Why None of You Know What You’re Talking About

Many western classical theorists draw a definitive line between music and noise.  There has been continuous debate on the exact location to which that line belongs, and the argument was only further complicated with the arrival of 20^th century composers who deliberately blurred said line with the innovation of noise as music.  What’s unique and intriguing about noise as a genre of music is, of course, the blatant oxymoron.   This explains why noise has been a less popular brand of composition, not simply because its dissonance is unappealing, as much popular music involves dissonance (to the extent now causing the jarring C chord in Beethoven’s Eroica to seem laughably tame), but because it is an extremely intellectual style requiring the understanding of multiple, simultaneous representations that are occurring.  This includes the acknowledgement of what is noise and what is music, as well as the comprehension of placing the concept of one into the paradigm of another.  

                To simplify, the general, broad notion of what constitutes noise as distinct from music is the absence of distinct pitch and perceivable patterns.  Sources of such could be interference, such as the static on a radio, audible distortion (an alteration of an original sound), and/or frequencies emitted from electronic devices (the low hum of a running refrigerator).   One can take from these sources, however, and manipulate their qualities within a traditional structure for composition, thus creating music out of noise, which would technically no longer be noise now that you’ve removed its randomness/undesirability.  In the digital age, however, noise is dying.  Computers run quieter, modems aren’t crying through a dial-up, televisions buzz less.  This may be why noise continues to become more acceptable: because of the loss of the association with undesirability and obnoxiousness.  The sounds are just otherworldly now.

                So then what constitutes noise as a distinct genre?  It’s kind of like how Potter Stewart can’t define pornography, but he knows it when he sees it.  But if we were to set regulations on the genre, which should probably be done, we could fashion those after the laws of winemaking in regard to pure varietals.  To be considered a true Cabarnet Sauvingon, and thus earn your right to proclaim such on your bottle’s label, you need somewhere between 80-85% of the wine to be derived from actual cab grapes.  Within these boundaries, noise would then need to be comprised of at least 80% of sounds which can be emitted from electronic devices going wrong.  That’s a fair standard, I believe.

                And so let’s apply this to how popular forms of music are being said to now include “noise.”  A particular target I would like to shoot at is the latest M.I.A. record, which in reviews has been said to “draw from influences such as noise.”  I’ve also seen the new album listed as pop/electronic/dance/noise.  No.  No.  You can’t do that.  You can’t refer to something as noise because it gets noisy.  M.I.A. has no noise influences; dance music is just getting more distorted and over-compressed these days.  That’s all.  M.I.A. isn’t mixing beats with Merzbow.  At best, she’s a cheap blend, a table wine in a box.  Okay, just wanted to address that briefly.  But it seems noisiness is indeed infecting all new popular forms of music and so the overlap is further complicating how we discuss noise and music, which means we could be very close to entering the utopia that Cage once dreamed of where all things to all people are very much a song.  This would further diminish the commodity fetishism of recorded sound art, devaluing music as property, and the music industry will collapse in a chaotic apocalypse.  Then former RIAA agents will turn to crime in their desperation, and the streets won’t be safe, and everything will be so damn NOISY!  Luckily that will never happen.  As stated before, it’s a genre for intellectuals who have graduated to the formal operations stage of Piaget’s development theory, which requires at least a high school education.  America’s too stupid to ever fully embrace something that you can’t dance to.