Noise versus Non-Noise and the Technological Dialogue
Chris Leitch
For most listeners enjoying music on their home stereo, the sound of an ambulance siren is disruptive. In terms of defining sound, the siren is considered by many as noise while what is musical is non-noise. But what is noise? And how does a noisy sound compare to something that is not noisy? Most importantly, what happens when one abandons preconceived notions of noise and allows all heard sound to exist without favoritism? In this era of extreme technological advancements, the varied and complex soundscapes that envelope the city listener must be reevaluated. By disrupting biases of preferred and not preferred sound, the listener offers open territory for fresh soundscapes. This paper examines how these new soundscapes, absorbed by the listener, abolish the debate of noise versus non-noise. Throughout this essay, I will refer to my subjective listening experience involving the interjection of a live ambulance siren into the playback of recorded music. The siren and stereo evoke a dialogue by means of which the notions of noise and non-noise are examined and reassessed.
This investigation stemmed from an opposing viewpoint attained while reading Sound and Noise from which Aden Evens addresses a segregation of listening experiences. Evans observes that,
“Recorded music is sterilized, frozen in place, turned into a medium that stands between self and the world instead of an experience of the world…Once isolated, the music neutralizes its context, removing itself from lived experience, to stand before the listening subject as an object. The subject-object pair, listener and recording, form a closed system with an inside (the listening room) and an outside (everywhere else).” (9)
In contrast, I believe that recorded music can become an experience of the world again. However, for it to do so, recorded music must rely on sounds independent from the recording (i.e. from an outside source). Sounds usually regarded as extraneous actually introduce integrated soundscapes combining recorded music with “real world” sounds. I argue that such amalgamated soundscapes challenge Evans’ definitions of the ‘listening room’ and ‘everywhere else.’ For me, the most pertinent experience that deconstructs the ‘closed system’ involves an ambulance siren piercing the walls of the ‘listening room.’
An ambulance siren in this context challenges the listener’s evaluation of desirable and undesirable sound into the same arena of listening whilst providing ambiguity between wanted sounds. The experience of both together as one soundscape is much more ambiguous than its binary division in terms of music versus noise might suggest.
City dwellers will agree that an ambulance siren is intentionally an extremely invasive sound penetrating the walls of homes in proximity of the sirens’ source. The siren is a warning signal that requires it be loud in order to compete with surrounding noises. As a city’s population increases, the sound of siren will no doubt increase as well. Moreover, it is the sirens’ unique attributes interlaced with stereo playback that provided access for acknowledgement of seamless relation to what before seemed as two unrelated sound occurrences. The natural reverberation that a siren produces as its signal bounces from building to building and then finally to our ears parallels the synthetic reverberation often used in music production. As we and our stereos remain still behind the walls of our houses, a natural panning effect occurs as the ambulance rushes through the city around us.
The fluid entry and exit of this natural panning ‘sound effect’ offers an intense meditation of the fleeting moment when the two sounds interact. Because ambulances are usually in motion, this interplay lasts only a short duration. Supposing that one does allow this technological conversation to exist (as this entire supposition is one that is subjective), one can imagine this dialogue physically defining an acoustic space. The listener is engaged between the shifting tension of the stereo and the siren allowing both sounds to merge into a single sound experience. As a result, background sound mix with the foreground providing the ‘listening room’ with opportunity for discussion, but only to those that speak the language of technology. And by technological language, I mean the random buzzes, hums, drones, electrical gossip and battery powered murmurs. Or in the case of the stereo and siren conversation, the zeros and ones whizzing into an artificial composition, a translation of pure AC/DC current shouting out to the neighborhood while the constant howl of the siren retorts over furious pistons; a short rebuttal. The birds outside appear only to mouth their songs now.
No doubt the utterance of nature is incompetent to enter the listening room’s high decibel guarantee of volume control. Nor does nature stand a chance of overthrowing the shriek of an ambulance’s siren. Perhaps only a thunderstorm or some natural catastrophe has a volume level as loud or louder than a siren. Nevertheless, bird song, the most familiar natural sound in urban spaces cannot compete with sirens. Yet, even with these occurrences does nature fail to speak the abstracted, synthetic dialect that today’s technological items so easily spew. Nor does nature challenge our augmented submersion into the vastly hi-tech sound environments concerning audio relationships. Continuing with this idea of a culture’s complex situation with regards to sound, Luigi Russolo explains that, “the traditional orchestra was no longer capable of capturing the imagination of a culture immersed in noise, and that the age of noise demanded new musical instruments he called “noise instruments.” (The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto, 10) The most common and frequent sounds produced by nature in the city are those created by birds, which seem to share a certain status with traditional orchestrated sounds. This is mainly due to apparent parallels between unplugged, organic operation of the instrument and organisms acting as the direct, physical and foremost catalysts for producing sound either vocally or instrumentally. Moreover, regarding Russolo’s proposition for “noise instruments” to facilitate the ‘age of noise,’ the siren can be considered a “noise instrument.”
The siren as a sound effect has made its way into countless recordings of music, especially those considered popular music. The tendency to include ‘non-musical’ sound into music further deconstructs perceptions involving boundaries between noise and non-noise. Brady Cranfield argues that, “to identify noise is also to identify non-noise. In this relationship, noise is paradoxically affirmed as the negative, the unwanted. However, once acknowledged, noise becomes known as “noise” (Producing Noise: Oval and the Politics of Digital Audio, 4). Cranfield explains that, “this shift in appreciation subsequently reorganizes the dialectic between noise and non-noise.” Popular music easily integrates so-called unwanted sounds, blurring the difference of noise and non-noise. So much that Russolo’s vast ensemble of noise-makers from the early ‘twentieth century have evolved into a continually expanding practice of cohering ‘non- musical’ and ‘musical’ with an even greater diversity of noise-makers.
With respect to the onset of noise-maker as instrument, R. Murray Schaefer identifies, “Russolo, who invented an orchestra of noise-makers, consisting of buzzers, howlers and other gadget, calculated to introduce modern man to the musical potential of the new world about him…Russolo’s experiments mark a flash-point in the history of aural perception, a reversal of figure and ground, a substitution of garbage for beauty” (The Tuning of the World, 110) It is interesting to note how recorded material can normalize noise as valid listening material, yet when the same noise exists outside the context of music, efforts to accept it as an instrument become difficult. This is why it is crucial to recognize the significance of the siren-stereo interaction. For it is within this conversation between the siren and the stereo that the noise-maker (i.e. the siren) is permitted to participate as an instrument. As the siren-stereo interaction informs only one instance of increased aural perception, its recognition assists in the failure to define noise.
With the increasing functionality of noise, the boundaries of the term ‘noise,’ are collapsing in on themselves providing a current definition that fails to be precisely articulated. Noise, once thought to serve no purpose, now contributes to the reorganization of what is musical. Russolo states that, “the evolution of music is comparable to the multiplication of machines, which everywhere collaborate with man.” (The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto, 11) Russolo continues,
“Today, the machine has created such a variety and contention of noises that pure sound in its slightness and monotony no longer provokes emotion. In order to excite and stir our sensibility, music has been developing toward the most complicated polyphony and toward the greatest variety of instrumental timbres and colors.”
In correlation to my own listening attitudes when inside the ‘listening room,’ “complicated polyphony” that enables listening excitement arises from integrated sounds that have been released from different sources. Offering a positive evaluation of the absorption of noise, Henry Cowell argues that, “Since the “disease” of noise permeates all music, the only hopeful course is to consider that the noise-germ, like the bacteria of cheese, is a good microbe, which may provide hidden delights to the listener.” (The Joys of Noise, 23) If noise can be considered something that pleasures the listener, the definition of noise carries new implications, subverting traditional convictions that noise is unpleasant.
I use the term ‘noise’ with a great deal of optimism, even while the definition remains on a wavering threshold invoking both positive and negative connotations. And as listening is subjective, a constant, intense re-examination of noise versus non-noise is necessary. Only then can one infer what constitutes noise. Only then will one conclude that evaluating noise in opposition to non-noise is useless and insignificant. In this respect, the boundaries have dissolved to the extent that even popular music, the most accessible of genres, ignore the traditional classification of noise.
With the exploration of the ambulance siren and music integration, a specific, dynamic relationship generated a broader listening scope of intricate aural relationships within an urban environment. The deconstruction of ‘listening room’ and ‘everywhere else’ provided entry into other existing, complex soundscapes, including conversations between various technological devices. The dialogue shared between one machine and another resides within the creativity and subjectivity of the listener. Although the siren/stereo conversation may only pertain to my own listening attitude, communication among avid listeners of these particular sound relationships is what remains imperative. This seemingly complex dialect of noise versus non-noise can advance to greater understanding through discussion of personal sound experiences. The biases of preferred sound are in constant reexamination as the surrounding aural environment is in constant transformation. This leaves notions of noise and non-noise at a perpetual state of interpretation.
Works Cited
Cranfield, Brady. Course Notes, “Producing Noise: Oval and the Politics of Digital Audio”
Cowell, Henry. “Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music”, The Joys of Noise. New York: Continuum, 2004
Evens, Aden. “Sound and Noise“, Sound Ideas: Music, Machines and Experience, Minneopolis: MIT Press, 2005
Russolo, Luigi. “Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music”, The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto, New York: Continuum, 2004
Schaefer, R. Murray. “The Tuning of the World: The Soundscape”, Music, the Soundscape and Changing Perceptions. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977
For most listeners enjoying music on their home stereo, the sound of an ambulance siren is disruptive. In terms of defining sound, the siren is considered by many as noise while what is musical is non-noise. But what is noise? And how does a noisy sound compare to something that is not noisy? Most importantly, what happens when one abandons preconceived notions of noise and allows all heard sound to exist without favoritism? In this era of extreme technological advancements, the varied and complex soundscapes that envelope the city listener must be reevaluated. By disrupting biases of preferred and not preferred sound, the listener offers open territory for fresh soundscapes. This paper examines how these new soundscapes, absorbed by the listener, abolish the debate of noise versus non-noise. Throughout this essay, I will refer to my subjective listening experience involving the interjection of a live ambulance siren into the playback of recorded music. The siren and stereo evoke a dialogue by means of which the notions of noise and non-noise are examined and reassessed.
This investigation stemmed from an opposing viewpoint attained while reading Sound and Noise from which Aden Evens addresses a segregation of listening experiences. Evans observes that,
“Recorded music is sterilized, frozen in place, turned into a medium that stands between self and the world instead of an experience of the world…Once isolated, the music neutralizes its context, removing itself from lived experience, to stand before the listening subject as an object. The subject-object pair, listener and recording, form a closed system with an inside (the listening room) and an outside (everywhere else).” (9)
In contrast, I believe that recorded music can become an experience of the world again. However, for it to do so, recorded music must rely on sounds independent from the recording (i.e. from an outside source). Sounds usually regarded as extraneous actually introduce integrated soundscapes combining recorded music with “real world” sounds. I argue that such amalgamated soundscapes challenge Evans’ definitions of the ‘listening room’ and ‘everywhere else.’ For me, the most pertinent experience that deconstructs the ‘closed system’ involves an ambulance siren piercing the walls of the ‘listening room.’
An ambulance siren in this context challenges the listener’s evaluation of desirable and undesirable sound into the same arena of listening whilst providing ambiguity between wanted sounds. The experience of both together as one soundscape is much more ambiguous than its binary division in terms of music versus noise might suggest.
City dwellers will agree that an ambulance siren is intentionally an extremely invasive sound penetrating the walls of homes in proximity of the sirens’ source. The siren is a warning signal that requires it be loud in order to compete with surrounding noises. As a city’s population increases, the sound of siren will no doubt increase as well. Moreover, it is the sirens’ unique attributes interlaced with stereo playback that provided access for acknowledgement of seamless relation to what before seemed as two unrelated sound occurrences. The natural reverberation that a siren produces as its signal bounces from building to building and then finally to our ears parallels the synthetic reverberation often used in music production. As we and our stereos remain still behind the walls of our houses, a natural panning effect occurs as the ambulance rushes through the city around us.
The fluid entry and exit of this natural panning ‘sound effect’ offers an intense meditation of the fleeting moment when the two sounds interact. Because ambulances are usually in motion, this interplay lasts only a short duration. Supposing that one does allow this technological conversation to exist (as this entire supposition is one that is subjective), one can imagine this dialogue physically defining an acoustic space. The listener is engaged between the shifting tension of the stereo and the siren allowing both sounds to merge into a single sound experience. As a result, background sound mix with the foreground providing the ‘listening room’ with opportunity for discussion, but only to those that speak the language of technology. And by technological language, I mean the random buzzes, hums, drones, electrical gossip and battery powered murmurs. Or in the case of the stereo and siren conversation, the zeros and ones whizzing into an artificial composition, a translation of pure AC/DC current shouting out to the neighborhood while the constant howl of the siren retorts over furious pistons; a short rebuttal. The birds outside appear only to mouth their songs now.
No doubt the utterance of nature is incompetent to enter the listening room’s high decibel guarantee of volume control. Nor does nature stand a chance of overthrowing the shriek of an ambulance’s siren. Perhaps only a thunderstorm or some natural catastrophe has a volume level as loud or louder than a siren. Nevertheless, bird song, the most familiar natural sound in urban spaces cannot compete with sirens. Yet, even with these occurrences does nature fail to speak the abstracted, synthetic dialect that today’s technological items so easily spew. Nor does nature challenge our augmented submersion into the vastly hi-tech sound environments concerning audio relationships. Continuing with this idea of a culture’s complex situation with regards to sound, Luigi Russolo explains that, “the traditional orchestra was no longer capable of capturing the imagination of a culture immersed in noise, and that the age of noise demanded new musical instruments he called “noise instruments.” (The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto, 10) The most common and frequent sounds produced by nature in the city are those created by birds, which seem to share a certain status with traditional orchestrated sounds. This is mainly due to apparent parallels between unplugged, organic operation of the instrument and organisms acting as the direct, physical and foremost catalysts for producing sound either vocally or instrumentally. Moreover, regarding Russolo’s proposition for “noise instruments” to facilitate the ‘age of noise,’ the siren can be considered a “noise instrument.”
The siren as a sound effect has made its way into countless recordings of music, especially those considered popular music. The tendency to include ‘non-musical’ sound into music further deconstructs perceptions involving boundaries between noise and non-noise. Brady Cranfield argues that, “to identify noise is also to identify non-noise. In this relationship, noise is paradoxically affirmed as the negative, the unwanted. However, once acknowledged, noise becomes known as “noise” (Producing Noise: Oval and the Politics of Digital Audio, 4). Cranfield explains that, “this shift in appreciation subsequently reorganizes the dialectic between noise and non-noise.” Popular music easily integrates so-called unwanted sounds, blurring the difference of noise and non-noise. So much that Russolo’s vast ensemble of noise-makers from the early ‘twentieth century have evolved into a continually expanding practice of cohering ‘non- musical’ and ‘musical’ with an even greater diversity of noise-makers.
With respect to the onset of noise-maker as instrument, R. Murray Schaefer identifies, “Russolo, who invented an orchestra of noise-makers, consisting of buzzers, howlers and other gadget, calculated to introduce modern man to the musical potential of the new world about him…Russolo’s experiments mark a flash-point in the history of aural perception, a reversal of figure and ground, a substitution of garbage for beauty” (The Tuning of the World, 110) It is interesting to note how recorded material can normalize noise as valid listening material, yet when the same noise exists outside the context of music, efforts to accept it as an instrument become difficult. This is why it is crucial to recognize the significance of the siren-stereo interaction. For it is within this conversation between the siren and the stereo that the noise-maker (i.e. the siren) is permitted to participate as an instrument. As the siren-stereo interaction informs only one instance of increased aural perception, its recognition assists in the failure to define noise.
With the increasing functionality of noise, the boundaries of the term ‘noise,’ are collapsing in on themselves providing a current definition that fails to be precisely articulated. Noise, once thought to serve no purpose, now contributes to the reorganization of what is musical. Russolo states that, “the evolution of music is comparable to the multiplication of machines, which everywhere collaborate with man.” (The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto, 11) Russolo continues,
“Today, the machine has created such a variety and contention of noises that pure sound in its slightness and monotony no longer provokes emotion. In order to excite and stir our sensibility, music has been developing toward the most complicated polyphony and toward the greatest variety of instrumental timbres and colors.”
In correlation to my own listening attitudes when inside the ‘listening room,’ “complicated polyphony” that enables listening excitement arises from integrated sounds that have been released from different sources. Offering a positive evaluation of the absorption of noise, Henry Cowell argues that, “Since the “disease” of noise permeates all music, the only hopeful course is to consider that the noise-germ, like the bacteria of cheese, is a good microbe, which may provide hidden delights to the listener.” (The Joys of Noise, 23) If noise can be considered something that pleasures the listener, the definition of noise carries new implications, subverting traditional convictions that noise is unpleasant.
I use the term ‘noise’ with a great deal of optimism, even while the definition remains on a wavering threshold invoking both positive and negative connotations. And as listening is subjective, a constant, intense re-examination of noise versus non-noise is necessary. Only then can one infer what constitutes noise. Only then will one conclude that evaluating noise in opposition to non-noise is useless and insignificant. In this respect, the boundaries have dissolved to the extent that even popular music, the most accessible of genres, ignore the traditional classification of noise.
With the exploration of the ambulance siren and music integration, a specific, dynamic relationship generated a broader listening scope of intricate aural relationships within an urban environment. The deconstruction of ‘listening room’ and ‘everywhere else’ provided entry into other existing, complex soundscapes, including conversations between various technological devices. The dialogue shared between one machine and another resides within the creativity and subjectivity of the listener. Although the siren/stereo conversation may only pertain to my own listening attitude, communication among avid listeners of these particular sound relationships is what remains imperative. This seemingly complex dialect of noise versus non-noise can advance to greater understanding through discussion of personal sound experiences. The biases of preferred sound are in constant reexamination as the surrounding aural environment is in constant transformation. This leaves notions of noise and non-noise at a perpetual state of interpretation.
Works Cited
Cranfield, Brady. Course Notes, “Producing Noise: Oval and the Politics of Digital Audio”
Cowell, Henry. “Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music”, The Joys of Noise. New York: Continuum, 2004
Evens, Aden. “Sound and Noise“, Sound Ideas: Music, Machines and Experience, Minneopolis: MIT Press, 2005
Russolo, Luigi. “Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music”, The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto, New York: Continuum, 2004
Schaefer, R. Murray. “The Tuning of the World: The Soundscape”, Music, the Soundscape and Changing Perceptions. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977
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