It makes us sleep better. As a revenge, at daytime I used to put a Slayer album on the loop loud when I was leaving for work, which I'm sure sounded like noise to the aforementioned neighbors. They hate music.
So fight noise with noise! I know it's neither here nor there, I'm just making noise on internet
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Applause is noise... the noisier the better!
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I knew a kid who did "noise music". He had a bunch of effects and stuff, and he'd get some feedback going, put that into a looper, pile on other stuff. If you listened to it, you could hear how he was trying to go for a contour or "landscape" effect with the noise. The intensity and density of the sounds would vary. I didn't enjoy listening to it, but I could see what he was getting at in a musically naive sort of way.
In my rock and fusion days I used a lot of what I suppose could be called noise. I used controlled feedback a lot. I'd strum muted strings for a percussive effect (works nice with a delay). These days I look at a lot of that stuff as a crutch.
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I like noise music sometimes. I'm a big Sonic Youth fan. You see them live, and songs will de-evolve into this wash of guitar noise, and maybe your ear, almost craving sometime of melody, will start to pull things together, squeals, squeaks, scrapes, and hums, into something beautiful.
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I remember a time when I thought the melodic minor scale was noise.
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If you believe there's a spectrum between music and noise, it means you acknowledge a set of textures (some usable, some not) along that spectrum. You don't have to be a tonally naive experimental musician to appreciate the textural spectrum. Coltrane played using many sounds along the spectrum that many appreciate. The question of texture is something mostly unexplored by jazz theory but it's real. I wouldn't expect a Mark Levine book on it any time soon. There's no way to understand it without digging it. I'm just glad my ears aren't totally closed up to new sounds.
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Some of the old Pink Floyd had that quality as well (Interstellar Overdrive, Astronomy Dominie, etc.)
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Definitely...and Sonny Sharrock...My Bloody Valentine...there's a lot of good stuff in that vein, I suppose. Originally Posted by Boston Joe
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Check out this version of Lush Life. I think the noise is too pleasant to count as noise, but there's a lot of texture going on here. A lot of layers for a solo guitar performance.
Eremite Records | Jeff Parker: Slight Freedom
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Man, I love Jeff's playing. Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
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A general definition for *music* might be “organized sounds.”
A general definition for *acoustic noise* might be “undesirable sounds.”
Some sounds fall in both categories, some in neither.
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There's a great Camper Van Beethoven version of Interstellar. From that, I learned that if you keep that bass line going, you can get away with a lot on top. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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I do like the video that started this thread. I like the video on Rhythmic Illusions even more. Playing with time is as important as clever harmonies.
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Back in high school when I was an outcast loner, I moved from heavy metal into more louder and noisier styles of sound, leading all the way to guys like Merzbow and Prurient.
It is most definitely not for everyone, but I still enjoy listening to them every now and then - it helps me with my anxiety problems and causes those "tingles down the spine" reactions that a lot of people get.
I think I'd define noise music - harsh noise, rather, Merzbow and the like - as being an approach to sound where melody and rhythm are completely suborned to sonic textures. Obviously you can do this in a non-noisy way, too - Phill Niblock's drone music is a perfect example - but it's an interesting approach to sound.
I actually really like music that is built around manipulating or utilising the physical nature of sound to create an interesting effect - Charlemagne Palestine's Strumming Music, for example, where part of the effect is that the piano he's playing on slowly goes out of tune and the resonant harmonics cause the sound to slowly but noticably evolve, or Alvin Lucier's I Am Sitting In A Room.
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Hey David man, you are pumping out some great videos there.... The one on swing feel was terrific.
I'll watch this when I get a chance... I hope your channel grows quickly!
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This is music that is made of noise. The end result depends on the listener. Whats that then - useless music, bad music, just noise or something to enjoy? There are notes in there, so that "just noise" gets tossed out usually
My favorite noise music piece:
It's a matter of taste!!! Always is, always will be.
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yep..here is noise at its finest..and if you listen you may hear some of this carryover into his later work...
frank zappa bicycle music - Bing video
of course Steve Stevens of Billy Idol fame using a toy "ray gun" in his guitar solo on "Rebel Yell" has to be one of the more creative uses of noise in any form of music
Last edited by wolflen; 03-16-2018 at 04:23 PM.
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Noise, walk with me!
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No I'd say a weed is just a plant with no currently known uses. Originally Posted by sgosnell
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The same plant can be a weed in one place, desired in another. Some people destroy dandelions with dedication, some people intentionally grow and use them. Dandelions, and countless other plants, have known uses, but are regarded as weeds in places where they are unwanted. I think a weed is just a plant that isn't wanted where it's growing. Noise is sound that is unwanted, or at least unappreciated, where it occurs. One person's noise can be another's sublime music. As always, there is no accounting for taste.
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The simplest way to add noise to your music is to play in restaurants,coffees,pizzerias.The knives,forkes spoons and conversations add a pleasant noise to your music
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