Noise/Music: A History - Rilegato

Hegarty, Paul

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0826417264 ISBN 13: 9780826417268

Casa editrice: Bloomsbury USA Academic, 2007

Riassunto

Noise/Music looks at the phenomenon of noise in music, from experimental music of the early 20th century to the Japanese noise music and glitch electronica of today. It situates different musics in their cultural and historical context, and analyses them in terms of cultural aesthetics. Paul Hegarty argues that noise is a judgement about sound, that what was noise can become acceptable as music, and that in many ways the idea of noise is similar to the idea of the avant-garde.

While it provides an excellent historical overview, the book's main concern is in the noise music that has emerged since the mid 1970s, whether through industrial music, punk, free jazz, or the purer noise of someone like Merzbow. The book progresses seamlessly from discussions of John Cage, Erik Satie, and Pauline Oliveros through to bands like Throbbing Gristle and the Boredoms. Sharp and erudite, and underpinned throughout by the ideas of thinkers like Adorno and Deleuze, Noise/Music is the perfect primer for anyone interested in the louder side of experimental music.

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Recensione:

In this rigorously researched deconstruction of noise, Paul Hegarty explains how the concept is entirely contingent upon social norms and how its inevitable emergence into music, which is simply organized noise, unfolded. Hegarty begins by arguing for the concept of noise as a socially undesirable them to the musical elites us. He then leads us on a dense yet speedy tour of pivotal moments in the evolution of noise into a component of music, focusing on salient benchmarks the Italian Futurists, recording technology, Fluxus, John Cage, Merzbow and hip-hop. By the time Hegarty arrives at modern manifestations of noise, genre neophytes will consider themselves experts. But be warned: This is not a pop history. It's an academic survey with a distinct poststructuralist ?avor, an informative read, but not a particularly fun one, unless of course you read Derrida for giggles. --Paste Magazine / July 2007

Can silence be 'noisy'? Why do punk banks 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, George Bataille and Theodor Adorno, philosophy and visual culture professor Paul 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 the 18th century concert hall music to 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 makes up all noise music, from Satie to punk. Hegarty does an admirable job unpacking diverse genres of music, and his descriptions of the most 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. --Publishers Weekly

L'autore:

Paul Hegarty teaches Philosophy and Visual Culture at University College Cork, in Ireland. He is the author of Noise/Music (Continuum, 2007). He jointly runs the experimental record label dotdotdotmusic, and performs in the noise bands Safe and La Société des Amis du Crime.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Bloomsbury USA Academic
• Data di pubblicazione: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0826417264
• ISBN 13: 9780826417268
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 221