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Oh, I just remembered.

On breezy days the tall lamp posts that dot the pathways of my housing complex make a light noise that sounds like wind chimes. I assume its the tinkling of filaments as the wind blows. I love the sound. It always makes me smile.

"The sound of subway trains starting out of the station matches the opening notes of "A Place for Us" from West Side Story. I always find it delightful."

Thanks Sarah [16] you beat me to it! I would hear this at the 14th St. station on the 2 & 3 line. I always noticed it when the express trains were going downtown. It recently occured to me that I no longer hear the sound. :-(

What's cool is that Randy Kennedy mentions this joyful noise in his book "Subwayland." Until I read it, I thought I was hearing things.

mixing noise into a signal is a tricky thing....

just enough can captivate, too much can overwhelm.

I love ambience as noise, sounds being filtered through modulations delays and reverbs, and mixing it in a way where the noise & ambience gently colors the sound.

Noisiest rock album for me=either jesus & mary chain/psycho candy, or the last 2 stooges album.

On the synthy side, I'd say pan_sonic, some aphex twin, chris carter....etc.

John, once, leaving a mets game in my car, the songs from two radio stations blended their signals, making an marvelous synthesis, with one melody canceling the other and leaving me with a spectacular double bassline and frizzy, zany cymbal play. The melodies groaned in a kind of death struggle beneath it. I don't know the two songs, both rock numbers, though. The result was memorable, and opened up to some imaginary place where a different definition of music held forth.

==michael coffey
listener

If music is organized sound, then what is noise?

Noise is subjective, because what is noise to one person is musical to another.

The sound of the BQE expressway was noise to me at first, but the became similar to an ocean sound-an ocean of noise-that I found to be quite soothing after living next to it for over a year.

Cage demonstrated that anything can become music while performing 4'33 and sitting at a piano in silence. He made the listener aware of the ambient sounds in the silence. This happend to be the sound of crickets in Woodstock. So, really, any noise can become music to a listener.

Before my first MRI I was warned not to be alarmed by the machine's noises. Once inside, the machine's sounds created a lovely, abstract piece of music.

Music is over. Stop making a distinction. All that we hear is accessible and addressable and a part of our cultural languages and landscape. If you don't hear music in everything you are not working hard enough. If you ignore noises you are missing music. Things change, what art is now, is not what art will be in the future.

that is indeed "simple"

It's simple:

"Noise" is sound I don't like

and

"Music" is sound I do like.

The sound of subway trains starting out of the station matches the opening notes of "A Place for Us" from West Side Story. I always find it delightful.

Noise to me is like salt and spices to sound. It enhances what is there but on it's own it's just bitter, nasty and empty of value

When it's mixed into music like via "My Bloody Valentine", "Pavement" or others I think it's great...

When I hear an interesting sound in the real world, it's a nice change of pace...

But blast it for an extended period but with no context and I want to go nuts.

I like sprinkling salt on my food and enjoying the meal. But force me to consume a pile of salt sans nothing else and I'll vomit.

I love the sound that radiates from those small high voltage substation buildings you see throughout the city. There is one on Jay Street in Brooklyn, near the apartment complex Concord Village, and every time I walk by it, it sounds like an orchestra tuning up.

What about the Industrial Music movement in the UK, Europe of the 70's and 80's groups like Cabaret Voltaire, Test Dept , Throbbing Gritsle, in the UK and or Enzerstausen Neubauten in Germany and of course Front 242 in Belgium which was direct influence on Public Enemy they don't get nearly the credit they deserve for bringing noise music to pop culture they deserve and have been pretty much ignored

what about the rhythm and its absence in noise (noise music). bob

How about Nike's basketball beat commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vnw9D1E7oo

or Volkswagen's synchronicity commercial

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4GCq56bq_k

Both are ar from noise.

-jeffrey

I do research using fMRI scanners. Many subjects, including myself, notice that the scanner noise will sound like music after a while in the scanner. It is a little like looking into clouds. It is a property of the brain to detect structure in noise.

"Noise" seems very old hat, Metal Machine Music is thirty five years old. The question is, is it possible to create total silence?

That's bullcrap. Not music.

"I have nothing to say, and I am saying it, and that is poerty." Now *that's* conceptual.

let's keep in mind that paul's take is but one of many... he just gets rather more coverage than most... i would suggest that the real "noise" of the 21st century is actually what's known as "publicity" as it supersedes all previous notions of form and content

I agree with Liz. usually an express train rushing by can be deafening. But depending on where you're standing, the rhythm of the wheels clacking over the tracks can be fabulous music. Cha-chunk, cha-chunk, cha-chunk!

There is a very clear distinction between music and noise. You guys are getting bogged down in that gray area between awful attempts at bad music and noise that could be considered not too offensive.

Try to get a grip.

Here's the difference: context.

I live next to a restaurant that turns into a nightclub. Some of the music they play I like. In a different context. I DON'T enjoy it at 2 am on a Tuesday when my whole apartment is vibrating like a sub-woofer. For me, that's when it transforms from music to noise.

I hope you don't focus solely on noise related rock. Aphex Twin, Autechre, and Gescom make great music with elements of noise or entirely out of noise. Electronic(a) musicians seem to be able to incorporate noise into their music in a very successful way.

Shout out to Paul from Gabriel of Liquid Sky. Its so cool to hear you (once again) as a guest on NPR.

Worthy of mention is Pat Metheney's 'Zero Tolerance for Silence' album. I DID get the feeling producers were saying "this guy can sell beer coasters as music" with that one.

Please please do not forget about My Bloody Valentine, certainly of the best shoegazing and nosiy bands ever.