In music, "noise" has been variously described as unpitched, indeterminate, uncontrolled, convoluted, unmelodic, loud, otherwise unmusical, or unwanted sound, or simply as sound in general. The exact definition is often a matter of both cultural norms and personal tastes. Noise is an important component of the sound of the human voice and all musical instruments, particularly in unpitched percussion instruments and electric guitars (using distortion). Electronic instruments create various colours of noise. Traditional uses of noise are unrestricted, using all the frequencies associated with pitch and timbre, such as the white noise component of a drum roll on a snare drum, or the transients present in the prefix of the sounds of some organ pipes.
The influence of modernism in the early 20th century led composers such as Edgard Varèse to explore the use of noise-based sonorities in an orchestral setting. In the same period the Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo created a "noise orchestra" using instruments he called intonarumori. Later in the 20th century the term noise music came to refer to works consisting primarily of noise-based sound.
In more general usage, noise is any unwanted sound or signal. In this sense, even sounds that would be perceived as musically ordinary in another context become noise if they interfere with the reception of a message desired by the receiver.Attali 1985, 27. Prevention and reduction of unwanted sound, from tape hiss to squeaking bass drum pedals, is important in many musical pursuits, but noise is also used creatively in many ways, and in some way in nearly all genres.
Definition of noise
In conventional musical practices sounds that are considered unmusical tend to be treated as noise.Scholes 1970, 10, 686. Oscillations and Waves defines noise as irregular vibrations of an object, in contrast to the periodical, patterned structure of music.Reddy, Badami, Balasubramanian 1994, 206. More broadly, electrical engineering professor Bart Kosko in the introductory chapter of his book Noise defines noise as a "signal we don't like."Kosko 2006, 3. Paul Hegarty, a lecturer and noise musician, likewise assigns a subjective value to noise, writing that "noise is a judgment, a social one, based on unacceptability, the breaking of norms and a fear of violence."Hegarty 2006. Composer and music educator R. Murray Schafer divided noise into four categories: Unwanted noise, unmusical sound, any loud system, and a disturbance in any signaling system.Kouvaras 2013, 54.
In regard to what is noise as opposed to music, Robert Fink in The Origin of Music: A Theory of the Universal Development of Music claims that while cultural theories view the difference between noise and music as purely the result of social forces, habit, and custom, "everywhere in history we see man making some selections of some sounds as noise, certain other sounds as music, and in the overall development of all cultures, this distinction is made around the same sounds."Fink 1981, 25. However, musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez considers the difference between noise and music nebulous, explaining that "The border between music and noise is always culturally defined—which implies that, even within a single society, this border does not always pass through the same place; in short, there is rarely a consensus ... By all accounts there is no single and intercultural universal concept defining what music might be."Nattiez 1990, 48, 55.
Noise as a feature of music Musical tones produced by the human voice and all acoustical musical instruments incorporate noises in varying degrees. Most consonants in human speech (e.g., the sounds of f, v, s, z, both voiced and unvoiced th, Scottish and German ch) are characterised by distinctive noises, and even vowels are not entirely noise free. Wind instruments include the whizzing or hissing sounds of air breaking against the edges of the mouthpiece, while bowed instruments produce audible rubbing noises that contribute, when the instrument is poor or the player unskilful, to what is perceived as a poor tone. When they are not excessive, listeners "make themselves deaf" to these noises by ignoring them.Helmholtz 1885, 67–68.
Unpitched percussion
Many unpitched percussion instruments, such as the snare drum or maracas, make use of the presence of random sounds or noise to produce a sound without any perceived pitch.Maconie 2005, 84.Hopkin 1996, 2, 92. See timbre. Unpitched percussion is typically used to maintain a rhythm or to provide accents, and its sounds are unrelated to the melody and harmony of the music. Within the orchestra, unpitched percussion is termed auxiliary percussion, and this subsection of the percussion section includes all unpitched instruments of the orchestra no matter how they are played, for example the pea whistle and siren.
Traditional music
Antiquity
Although percussion instruments were generally rather unimportant in ancient Greek music, two exceptions were in dance music and ritual music of orgiastic cults. The former required instruments providing a sharply defined rhythm, particularly krotala (clappers with a dry, nonresonant sound) and kymbala (similar to finger-cymbals). The cult rituals required more exciting noises, such as those produced by drums, cymbals, jingles, and the rhombos (bull-roarer), which produced a demonic roaring noise particularly important to the ceremonies of the priests of Cybele.Mathiesen 2001; West 1992, 122. Athenaeus (The Deipnosophists xiv.38) quotes a passage from a now-lost play, Semele, by Diogenes the Tragedian, describing an all-percussion accompaniment to some of these rites: And now I hear the turban-wearing women, Votaries of th' Asiatic Cybele, The wealthy Phrygians' daughters, loudly sounding With drums, and rhombs, and brazen-clashing cymbals, Their hands in concert striking on each other, Pour forth a wise and healing hymn to the gods. An altogether darker picture of the function of this noise music is painted by Livy in Ab urbe condita xxxix.8–10, written in the late first century BC. He describes "a Greek of mean condition ... a low operator in sacrifices, and a soothsayer ... a teacher of secret mysteries" who imported to Etruria and then to Rome a Dionysian cult which attracted a large following. All manner of debaucheries were practised by this cult, including rape and
Polynesia
A Tahitian traditional dance genre dating back to before the first contact with European explorers is ʻōteʻa, danced by a group of men accompanied solely by a drum ensemble. The drums consist of a slit-log drum called tō‘ere (which provides the main rhythmic pattern), a single-headed upright drum called fa‘atete, a single-headed hand drum called pahu tupa‘i rima, and a double-headed bass drum called tariparau.Stillman 2001.
Asia
In Shaanxi in the north of China, drum ensembles accompany yangge dance, and in the Tianjin area there are ritual percussion ensembles such as the Fagu hui Dharma-drumming associations, often consisting of dozens of musicians.Jones 2001. In Korea, a style of folk music called Nongak (farmers' music) or pungmul has been performed for many hundred years, both by local players and by professional touring bands at concerts and festivals. It is loud music meant for outdoor performance, played on percussion instruments such as the drums called janggu and puk, and the gongs ching and kkwaenggwari. It originated in simple work rhythms to assist repetitive tasks carried out by field workers.Provine 2001.
South Asian music places a special emphasis on drumming, which is freed from the primary time-keeping function of drumming found in other part of the world.Qureshi, et al. 2001, §I, 2 (i) In North India, secular processional bands play an important role in civic festival parades and the bārāt processions leading a groom's wedding party to the bride's home or the hall where a wedding is held. These bands vary in makeup, depending on the means of the families employing them and according to changing fashions over time, but the core instrumentation is a small group of percussionists, usually playing a frame drum (ḍaphalā), a gong, and a pair of kettledrums (nagāṛā). Better-off families will add shawms (shehnai) to the percussion, while the most affluent who also prefer a more modern or fashionable image may replace the traditional ensemble with a brass band.Qureshi, et al. 2001, §VII, 1, (d) The Karnatic music of southern India includes a tradition of instrumental temple music in the state of Kerala, called kṣētram vādyam. It includes three main genres, all focussed on rhythm and featuring unpitched percussion. Thayambaka in particular is a virtuoso genre for unpitched percussion only: a solo double-headed cylindrical drum called chenda, played with a pair of sticks, and accompanied by other chenda and elathalam (pairs of cymbals). The other two genres, panchavadyam and pandi melam add wind instruments to the ensemble, but only as accompaniment to the primary drums and cymbals. A panchavadyam piece typically lasts about an hour, while a pandi melam performance may be as long as four hours.Qureshi, et al. 2001, §VII, 2, (ii), (a).
Turkey
The Turkish janissaries military corps had included since the 14th century bands called mehter or mehterân which, like many other earlier military bands in Asia featured a high proportion of drums, cymbals, and gongs, along with trumpets and shawms. The high level of noise was pertinent to their function of playing on the battlefield to inspire the soldiers.Pirker 2001. The focus in these bands was on percussion. A full mehterân could include several bass drums, multiple pairs of cymbals, small kettledrums, triangles, tambourines, and one or more Turkish crescents.Blades 1996, 265.
Europe
Through Turkish ambassadorial visits and other contacts, Europeans gained a fascination with the "barbarous", noisy sound of these bands, and a number of European courts established "Turkish" military ensembles in the late-17th and early 18th centuries. The music played by these ensembles, however, were not authentically Turkish music, but rather compositions in the prevalent European manner.Meyer 1974, 484–485. The general enthusiasm quickly spread to opera and concert orchestras, where the combination of bass drum, cymbals, tambourines, and triangles were collectively referred to as "Turkish music". The best-known examples include Haydn's Symphony No. 100, which acquired its nickname, "The Military", from its use of these instruments, and three of Beethoven's works: the "alla marcia" section from the finale of his Symphony No. 9 (an early sketch reads: "end of the Symphony with Turkish music"), his "Wellington's Victory"—or Battle Symphony—with picturesque sound effects (the bass drums are designated as "cannons", side drums represent opposing troops of soldiers, and ratchets the sound of rifle fire), and the "Turkish March" (with the expected bass drum, cymbals, and triangle) and the "Chorus of Dervishes" from his incidental music to The Ruins of Athens, where he calls for the use of every available noisy instrument: castanets, cymbals, and so forth.Blades 1996, 266–267.Montagu 2002, 108–110.Sachs 2010, 65. By the end of the 18th century, the batterie turque had become so fashionable that keyboard instruments were fitted with devices to simulate the bass drum (a mallet with a padded head hitting the back of the sounding board), cymbals (strips of brass striking the lower strings), and the triangle and bells (small metal objects struck by rods). Even when percussion instruments were not actually employed, certain alla turca "tricks" were used to imitate these percussive effects. Examples include the "Rondo alla turca" from Mozart's Piano Sonata, K. 331, and part of the finale of his Violin Concerto, K. 219.Meyer 1974, 486–487.
Harpsichord, piano, and organ