Why Do I Like Noise?
 

you ever get asked that question? my little brother was in teh car w/ me earlier trying to get me to let him listen to 3 days grace or 3 doors down or some fucking band w/ a 3 in the name. of course i told him over my dead body, so i put in nurse. y'know the really long noisy ending to pattern recognition, yeah you know it, when it came on he was all "how can you listen to this crap? (insert shitty band name here) is waaaaay better than this!". i've been asked that question for as long as i can remember, but i've never had an answer. i remember the first time i heard "noise-rock", i had just stolen a tape of goo and was listening to mote and then teh ending came and my jaw dropped. i didn't know i liked it, but dammit i liked it. i have no clue as too why i can listen too nothing but complete noise for hours on end yet i can't stand to hear that stuff they try too pass off as music on teh radio. so i ask you, why is it we like complete and utter noise?

cue that classic masami akita quote...

The sort of noise you describe - the end of Mote for example - is easy to listen to for long periods because it becomes quite ambient. If anything it can be quite wallpaper-ish in that it doesn't actually demand much. I've had noise of this kind on for prolonged periods and have gotten to the point that it took someone to tell me to turn it off to remind me that it was actually on.

i like that. but it's not a reason why.

Gotta say I can't begin to imagine either "Pattern Recognition" or anything off Goo as "complete and utter noise". Those are even less noisy than average tracks for Sonic Youth in the grand scheme of things. Not that this changes your question entirely, but it does a bit.

Once in a blue moon I hear somebody who actually plays full on "noise music" that I enjoy, but the vast array of it pretty much bores me. Doesn't offend or shock me, but doesn't excite or interest me particularly either. There are quite a few artists I love who get lumped into "noise music" these days, but invariably I find that I think it's a mischaracterization of what they do overall (two good examples would be Soup Purse and Crank Sturgeon). So it is with Sonic Youth, though I dearly love the Silver Sessions.

I think your real question is why do we find noise an intersting element on a musical pallete, and that just doesn't seem as hard to fathom put that way. Of course I know how you feel in that I encounter people all the time who can't handle anything with the slightest bit of dissonance or loud fuzz. But I find myself wondering about them than me anymore because as I've gotten older people like that seem to be increasingly fewer and fewer (but then I do run in pretty insulated circles).

Personally I like noise that is liberating in feeling, so that's why it often works so well within a structure based upon more traditional rhythm and harmony - a perfect example from Sonic Youth, the way the middle section of "Silver Rocket" falls apart so perfectly to accent the tightness of the intro and outro. That's not the only way I like noise, but a very effective way. It can also be quite liberating to watch Crank Sturgeon in a fish suit wrestling with a rubber lobster covered in contact mics.

it excites me, it makes me happy, it relaxes me, it makes me think, it helps me concentrate, it takes my mind from things, it fills my ears, it empties my thoughts, it makes me smile, it makes me mad, it irritates me, it's overwhelming, it's way too much and it's just enough.

yeah i was just using that as an example. but i think you got the right idea. i just wonder why a single string feedbacking for an hour straight sounds so awesome and heavenly too me. if there's a heaven, i really hope they have a house free jazz band.

I'm gonna divulge my hippiesque roots, but you've answered your question with the spiritual analogies. There is indeed something trance inducing and shamanistic about repetitious dissonance. "Take this brother, may it serve you well..."

Yeah, I am constantly arguing with my dad about this. He also made me skip past the end of Pattern Recognition.

One day we were listening to You're Living All Over Me, and my dad says, "Half of this is really good, but half of it is just noise." I said, "Some people prefer the noise," to which he responded, "I feel sorry for those people."

I've never cared much for the full on noise some people here favour (Merzbow, that kind of thing) but there is a definite invigorating rush to be had from songs like Live Skull's 'Fort Belvedere' or the final couple of minutes of SYs 'Schizophrenia'. Saying that I doubt most people here would consider that to be 'noise' at all.

'Noise', as bands like SY and Live Skull were described in the mid 80s, at least in Britain, was more just a generic term for noisy alternative Rock coming out of the US at the time, but this was only in the context of the janglier sounds associated with the likes of British bands such as the The Smiths and really didn't adequately describe the sounds coming from the actual records. Swans were probably the closest to what people would now describe as 'noise' and even they sound pretty tame compared to what's currently going on.

noise is an engaging music, very physical, you cant listen to it and not be affected at least in some way (unless its shitty early magic markers type noise). its the most free music there is, the noise scene to me is the aural equivalent of freedom. there are no boundaries or walls of what sounds can be produced, because thats what it essentially is, sounds. and, its extreme. i like extremities in all walks of life. whether it be music, movies, porn, skateboarding, drugs, rock climbing, fighting, moshing, sky diving, i just like pushing shit to the limits, and therefore, noise is perfect to me.

after all that mumbo jumo bullshit i just said, i still would have to say i prefer melody, haha.

why pick? i like both noise and melody.

i can't explain the reaosn why i like noise. it just sounds great to me.

i just love sound in general.

bingo. that's exactly what i was looking for. there's parts of silver sessions that sound like yr just standing in a field on a really windy day. i also love the sound of the bustling city at night. i cannot sleep in complete silence.

I tell them what they want to hear. I listen to noise because I am so obsessed with being "unique" that I will subject myself to the painful noise wailings of some pretentious art school dropout in order to distance myself from what I consider herd taste.

If you don't understand the draw of noise even a little bit, there is no point is trying to convince you.

Even better: "I'm a depraved lunatic."

lol, i might start using that one.

But remember that it is sarcastic. Noisefags that actually believe that to be true are some of the most annoying, pretentious twats on earth.

I often wonder why I enjoy free-jazz, something I consider to be the most intense form of music/recorded sound.

I actually have used that one before.

I always admired people who strived to get different sounds and feedback out of thier guitars (before I got into SY it was Tom Morello of RATM and Matt Bellamy of Muse for me). I always tried to find a band that did loads of feedback (like, nearly entire songs of it) but never thought I would ever find one because no one would ever listen to it. But then my Dad played me Sonic Nurse in the car... the rest, as they say, is history.

Because at its best it becomes as cathartic and liberating as the best rock music can be. It's when you get that feeling that a heavy weight has been lifted off your shoulders.* It's also another form of music with its ups and downs.

* It could be said for all good music, really.

Noise and drone really appeal to me a lot I cant place as to why but it sooths somethign within me . I guess its just pwersonal taste and thats difficult to explain.

why do i like noise? why am i so special?

different individuals have differnet tastes.

Noise is often thought of in terms of a release, of letting go. And yet, at its most vital I think it often holds back. Sarramkrop once mentioned something similar to this in another thread and I remember it ringing particularly true. I always think of the first two thirds of Death Valley 69 as providing a perfect example of this idea. It sounds like a sustained build up of pressure and is, if anything, slightly pointless once that pressure is finally released during its climactic final third. Mars are another band that I always think of in this way: holding back, using noise as an (in)expression of containment rather than expulsion.

When people put me into the situation described earlier, it is rather difficult for me as I am aware that there is much more... severe noise (I suppose) out there that I really don't care for. I always attempt to consider music in terms of painting and in this instance I consider dissonance to be merely different shades of color. Perhaps the post-modern "everything is beautiful" rhetoric is to blame but I stand by it. Using noise to accent a melody, to shake the listener in such a way to introduce them to a melody that was there are along is, in my opinion, beautiful. Would looking out onto the day first thing in the morning be as amazing without the first rays paining your eyes?

Now I'm starting to think about Heidegger's attunements but I'll spare whomever is reading and myself. But isn't it strange that the most profound uses of noise reminds us (well, at least myself) of the most profound experiences/emotions?

I suppose another answer to the question is: "Some people dismiss the fire because they were burned. I'm willing to sit back at a warm distance and watch it flicker. It seems as though I'm always edging closer to the flame.

I was talking about Heidegger in the context of art just last night, strangely enough. You must be a prick too!

Personally, my take on it is that 'noise' is always a bit of a mis-nomer. The general linguistic notion is that 'noise' is opposed to 'music', whereas in terms of strict musico-linguistic terms, 'noise' means 'that which falls outside of the notated musical spectrum' (I use very broad terms). Outside of India and bits of Africa, percussion is rarely used for its tonal value, and as such is considered noise; within a very strict (and retarded) Western art-music sense, anything falling outside of notation is noise; this would include Townsend's feedback as much as it would Whitehouse.

I personally hold no stock with the 'liberation' narrative applied to noise; being slightly more liberal in my desire to use adjectives, I think noise is co-extensive with the narrative of musique concréte or, more benignly, post-60s production, both of which seek to impress upon the listener (in the recording-as-artefact era) qualias adjunct to 'tonal' bases for description - viz, that noise, concréte and Pet Sounds/ Sgt Peppers all re-affirm the importance of timbre and volume dynamics to recorded sound.

'Noise-icians' often attempt to claim this is antithetical to tonal music, but for my money there's often a restricted tonal basis, or a (simulucrum-)chaotic tonal sense - the emphasis on certain tone groups, or tone clusters, which are often neglected by conventionally tonal music doesn't mean that the tonal-content is elided entirely - the truth is that it takes a backseat in favour of volume dynamics, timbre and other qualia 'neglected' until John Cage (although we shouldn't ignore Schoenberg, Stockhausen and especially Xenakis [etc] here).

And, for what it's worth, I think Penderecki, Wagner, Xenakis and the litany of musique concréte artists, coming from the academy, are infinitely more capable of fulfilling one of noise's alleged purposes of unsettling the listener.

I could write more, but I'm probably boring the arse off of anyone who's got even this far.

noise helps me stay regular

thats what i ws ging to say, that noise for musical theorists is simply that which cant be notaded. but that was proven wrong when somebody notaded metal machine music:cool:
and btw the end of schizophrenia is in no way noise.

a funky story;

december 2001, chuck schuldiner is dead and i am mourning his passing with my cousin in a far a way town. his idol was kurt cobain so to "cheer me up" he thought to put up KURT & COURTNEY, the documovie, cuz he knew i always fell in love with conspiracy theories and also to show me that also his hero had died.

the version he had was taken from a tv broadcast which had a series of 90ies vids attached to it at the end of K&C.... so we ranged from the mandatory SMELLS LIKE TEEN vid to some SMASHING PUMPKINS tune... the videos didn't have any kind of info on them.

and then a band with a girl on bass popped out of nowhere, these guys playing at a party ...and scenes of a dead guy? in the lawn? what the fuck is that?

we strived to find the band's name to no avail, and the net seemed to point out to the fact that the band was most prolly SONIC YOUTH. which we thought it was impossible - "this vid is from 92, it can't be these guys, they look like fucking 14 years old in there... it would mean they were in their 30ies at the period... impossible".

right on, it was 100% but we couldn't find out.
and i HATED IT with a passion!
i could not believe that my cousin liked it!!!

so he started looping the tape for around 40 times per day. the same song, again and again.
we still weren't sure about who the guys in the vid were. and that song was bugging me big time.

at the end of the week i came back to my town, went shopping and found a DIRTY cd for 7 euros.

bought it, came back home, played it.
100%.

BANG!

since then....

i was hooked.

not to mention that 5 months later SY played in my fucking island, in my fucking town.

B-BANG!
i was hooked forever.



























so i guess it might take some time for each of use to tune into noise and make it sound good for ourselves.

yeah, aural appretiation is about getting used to sounds. if you hrear a band enough you can get used to them even if you dont like them and eventually ut will sound familiar and thus good

I like noise because... wait I hardly listen to noise.

you should create a why do i like pop thread. i like your madonna picture.

No, because I don't like much pop either.

Also, I consider all music pop.

If you are asking what it seems like you are asking, and it seems like you are, then do you mean to say: What makes these songs that people have put a lot of heart and soul into (and let's face it, Chad Kroeger (sp?) probably does work hard on his songs, I doubt he could just pop them out one after another, otherwise he would) sound like crap to a lot of us, when songs that seemingly are just guys or girls having fun with their instruments, touching different wires together to see what noise they make, and being suprised by the end result just as much as we are sound great? Is it just the nature of the genesis of said music? Do we simply prefer knowing that the music was born of experimentation and improvisation, or is there more to it than that?

I get asked this a LOT, and I always say
I see/hear no difference between a clean A note ringing from a piano, or a guitar string and a rough E### modulating to F flat played by feedback or distorted signal of some kind

to me it is all tools for making music.