[silence] Noise Music: A History. Paul Hegarty

[Ralph Lichtensteiger]

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Noise/Music: A History
Paul Hegarty. Continuum, $75 (232p) ISBN 978-0826417268; $22.95 paper  
-75

Can silence be “noisy”? Why do punk bands downplay their musical  
abilities? What do 37 minutes of ceaseless feedback and squawking  
birds tell us about the human experience? Calling upon the work of  
noted cultural critics like Jean Baudrillard, Georges Bataille and  
Theodor Adorno, philosophy and visual culture professor Hegarty  
delves into these questions while tracing the history of  
“noise” (defined at different times as “intrusive, unwanted,”  
“lacking skill, not being appropriate” and “a threatening emptiness”)  
from the beginnings of 18th century concert hall music through avant- 
garde movements like musique concrete and free jazz to Japanese noise  
rocker Merzbow. Ironically, it is John Cage’s notorious 4’33”, in  
which an audience sits through four and a half minutes of “silence,”  
that represents the beginning of noise music proper for Hegarty; the  
“music,” made up entirely of incidental theater sounds (audience  
members coughing, the A/C’s hum), represents perfectly the tension  
between the “desirable” sound (properly played musical notes) and  
undesirable “noise” that make up all noise music, from Satie to punk.  
Hegarty does an admirable job unpacking diverse genres of music, and  
his descriptions of the more bizarre pieces can be great fun to read  
(“clatters and reverbed chickeny sounds… come in over low throbs”).  
Though his style tends toward the academic (the “dialectic of  
Enlightenment” and Heidegger appear frequently), Hegarty’s wit and  
knowledge make this an engaging read. (Aug.)

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best,
Ralph Lichtensteiger
http://www.lichtensteiger.de/
http://time4time.blogspot.com/
http://del.icio.us/lichtconlon
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