The Art of Noise

I think that Russolo's view on noise and silence is rather confusing. I get confused when Russolo argues that the world was silent until the invention of the machine, but then goes further to exclude hurricanes and other major natural disasters. It's like he disregards natural sound such as wind and water until they reach a point of massive impact. Russolo focuses on the different levels of sound and the reach of noise but maybe he never considered the different levels of silence. Is silence just a state of mind? a peace that we find in ourselves or is it a man made room that stops sound waves. I think Russolo makes a good point that music is stuck on these instruments. In elementary school music class I always learned about persussion strings wind wood ect. and outside of that real the idea of music wasn't really discussed. Everything had to be organized into one of these categories and each one had a similar sound. Does noise have to be classified as music to be an artform though? I feel like music is becoming more accepting or these sounds or noise but i still feel its on the outer realm. To make music we think of instruments, I think electronic music has started to incorporate more "noise" sounds since the computer has become the instrument of choice. I feel like we have been forced to think of music in a linear sense, in the way we write and read it, but i feel like furturists are able to make compositions of sound that defy this linear sensibility creating something more complicated and more gratifying.

The art of noise

Russolo differentiates between noise and silence by saying that noise is something that is man-made, whereas silence is everything that is not- such as nature. Noise arose from the invention of machines, with their unnatural attributes, it was a result of the machinery, rather than the original intention. Sound was something man was conscious of- a string stretched to make a sound, rather than a string stretched and then sound being an afterthought. Sound was mysterious and rare, while noise was just an outcome of another thing. Russolo's explanation makes me believe that he thinks "silence" is something only achieved by the ancient and the natural. I personally don't think that silence exists on Earth. With atmosphere, there is sound, and even the most minute sound can be heard amidst what one may think to be silence. Even if a person were to be completely still, the pulsing of their heart is making a small sound. In an open field without civilization, the small whirr of a breeze can be heard. Even in nature, there can never be complete silence. There can only be attempts at it. Russolo sees current music as boring, with music competing against each other with the same instruments and methods of altering sound-noise. He thinks that the art of noise must not limit itself to imitative reproduction, and says in order to avoid this that musicians must manipulate fantastic juxtapositions of varied tones and rhythms, combining them according to our imagination.

The art of noise

When I think of sound or noise I for some reason assume that it has been around it has been around  forever in various forms. However, this article shed light on the fact that music is very much paralleled with the progress of society. Sound didn't actually come around until the invention of machine and the first instruments were viewed with great awe and amazement, music was highly respected and sacred. At one point, music was reserved for only respected religious figures. But now sound and noise are taken for granted because our lives are so heavily drenched and saturated in it  every day. Sound is everywhere, therefore, it becomes boring. The effects and powerful impact a sound can have are diluted to the point that music is almost non existent. Our society is so acclimated to our instant gratification mindset that anything that isn't new, inventive, or avant-garde doesn't even register on our radar. Creator and artists are constantly fighting the battle to keep up with societies demands and thus are "continually enlarging the field of sound" which seems easy since the possibilities with music are infinite. At the same time the possibilities seem so restricting because infinite is a hard concept to wrap the mind around especially when there are only 4 fundamental types of instruments and 6 classifications of fundamental sound. So approaching the task of creating different, new, harsh sound is almost attempted in vain  for everything seems as if it has been done before, which is a phrase several of my art teachers have told me before, very disheartening to say the least having the preconception that nothing you do will ever be original or completely yours and therefore under-celebrated much like music. This is turning into a rant rather than a reflection so to the point, this article was an eye-opener to how under appreciated music has become as well as musicians and artists in general. With the current state of society, it is a great feat to be innovative especially with the lack of encouragement and praise. Artists have the hardest time attracting attention and keeping it and this will only get harder with the future. 

Art of Noise

Throughout the article, Russolo seems to describe about how one can turn noise into sound or music. He first differentiates sound and noise by describing noise as coming from machines, peoples' voices, rumbles and roars etc. Noise is usually from something man-made and part of our usual lifestyles. It is natuarally random but by selecting and dominating certain noises, we can turn it into something that has rhythym like sound. Sound is music, something "distinct and independent of life" which is opposite to how noises are from life.
Because life is filled with noise, silence is almost impossible now. Russolo constitutes silence as something from "ancient life" before the "invention of machine." What I take from this is that silence is when we hear but do not listen and manipulate the noises and sounds in our minds into something symbolic or emotional. When noise came along, we automatically manipulate the noises to objects (howls to dogs/ coughs to people etc.)
Russolo sees the current state of music as only focusing on sounds despite the abundance of noises and their possiblilties. Sounds are overused and he wants to break from the familiar. He believes the Futurists can improve music by combining noises and sounds into a new "noise-sound."

The Art of Noise

Russolo differentiates between noise and silence by stating that all nature is just silence. Earthquakes, tornados, rain, and thunderstorms are all regarded as silent. All man made sound would be considered noise by Russolo. Anything machine oriented or mechanically produced was thought of as noise. Sound on the otherhand was distinct and independent of life. Music was considered to be sound. By reading Russolo's definition of silence, all nature was silent in the ancient past. Anything untouched by man but made by nature was considered silent. What I believe he was trying to get at was if there was no man to make noise then everything was silent even natures weather because there was no man to hear it. Therefore I believe that according to Russolo in today's world there would be no silence.

Russolo sees the state of current music as complicated, harsh, and strange. Futurists can improve on music by enlarging and enriching the field of sounds. Moving away from pure sound and creating noise-sound futurists will be able to improve on the state of music. The adding and substitution of noises for sounds is key according to Russolo.

Pleasures of Light

This made me think of a few people's first video project:

The Pleasures of Light at the Ludwig Museum

The Art of Noises

This is kind of off topic in relation to the purpose of us reading this article, but Russolo's writing style gives me weird vibes about his personality. I keep imagining him being a conceited snob and kiss-up to "Pratella the futurist genius", which made reading the article a strange and slightly comical experience for me, and causing me to be distrustful of the validity of what he says in it.

At the beginning of the article, he's personifying and exaggerating the origin and history of sound, which made sense and was a pretty good description about the auditory aspects of life back in those days. Some distortion is there, but the general ideas seem accurate. Then, he begins to talk about how music (specifically classical music) has gotten boring and stupid. This is where it starts to get a little crazy.

"Meanwhile a repugnant mixture is concocted from monotonous sensations and the idiotic
religious emotion of listeners buddhistically drunk with repeating for the nth time their more or
less snobbish or second-hand ecstasy.
Away! Let us break out since we cannot much longer restrain our desire to create finally a new
musical reality, with a generous distribution of resonant slaps in the face, discarding violins,
pianos, double-basses and plainitive organs. Let us break out!"

His evangelical approach of discussing futurism is kind of annoying, although I have to agree that the idea is innovative and clearly relating to Project 4. When he begins to the list the kinds of sounds that futurists would use to create "music", it reminds me of something a teacher told us in high school. We were discussing the difference between abstract and concrete (figurative) visual artwork, and how the same two categories exist in sound as well. She said that abstract sound is every musical instrument note or noise that we hear in music, and if abstract noise didn't exist, we would all be listening to only natural sounds, like the sounds of waterfalls, wind, etc., pretty much the same examples that Russolo gave as the medium for futurist orchestras. So now I have categorized that futurists use "natural" sounds (also including industrial sounds that are seemingly natural to humans today because they are so commonplace) and regular musicians use "abstract" sounds.