Noise/Music: A History

Noise/Music: A History
by Paul Hegarty

Noise/Music: A History
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Book Summary Information

Author: Paul Hegarty
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-08-15
ISBN: 0826417272
Number of pages: 221
Publisher: Continuum
Product features:

Book Reviews of Noise/Music: A History

Book Review: Academic, but accessible with lots of useful information
Summary: 5 Stars

Paul Hegarty does a good job jumping into the world of experimental/noise music headfirst. Up to now, this has been a whole area of music largely ignored by the musicological community. There is a distinct emphasis on Japanoise with a whole chapter on Merzbow alone, but then again, I think it's deserved.

We can forgive many of the book's faults because it is essentially the first of its kind. It's probably as comprehensive as possible considering that there's next to nothing to build upon. Hegarty has done a great service to future scholars.

The writing is scholarly and theoretically sound, but it's also approachable to those outside the field of musicology. It's a bit more dense than, say, an article on Wire or Pitchfork, but it's also structured so that a casual reader can simply skip over the more theoretically robust sections, while still getting a lot of useful information.

Noise/Music is an exciting first step and fans of the music (you know who you are) will not want to miss this. Highly recommended.

Summary of Noise/Music: A History

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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